The water was but a pit of darkness, but I could
make out the masts rising into the half light, and I counted more than
twenty vessels in that port. No light was shown, and the whole place
was quiet as a grave.
We entered a wood of small hemlocks, and I felt rather than saw the
ground slope in front of us. About two hundred feet above the water the
glen of a little stream shaped itself into a flat cup, which was
invisible from below, and girdled on three sides by dark forest. Here
we walked more freely, till we came to the lip of the cup, and there,
not twenty paces below me, I saw a wonderful sight. The hollow was lit
with the glow of a dozen fires, round which men clustered. Some were
busy boucanning meat for ship's food, some were cooking supper, some
sprawled in idleness, and smoked or diced. The night had now grown very
black around us, and we were well protected, for the men in the glow
had their eyes dazed, and could not spy into the darkness. We came very
close above them, so that I could hear their talk. The smell of
roasting meat pricked my hunger, and I realized that the salt air had
given me a noble thirst. They were common seamen from the pirate
vessels, and, as far as I could judge, they had no officer among them.
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