Dedication and Chapter 1 of Treasure Island.
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Dedication. To S.L.O., an American gentleman
in accordance with whose classic taste the
following narrative has been designed, it
is now, in return for numerous delightful
hours, and with the kindest wishes, dedicated
by his affectionate friend, the author.
TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER
If sailor tales to sailor tunes,
Storm and adventure, heat and cold,
If schooners, islands, and maroons,
And buccaneers, and buried gold,
And all the old romance, retold
Exactly in the ancient way,
Can please, as me they pleased of old,
The wiser youngsters of today:
—So be it, and fall on! If not,
If studious youth no longer crave,
His ancient appetites forgot,
Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,
Or Cooper of the wood and wave:
So be it, also! And may I
And all my pirates share the grave
Where these and their creations lie!
PART ONE--The Old Buccaneer
Chapter 1.The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral Benbow
SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest
of these gentlemen having
asked me to write down the whole particulars
about Treasure Island, from
the beginning to the end, keeping nothing
back but the bearings of the
island, and that only because there is still
treasure not yet lifted, I
take up my pen in the year of grace 17__ and
go back to the time when
my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and
the brown old seaman with the
sabre cut first took up his lodging under
our roof.
I remember him as if it were yesterday, as
he came plodding to the
inn door, his sea-chest following behind him
in a hand-barrow--a
tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry
pigtail falling over the
shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands
ragged and scarred, with
black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across
one cheek, a dirty, livid
white. I remember him looking round the cover
and whistling to himself
as he did so, and then breaking out in that
old sea-song that he sang so
often afterwards:
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
in the high, old tottering voice that seemed
to have been tuned and
broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped
on the door with a bit of
stick like a handspike that he carried, and
when my father appeared,
called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when
it was brought to him,
he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering
on the taste and still
looking about him at the cliffs and up at
our signboard.
"This is a handy cove," says he at length;
"and a pleasant sittyated
grog-shop. Much company, mate?"
My father told him no, very little company,
the more was the pity.
"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth
for me. Here you, matey," he
cried to the man who trundled the barrow;
"bring up alongside and help
up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued.
"I'm a plain man; rum
and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that
head up there for to watch
ships off. What you mought call me? You mought
call me captain. Oh, I
see what you're at--there"; and he threw down
three or four gold pieces
on the threshold. "You can tell me when I've
worked through that," says
he, looking as fierce as a commander.
And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely
as he spoke, he had none
of the appearance of a man who sailed before
the mast, but seemed like
a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed
or to strike. The man who came
with the barrow told us the mail had set him
down the morning before at
the Royal George, that he had inquired what
inns there were along the
coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I
suppose, and described as
lonely, had chosen it from the others for
his place of residence. And
that was all we could learn of our guest.
He was a very silent man by custom. All day
he hung round the cove or
upon the cliffs with a brass telescope; all
evening he sat in a corner
of the parlour next the fire and drank rum
and water very strong. Mostly
he would not speak when spoken to, only look
up sudden and fierce and
blow through his nose like a fog-horn; and
we and the people who came
about our house soon learned to let him be.
Every day when he came back
from his stroll he would ask if any seafaring
men had gone by along the
road. At first we thought it was the want
of company of his own kind
that made him ask this question, but at last
we began to see he was
desirous to avoid them. When a seaman did
put up at the Admiral Benbow
(as now and then some did, making by the coast
road for Bristol) he
would look in at him through the curtained
door before he entered the
parlour; and he was always sure to be as silent
as a mouse when any such
was present. For me, at least, there was no
secret about the matter, for
I was, in a way, a sharer in his alarms. He
had taken me aside one day
and promised me a silver fourpenny on the
first of every month if I
would only keep my "weather-eye open for a
seafaring man with one leg"
and let him know the moment he appeared. Often
enough when the first
of the month came round and I applied to him
for my wage, he would only
blow through his nose at me and stare me down,
but before the week was
out he was sure to think better of it, bring
me my four-penny piece, and
repeat his orders to look out for "the seafaring
man with one leg."
