The three fellows must have been watching us closer than we thought for, as we soon had proved. For, coming through the narrows we had to lie very near the southern point, and there we saw all three of them kneeling together on a spit of sand with their arms raised in supplication. It went to all our hearts, I think, to leave them in that wretched state, but we could not risk another mutiny, and to take them home for the gibbet would have been a cruel sort of kindness. The doctor hailed them and told them of the stores we had left, and where they were to find them, but they continued to call us by name and appeal to us for God’s sake to be merciful and not leave them to die in such a place.

At last, seeing the ship still bore on her course, and was now swiftly drawing out of earshot, one of them⁠—I know not which it was⁠—leaped to his feet with a hoarse cry, whipped his musket to his shoulder, and sent a shot whistling over Silver’s head and through the mainsail.