It seemed shallow enough , and holding the cut hawser in both hands for a last security , I let myself drop softly overboard . The water scarcely reached my waist ; the sand was firm and covered with ripple marks , and I waded ashore in great spirits , leaving the HISPANIOLA on her side , with her main-sail trailing wide upon the surface of the bay . About the same time , the sun went fairly down and the breeze whistled low in the dusk among the tossing pines . At least , and at last , I was off the sea , nor had I returned thence empty-handed . There lay the schooner , clear at last from buccaneers and ready for our own men to board and get to sea again . I had nothing nearer my fancy than to get home to the stockade and boast of my achievements . Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truantry , but the recapture of the HISPANIOLA was a clenching answer , and I hoped that even Captain Smollett would confess I had not lost my time . So thinking , and in famous spirits , I began to set my face homeward for the block house and my companions . I remembered that the most easterly of the rivers which drain into Captain Kidd 's anchorage ran from the two-peaked hill upon my left , and I bent my course in that direction that I might pass the stream while it was small . The wood was pretty open , and keeping along the lower spurs , I had soon turned the corner of that hill , and not long after waded to the mid-calf across the watercourse . This brought me near to where I had encountered Ben Gunn , the maroon ; and I walked more circumspectly , keeping an eye on every side . The dusk had come nigh hand completely , and as I opened out the cleft between the two peaks , I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky , where , as I judged , the man of the island was cooking his supper before a roaring fire . And yet I wondered , in my heart , that he should show himself so careless . For if I could see this radiance , might it not reach the eyes of Silver himself where he camped upon the shore among the marshes ? Gradually the night fell blacker ; it was all I could do to guide myself even roughly towards my destination ; the double hill behind me and the Spy-glass on my right hand loomed faint and fainter ; the stars were few and pale ; and in the low ground where I wandered I kept tripping among bushes and rolling into sandy pits . Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me . I looked up ; a pale glimmer of moonbeams had alighted on the summit of the Spy-glass , and soon after I saw something broad and silvery moving low down behind the trees , and knew the moon had risen . With this to help me , I passed rapidly over what remained to me of my journey , and sometimes walking , sometimes running , impatiently drew near to the stockade . Yet , as I began to thread the grove that lies before it , I was not so thoughtless but that I slacked my pace and went a trifle warily . It would have been a poor end of my adventures to get shot down by my own party in mistake .
The moon was climbing higher and higher , its light began to fall here and there in masses through the more open districts of the wood , and XXXXX in front of me a glow of a different colour appeared among the trees .
Gunn HISPANIOLA Kidd Smollett Spy-glass blacker left moonbeams right truantry