How that personage haunted my dreams, I need
scarcely tell you. On
stormy nights, when the wind shook the four
corners of the house and
the surf roared along the cove and up the
cliffs, I would see him in a
thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical
expressions. Now the leg
would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip;
now he was a monstrous
kind of a creature who had never had but the
one leg, and that in the
middle of his body. To see him leap and run
and pursue me over hedge and
ditch was the worst of nightmares. And altogether
I paid pretty dear for
my monthly fourpenny piece, in the shape of
these abominable fancies.
But though I was so terrified by the idea
of the seafaring man with one
leg, I was far less afraid of the captain
himself than anybody else who
knew him. There were nights when he took a
deal more rum and water
than his head would carry; and then he would
sometimes sit and sing his
wicked, old, wild sea-songs, minding nobody;
but sometimes he would call
for glasses round and force all the trembling
company to listen to his
stories or bear a chorus to his singing. Often
I have heard the house
shaking with "Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum,"
all the neighbours joining
in for dear life, with the fear of death upon
them, and each singing
louder than the other to avoid remark. For
in these fits he was the most
overriding companion ever known; he would
slap his hand on the table for
silence all round; he would fly up in a passion
of anger at a question,
or sometimes because none was put, and so
he judged the company was not
following his story. Nor would he allow anyone
to leave the inn till he
had drunk himself sleepy and reeled off to
bed.
His stories were what frightened people worst
of all. Dreadful stories
they were--about hanging, and walking the
plank, and storms at sea, and
the Dry Tortugas, and wild deeds and places
on the Spanish Main. By his
own account he must have lived his life among
some of the wickedest men
that God ever allowed upon the sea, and the
language in which he told
these stories shocked our plain country people
almost as much as the
crimes that he described. My father was always
saying the inn would be
ruined, for people would soon cease coming
there to be tyrannized over
and put down, and sent shivering to their
beds; but I really believe his
presence did us good. People were frightened
at the time, but on looking
back they rather liked it; it was a fine excitement
in a quiet country
life, and there was even a party of the younger
men who pretended to
admire him, calling him a "true sea-dog" and
a "real old salt" and
such like names, and saying there was the
sort of man that made England
terrible at sea.
In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us,
for he kept on staying week
after week, and at last month after month,
so that all the money had
been long exhausted, and still my father never
plucked up the heart to
insist on having more. If ever he mentioned
it, the captain blew through
his nose so loudly that you might say he roared,
and stared my poor
father out of the room. I have seen him wringing
his hands after such a
rebuff, and I am sure the annoyance and the
terror he lived in must have
greatly hastened his early and unhappy death.
All the time he lived with us the captain
made no change whatever in his
dress but to buy some stockings from a hawker.
One of the cocks of his
hat having fallen down, he let it hang from
that day forth, though it
was a great annoyance when it blew. I remember
the appearance of his
coat, which he patched himself upstairs in
his room, and which, before
the end, was nothing but patches. He never
wrote or received a letter,
and he never spoke with any but the neighbours,
and with these, for the
most part, only when drunk on rum. The great
sea-chest none of us had
ever seen open.
He was only once crossed, and that was towards
the end, when my poor
father was far gone in a decline that took
him off. Dr. Livesey came
late one afternoon to see the patient, took
a bit of dinner from my
mother, and went into the parlour to smoke
a pipe until his horse should
come down from the hamlet, for we had no stabling
at the old Benbow. I
followed him in, and I remember observing
the contrast the neat, bright
doctor, with his powder as white as snow and
his bright, black eyes and
pleasant manners, made with the coltish country
folk, and above all,
with that filthy, heavy, bleared scarecrow
of a pirate of ours, sitting,
far gone in rum, with his arms on the table.
Suddenly he--the captain,
that is--began to pipe up his eternal song:
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
At first I had supposed "the dead man's chest"
to be that identical big
box of his upstairs in the front room, and
the thought had been mingled
in my nightmares with that of the one-legged
seafaring man. But by this
time we had all long ceased to pay any particular
notice to the song; it
was new, that night, to nobody but Dr. Livesey,
and on him I observed it
did not produce an agreeable effect, for he
looked up for a moment quite
angrily before he went on with his talk to
old Taylor, the gardener, on
a new cure for the rheumatics. In the meantime,
the captain gradually
brightened up at his own music, and at last
flapped his hand upon
the table before him in a way we all knew
to mean silence. The voices
stopped at once, all but Dr. Livesey's; he
went on as before speaking
clear and kind and drawing briskly at his
pipe between every word or
two. The captain glared at him for a while,
flapped his hand again,
glared still harder, and at last broke out
with a villainous, low oath,
"Silence, there, between decks!"
