They had already slain two of the honest people ; after Tom and Alan , might not I come next ? Instantly I began to extricate myself and crawl back again , with what speed and silence I could manage , to the more open portion of the wood . As I did so , I could hear hails coming and going between the old buccaneer and his comrades , and this sound of danger lent me wings . As soon as I was clear of the thicket , I ran as I never ran before , scarce minding the direction of my flight , so long as it led me from the murderers ; and as I ran , fear grew and grew upon me until it turned into a kind of frenzy . Indeed , could anyone be more entirely lost than I ? When the gun fired , how should I dare to go down to the boats among those fiends , still smoking from their crime ? Would not the first of them who saw me wring my neck like a snipe 's ? Would not my absence itself be an evidence to them of my alarm , and therefore of my fatal knowledge ? It was all over , I thought . Good-bye to the HISPANIOLA ; good-bye to the squire , the doctor , and the captain ! There was nothing left for me but death by starvation or death by the hands of the mutineers . All this while , as I say , I was still running , and without taking any notice , I had drawn near to the foot of the little hill with the two peaks and had got into a part of the island where the live-oaks grew more widely apart and seemed more like forest trees in their bearing and dimensions . Mingled with these were a few scattered pines , some fifty , some nearer seventy , feet high . The air too smelt more freshly than down beside the marsh . And here a fresh alarm brought me to a standstill with a thumping heart . 15 The Man of the Island FROM the side of the hill , which was here steep and stony , a spout of gravel was dislodged and fell rattling and bounding through the trees . My eyes turned instinctively in that direction , and I saw a figure leap with great rapidity behind the trunk of a pine . What it was , whether bear or man or monkey , I could in no wise tell . It seemed dark and shaggy ; more I knew not . But the terror of this new apparition brought me to a stand .
I was now , it XXXXX , cut off upon both sides ; behind me the murderers , before me this lurking nondescript .
dislodged drawn got grew led running saw seemed taking wring