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 CAPTAIN SILVER

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN THE ENEMYS CAMP

red glare of the torch lighting up the interior of the block-house showed me the worst of my apprehensions realized. The pirates were in possession of the house and stores; there was a cask of cognac, there were the pork and bread, as before; and, what tenfold increased my horror, not a sign of any prisoner. I could only judge that all had perished, and my heart smote me sorely that I had not been there to perish with them.

There were six of the buccaneers, all told; not another man was left alive. Five of them were on their feet, flushed and swollen, suddenly called out of the first sleep of drunkenness. The sixth had only risen upon his elbow; he was deadly pale, and the blood-stained bandage round his head told that he had recently been wounded, and still more recently dressed. I remembered the man who had been shot and run back among the woods in the great attack, and doubted not that this was he. 239