"Were you addressing me, sir?" says the doctor;
and when the ruffian had
told him, with another oath, that this was
so, "I have only one thing to
say to you, sir," replies the doctor, "that
if you keep on drinking rum,
the world will soon be quit of a very dirty
scoundrel!"
The old fellow's fury was awful. He sprang
to his feet, drew and opened
a sailor's clasp-knife, and balancing it open
on the palm of his hand,
threatened to pin the doctor to the wall.
The doctor never so much as moved. He spoke
to him as before, over his
shoulder and in the same tone of voice, rather
high, so that all the
room might hear, but perfectly calm and steady:
"If you do not put that
knife this instant in your pocket, I promise,
upon my honour, you shall
hang at the next assizes."
Then followed a battle of looks between them,
but the captain soon
knuckled under, put up his weapon, and resumed
his seat, grumbling like
a beaten dog.
"And now, sir," continued the doctor, "since
I now know there's such a
fellow in my district, you may count I'll
have an eye upon you day and
night. I'm not a doctor only; I'm a magistrate;
and if I catch a breath
of complaint against you, if it's only for
a piece of incivility like
tonight's, I'll take effectual means to have
you hunted down and routed
out of this. Let that suffice."
Soon after, Dr. Livesey's horse came to the
door and he rode away, but
the captain held his peace that evening, and
for many evenings
to come.
2
Black Dog Appears and Disappears
IT was not very long after this that there
occurred the first of the
mysterious events that rid us at last of the
captain, though not, as you
will see, of his affairs. It was a bitter
cold winter, with long, hard
frosts and heavy gales; and it was plain from
the first that my poor
father was little likely to see the spring.
He sank daily, and my mother
and I had all the inn upon our hands, and
were kept busy enough without
paying much regard to our unpleasant guest.
It was one January morning, very early--a
pinching, frosty morning--the
cove all grey with hoar-frost, the ripple
lapping softly on the stones,
the sun still low and only touching the hilltops
and shining far to
seaward. The captain had risen earlier than
usual and set out down the
beach, his cutlass swinging under the broad
skirts of the old blue coat,
his brass telescope under his arm, his hat
tilted back upon his head. I
remember his breath hanging like smoke in
his wake as he strode off, and
the last sound I heard of him as he turned
the big rock was a loud snort
of indignation, as though his mind was still
running upon Dr. Livesey.
Well, mother was upstairs with father and
I was laying the
breakfast-table against the captain's return
when the parlour door
opened and a man stepped in on whom I had
never set my eyes before. He
was a pale, tallowy creature, wanting two
fingers of the left hand, and
though he wore a cutlass, he did not look
much like a fighter. I
had always my eye open for seafaring men,
with one leg or two, and I
remember this one puzzled me. He was not sailorly,
and yet he had a
smack of the sea about him too.
I asked him what was for his service, and
he said he would take rum; but
as I was going out of the room to fetch it,
he sat down upon a table
and motioned me to draw near. I paused where
I was, with my napkin in my
hand.
"Come here, sonny," says he. "Come nearer
here."
I took a step nearer.
"Is this here table for my mate Bill?" he
asked with a kind of leer.
I told him I did not know his mate Bill, and
this was for a person who
stayed in our house whom we called the captain.
"Well," said he, "my mate Bill would be called
the captain, as like
as not. He has a cut on one cheek and a mighty
pleasant way with him,
particularly in drink, has my mate Bill. We'll
put it, for argument
like, that your captain has a cut on one cheek--and
we'll put it, if you
like, that that cheek's the right one. Ah,
well! I told you. Now, is my
mate Bill in this here house?"
I told him he was out walking.
"Which way, sonny? Which way is he gone?"
