20
Silver’s Embassy
SURE enough, there were two men just outside the stockade,
one of them waving a white cloth, the other, no less a
person than Silver himself, standing placidly by.
It was still quite early, and the coldest morning that
I think I ever was abroad in—a chill that pierced into
the marrow. The sky was bright and cloudless overhead,
and the tops of the trees shone rosily in the sun. But
where Silver stood with his lieutenant, all was still
in shadow, and they waded knee-deep in a low white
vapour that had crawled during the night out of the
morass. The chill and the vapour taken together told a
poor tale of the island. It was plainly a damp,
feverish, unhealthy spot.
“Keep indoors, men,” said the captain. “Ten to one
this is a trick.”
Then he hailed the bucca
