One of them was whistling `` Lillibullero . '' Waiting was a strain , and it was decided that Hunter and I should go ashore with the jolly-boat in quest of information . The gigs had leaned to their right , but Hunter and I pulled straight in , in the direction of the stockade upon the chart . The two who were left guarding their boats seemed in a bustle at our appearance ; `` Lillibullero '' stopped off , and I could see the pair discussing what they ought to do . Had they gone and told Silver , all might have turned out differently ; but they had their orders , I suppose , and decided to sit quietly where they were and hark back again to `` Lillibullero . '' There was a slight bend in the coast , and I steered so as to put it between us ; even before we landed we had thus lost sight of the gigs . I jumped out and came as near running as I durst , with a big silk handkerchief under my hat for coolness ' sake and a brace of pistols ready primed for safety . I had not gone a hundred yards when I reached the stockade . This was how it was : a spring of clear water rose almost at the top of a knoll . Well , on the knoll , and enclosing the spring , they had clapped a stout loghouse fit to hold two score of people on a pinch and loopholed for musketry on either side . All round this they had cleared a wide space , and then the thing was completed by a paling six feet high , without door or opening , too strong to pull down without time and labour and too open to shelter the besiegers . The people in the log-house had them in every way ; they stood quiet in shelter and shot the others like partridges . All they wanted was a good watch and food ; for , short of a complete surprise , they might have held the place against a regiment . What particularly took my fancy was the spring . For though we had a good enough place of it in the cabin of the HISPANIOLA , with plenty of arms and ammunition , and things to eat , and excellent wines , there had been one thing overlooked -- we had no water . I was thinking this over when there came ringing over the island the cry of a man at the point of death . I was not new to violent death -- I have served his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland , and got a wound myself at Fontenoy -- but I know my pulse went dot and carry one . `` Jim Hawkins is gone , '' was my first thought . It is something to have been an old soldier , but more still to have been a doctor . There is no time to dilly-dally in our work .
And so now I made up my mind instantly , and with no time lost returned to the shore and jumped on board the XXXXX .
Cumberland Fontenoy HISPANIOLA Silver first gigs jolly-boat labour left right