And when I had pointed out the rock and told
him how the captain was
likely to return, and how soon, and answered
a few other questions,
"Ah," said he, "this'll be as good as drink
to my mate Bill."
The expression of his face as he said these
words was not at all
pleasant, and I had my own reasons for thinking
that the stranger was
mistaken, even supposing he meant what he
said. But it was no affair of
mine, I thought; and besides, it was difficult
to know what to do. The
stranger kept hanging about just inside the
inn door, peering round the
corner like a cat waiting for a mouse. Once
I stepped out myself into
the road, but he immediately called me back,
and as I did not obey quick
enough for his fancy, a most horrible change
came over his tallowy face,
and he ordered me in with an oath that made
me jump. As soon as I
was back again he returned to his former manner,
half fawning, half
sneering, patted me on the shoulder, told
me I was a good boy and he had
taken quite a fancy to me. "I have a son of
my own," said he, "as like
you as two blocks, and he's all the pride
of my 'art. But the great
thing for boys is discipline, sonny--discipline.
Now, if you had sailed
along of Bill, you wouldn't have stood there
to be spoke to twice--not
you. That was never Bill's way, nor the way
of sich as sailed with him.
And here, sure enough, is my mate Bill, with
a spy-glass under his arm,
bless his old 'art, to be sure. You and me'll
just go back into the
parlour, sonny, and get behind the door, and
we'll give Bill a little
surprise--bless his 'art, I say again."
So saying, the stranger backed along with
me into the parlour and put me
behind him in the corner so that we were both
hidden by the open door. I
was very uneasy and alarmed, as you may fancy,
and it rather added to my
fears to observe that the stranger was certainly
frightened himself. He
cleared the hilt of his cutlass and loosened
the blade in the sheath;
and all the time we were waiting there he
kept swallowing as if he felt
what we used to call a lump in the throat.
At last in strode the captain, slammed the
door behind him, without
looking to the right or left, and marched
straight across the room to
where his breakfast awaited him.
"Bill," said the stranger in a voice that
I thought he had tried to make
bold and big.
The captain spun round on his heel and fronted
us; all the brown had
gone out of his face, and even his nose was
blue; he had the look of a
man who sees a ghost, or the evil one, or
something worse, if anything
can be; and upon my word, I felt sorry to
see him all in a moment turn
so old and sick.
"Come, Bill, you know me; you know an old
shipmate, Bill, surely," said
the stranger.
The captain made a sort of gasp.
"Black Dog!" said he.
"And who else?" returned the other, getting
more at his ease. "Black
Dog as ever was, come for to see his old shipmate
Billy, at the Admiral
Benbow inn. Ah, Bill, Bill, we have seen a
sight of times, us two, since
I lost them two talons," holding up his mutilated
hand.
"Now, look here," said the captain; "you've
run me down; here I am;
well, then, speak up; what is it?"
"That's you, Bill," returned Black Dog, "you're
in the right of it,
Billy. I'll have a glass of rum from this
dear child here, as I've took
such a liking to; and we'll sit down, if you
please, and talk square,
like old shipmates."
When I returned with the rum, they were already
seated on either side
of the captain's breakfast-table--Black Dog
next to the door and
sitting sideways so as to have one eye on
his old shipmate and one, as I
thought, on his retreat.
He bade me go and leave the door wide open.
"None of your keyholes for
me, sonny," he said; and I left them together
and retired into the bar.
For a long time, though I certainly did my
best to listen, I could hear
nothing but a low gattling; but at last the
voices began to grow higher,
and I could pick up a word or two, mostly
oaths, from the captain.
"No, no, no, no; and an end of it!" he cried
once. And again, "If it
comes to swinging, swing all, say I."
Then all of a sudden there was a tremendous
explosion of oaths and
other noises--the chair and table went over
in a lump, a clash of steel
followed, and then a cry of pain, and the
next instant I saw Black
Dog in full flight, and the captain hotly
pursuing, both with drawn
cutlasses, and the former streaming blood
from the left shoulder. Just
at the door the captain aimed at the fugitive
one last tremendous
cut, which would certainly have split him
to the chine had it not been
intercepted by our big signboard of Admiral
Benbow. You may see the
notch on the lower side of the frame to this
day.
That blow was the last of the battle. Once
out upon the road, Black
Dog, in spite of his wound, showed a wonderful
clean pair of heels and
disappeared over the edge of the hill in half
a minute. The captain, for
his part, stood staring at the signboard like
a bewildered man. Then he
passed his hand over his eyes several times
and at last turned back into
the house.
"Jim," says he, "rum"; and as he spoke, he
reeled a little, and caught
himself with one hand against the wall.
"Are you hurt?" cried I.
"Rum," he repeated. "I must get away from
here. Rum! Rum!"
I ran to fetch it, but I was quite unsteadied
by all that had fallen
out, and I broke one glass and fouled the
tap, and while I was still
getting in my own way, I heard a loud fall
in the parlour, and running
in, beheld the captain lying full length upon
the floor. At the same
instant my mother, alarmed by the cries and
fighting, came running
downstairs to help me. Between us we raised
his head. He was breathing
very loud and hard, but his eyes were closed
and his face a horrible
colour.
"Dear, deary me," cried my mother, "what a
disgrace upon the house! And
your poor father sick!"
In the meantime, we had no idea what to do
to help the captain, nor any
other thought but that he had got his death-hurt
in the scuffle with
the stranger. I got the rum, to be sure, and
tried to put it down his
throat, but his teeth were tightly shut and
his jaws as strong as iron.
It was a happy relief for us when the door
opened and Doctor Livesey
came in, on his visit to my father.
"Oh, doctor," we cried, "what shall we do?
Where is he wounded?"
"Wounded? A fiddle-stick's end!" said the
doctor. "No more wounded than
you or I. The man has had a stroke, as I warned
him. Now, Mrs. Hawkins,
just you run upstairs to your husband and
tell him, if possible, nothing
about it. For my part, I must do my best to
save this fellow's trebly
worthless life; Jim, you get me a basin."
When I got back with the basin, the doctor
had already ripped up the
captain's sleeve and exposed his great sinewy
arm. It was tattooed
in several places. "Here's luck," "A fair
wind," and "Billy Bones his
fancy," were very neatly and clearly executed
on the forearm; and up
near the shoulder there was a sketch of a
gallows and a man hanging from
it--done, as I thought, with great spirit.
"Prophetic," said the doctor, touching this
picture with his finger.
"And now, Master Billy Bones, if that be your
name, we'll have a look at
the colour of your blood. Jim," he said, "are
you afraid of blood?"
"No, sir," said I.
"Well, then," said he, "you hold the basin";
and with that he took his
lancet and opened a vein.
A great deal of blood was taken before the
captain opened his eyes
and looked mistily about him. First he recognized
the doctor with
an unmistakable frown; then his glance fell
upon me, and he looked
relieved. But suddenly his colour changed,
and he tried to raise
himself, crying, "Where's Black Dog?"
"There is no Black Dog here," said the doctor,
"except what you have
on your own back. You have been drinking rum;
you have had a stroke,
precisely as I told you; and I have just,
very much against my own will,
dragged you headforemost out of the grave.
Now, Mr. Bones--"
"That's not my name," he interrupted.
"Much I care," returned the doctor. "It's
the name of a buccaneer of my
acquaintance; and I call you by it for the
sake of shortness, and what I
have to say to you is this; one glass of rum
won't kill you, but if
you take one you'll take another and another,
and I stake my wig if you
don't break off short, you'll die--do you
understand that?--die, and go
to your own place, like the man in the Bible.
Come, now, make an effort.
I'll help you to your bed for once."
Between us, with much trouble, we managed
to hoist him upstairs, and
laid him on his bed, where his head fell back
on the pillow as if he
were almost fainting.
"Now, mind you," said the doctor, "I clear
my conscience--the name of
rum for you is death."
And with that he went off to see my father,
taking me with him by the
arm.
"This is nothing," he said as soon as he had
closed the door. "I have
drawn blood enough to keep him quiet awhile;
he should lie for a week
where he is--that is the best thing for him
and you; but another stroke
would settle him."
3
The Black Spot
ABOUT noon I stopped at the captain's door
with some cooling drinks
and medicines. He was lying very much as we
had left him, only a little
higher, and he seemed both weak and excited.
"Jim," he said, "you're the only one here
that's worth anything, and you
know I've been always good to you. Never a
month but I've given you a
silver fourpenny for yourself. And now you
see, mate, I'm pretty low,
and deserted by all; and Jim, you'll bring
me one noggin of rum, now,
won't you, matey?"
"The doctor--" I began.
But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble
voice but heartily.
"Doctors is all swabs," he said; "and that
doctor there, why, what do
he know about seafaring men? I been in places
hot as pitch, and mates
dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed
land a-heaving like the
sea with earthquakes--what to the doctor know
of lands like that?--and I
lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and
drink, and man and wife,
to me; and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm
a poor old hulk on a lee
shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim, and that
doctor swab"; and he ran on
again for a while with curses. "Look, Jim,
how my fingers fidges,"
he continued in the pleading tone. "I can't
keep 'em still, not I. I
haven't had a drop this blessed day. That
doctor's a fool, I tell you.
If I don't have a drain o' rum, Jim, I'll
have the horrors; I seen some
on 'em already. I seen old Flint in the corner
there, behind you; as
plain as print, I seen him; and if I get the
horrors, I'm a man that
has lived rough, and I'll raise Cain. Your
doctor hisself said one glass
wouldn't hurt me. I'll give you a golden guinea
for a noggin, Jim."
He was growing more and more excited, and
this alarmed me for my father,
who was very low that day and needed quiet;
besides, I was reassured by
the doctor's words, now quoted to me, and
rather offended by the offer
of a bribe.
"I want none of your money," said I, "but
what you owe my father. I'll
get you one glass, and no more."
When I brought it to him, he seized it greedily
and drank it out.
"Aye, aye," said he, "that's some better,
sure enough. And now, matey,
did that doctor say how long I was to lie
here in this old berth?"
"A week at least," said I.
"Thunder!" he cried. "A week! I can't do that;
they'd have the black
spot on me by then. The lubbers is going about
to get the wind of me
this blessed moment; lubbers as couldn't keep
what they got, and want to
nail what is another's. Is that seamanly behaviour,
now, I want to know?
But I'm a saving soul. I never wasted good
money of mine, nor lost it
neither; and I'll trick 'em again. I'm not
afraid on 'em. I'll shake out
another reef, matey, and daddle 'em again."
As he was thus speaking, he had risen from
bed with great difficulty,
holding to my shoulder with a grip that almost
made me cry out, and
moving his legs like so much dead weight.
His words, spirited as they
were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the
weakness of the voice in
which they were uttered. He paused when he
had got into a sitting
position on the edge.
"That doctor's done me," he murmured. "My
ears is singing. Lay me back."
Before I could do much to help him he had
fallen back again to his
former place, where he lay for a while silent.
"Jim," he said at length, "you saw that seafaring
man today?"
"Black Dog?" I asked.
"Ah! Black Dog," says he. "HE'S a bad un;
but there's worse that put him
on. Now, if I can't get away nohow, and they
tip me the black spot, mind
you, it's my old sea-chest they're after;
you get on a horse--you can,
can't you? Well, then, you get on a horse,
and go to--well, yes,
I will!--to that eternal doctor swab, and
tell him to pipe all
hands--magistrates and sich--and he'll lay
'em aboard at the Admiral
Benbow--all old Flint's crew, man and boy,
all on 'em that's left. I was
first mate, I was, old Flint's first mate,
and I'm the on'y one as knows
the place. He gave it me at Savannah, when
he lay a-dying, like as if I
was to now, you see. But you won't peach unless
they get the black spot
on me, or unless you see that Black Dog again
or a seafaring man with
one leg, Jim--him above all."
"But what is the black spot, captain?" I asked.
"That's a summons, mate. I'll tell you if
they get that. But you keep
your weather-eye open, Jim, and I'll share
with you equals, upon my
honour."
He wandered a little longer, his voice growing
weaker; but soon after I
had given him his medicine, which he took
like a child, with the remark,
"If ever a seaman wanted drugs, it's me,"
he fell at last into a heavy,
swoon-like sleep, in which I left him. What
I should have done had all
gone well I do not know. Probably I should
have told the whole story to
the doctor, for I was in mortal fear lest
the captain should repent of
his confessions and make an end of me. But
as things fell out, my poor
father died quite suddenly that evening, which
put all other matters
on one side. Our natural distress, the visits
of the neighbours, the
arranging of the funeral, and all the work
of the inn to be carried on
in the meanwhile kept me so busy that I had
scarcely time to think of
the captain, far less to be afraid of him.
He got downstairs next morning, to be sure,
and had his meals as usual,
though he ate little and had more, I am afraid,
than his usual supply of
rum, for he helped himself out of the bar,
scowling and blowing through
his nose, and no one dared to cross him. On
the night before the funeral
he was as drunk as ever; and it was shocking,
in that house of mourning,
to hear him singing away at his ugly old sea-song;
but weak as he was,
we were all in the fear of death for him,
and the doctor was suddenly
taken up with a case many miles away and was
never near the house after
my father's death. I have said the captain
was weak, and indeed he
seemed rather to grow weaker than regain his
strength. He clambered up
and down stairs, and went from the parlour
to the bar and back again,
and sometimes put his nose out of doors to
smell the sea, holding on to
the walls as he went for support and breathing
hard and fast like a man
on a steep mountain. He never particularly
addressed me, and it is my
belief he had as good as forgotten his confidences;
but his temper was
more flighty, and allowing for his bodily
weakness, more violent than
ever. He had an alarming way now when he was
drunk of drawing his
cutlass and laying it bare before him on the
table. But with all that,
he minded people less and seemed shut up in
his own thoughts and rather
wandering. Once, for instance, to our extreme
wonder, he piped up to a
different air, a kind of country love-song
that he must have learned in
his youth before he had begun to follow the
sea.
So things passed until, the day after the
funeral, and about three
o'clock of a bitter, foggy, frosty afternoon,
I was standing at the door
for a moment, full of sad thoughts about my
father, when I saw someone
drawing slowly near along the road. He was
plainly blind, for he tapped
before him with a stick and wore a great green
shade over his eyes and
nose; and he was hunched, as if with age or
weakness, and wore a huge
old tattered sea-cloak with a hood that made
him appear positively
deformed. I never saw in my life a more dreadful-looking
figure.
He stopped a little from the inn, and raising
his voice in an odd
sing-song, addressed the air in front of him,
"Will any kind friend
inform a poor blind man, who has lost the
precious sight of his eyes in
the gracious defence of his native country,
England--and God bless King
George!--where or in what part of this country
he may now be?"
"You are at the Admiral Benbow, Black Hill
Cove, my good man," said I.
"I hear a voice," said he, "a young voice.
Will you give me your hand,
my kind young friend, and lead me in?"
I held out my hand, and the horrible, soft-spoken,
eyeless creature
gripped it in a moment like a vise. I was
so much startled that I
struggled to withdraw, but the blind man pulled
me close up to him with
a single action of his arm.
"Now, boy," he said, "take me in to the captain."
"Sir," said I, "upon my word I dare not."
"Oh," he sneered, "that's it! Take me in straight
or I'll break your
arm."
And he gave it, as he spoke, a wrench that
made me cry out.
"Sir," said I, "it is for yourself I mean.
The captain is not what he
used to be. He sits with a drawn cutlass.
Another gentleman--"
"Come, now, march," interrupted he; and I
never heard a voice so cruel,
and cold, and ugly as that blind man's. It
cowed me more than the pain,
and I began to obey him at once, walking straight
in at the door and
towards the parlour, where our sick old buccaneer
was sitting, dazed
with rum. The blind man clung close to me,
holding me in one iron fist
and leaning almost more of his weight on me
than I could carry. "Lead me
straight up to him, and when I'm in view,
cry out, 'Here's a friend
for you, Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this,"
and with that he gave me a
twitch that I thought would have made me faint.
Between this and that, I
was so utterly terrified of the blind beggar
that I forgot my terror of
the captain, and as I opened the parlour door,
cried out the words he
had ordered in a trembling voice.
The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one
look the rum went out of
him and left him staring sober. The expression
of his face was not so
much of terror as of mortal sickness. He made
a movement to rise, but I
do not believe he had enough force left in
his body.
"Now, Bill, sit where you are," said the beggar.
"If I can't see, I can
hear a finger stirring. Business is business.
Hold out your left hand.
Boy, take his left hand by the wrist and bring
it near to my right."
We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw
him pass something from the
hollow of the hand that held his stick into
the palm of the captain's,
which closed upon it instantly.
"And now that's done," said the blind man;
and at the words he suddenly
left hold of me, and with incredible accuracy
and nimbleness,
skipped out of the parlour and into the road,
where, as I still stood
motionless, I could hear his stick go tap-tap-tapping
into the distance.
It was some time before either I or the captain
seemed to gather our
senses, but at length, and about at the same
moment, I released his
wrist, which I was still holding, and he drew
in his hand and looked
sharply into the palm.
"Ten o'clock!" he cried. "Six hours. We'll
do them yet," and he sprang
to his feet.
Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand
to his throat, stood swaying
for a moment, and then, with a peculiar sound,
fell from his whole
height face foremost to the floor.
I ran to him at once, calling to my mother.
But haste was all in vain.
The captain had been struck dead by thundering
apoplexy. It is a curious
thing to understand, for I had certainly never
liked the man, though of
late I had begun to pity him, but as soon
as I saw that he was dead, I
burst into a flood of tears. It was the second
death I had known, and
the sorrow of the first was still fresh in
my heart.
4
The Sea-chest
I LOST no time, of course, in telling my mother
all that I knew, and
perhaps should have told her long before,
and we saw ourselves at once
in a difficult and dangerous position. Some
of the man's money--if
he had any--was certainly due to us, but it
was not likely that our
captain's shipmates, above all the two specimens
seen by me, Black
Dog and the blind beggar, would be inclined
to give up their booty in
payment of the dead man's debts. The captain's
order to mount at
once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have
left my mother alone
and unprotected, which was not to be thought
of. Indeed, it seemed
impossible for either of us to remain much
longer in the house; the fall
of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking
of the clock, filled
us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our
ears, seemed haunted by
approaching footsteps; and what between the
dead body of the captain
on the parlour floor and the thought of that
detestable blind beggar
hovering near at hand and ready to return,
there were moments when, as
the saying goes, I jumped in my skin for terror.
Something must speedily
be resolved upon, and it occurred to us at
last to go forth together
and seek help in the neighbouring hamlet.
No sooner said than done.
Bare-headed as we were, we ran out at once
in the gathering evening and
the frosty fog.
The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away,
though out of view, on the
other side of the next cove; and what greatly
encouraged me, it was
in an opposite direction from that whence
the blind man had made his
appearance and whither he had presumably returned.
We were not many
minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped
to lay hold of each
other and hearken. But there was no unusual
sound--nothing but the low
wash of the ripple and the croaking of the
inmates of the wood.
It was already candle-light when we reached
the hamlet, and I shall
never forget how much I was cheered to see
the yellow shine in doors and
windows; but that, as it proved, was the best
of the help we were likely
to get in that quarter. For--you would have
thought men would have been
ashamed of themselves--no soul would consent
to return with us to the
Admiral Benbow. The more we told of our troubles,
the more--man, woman,
and child--they clung to the shelter of their
houses. The name of
Captain Flint, though it was strange to me,
was well enough known to
some there and carried a great weight of terror.
Some of the men who
had been to field-work on the far side of
the Admiral Benbow remembered,
besides, to have seen several strangers on
the road, and taking them to
be smugglers, to have bolted away; and one
at least had seen a little
lugger in what we called Kitt's Hole. For
that matter, anyone who was a
comrade of the captain's was enough to frighten
them to death. And the
short and the long of the matter was, that
while we could get several
who were willing enough to ride to Dr. Livesey's,
which lay in another
direction, not one would help us to defend
the inn.
They say cowardice is infectious; but then
argument is, on the other
hand, a great emboldener; and so when each
had said his say, my mother
made them a speech. She would not, she declared,
lose money that
belonged to her fatherless boy; "If none of
the rest of you dare,"
she said, "Jim and I dare. Back we will go,
the way we came, and small
thanks to you big, hulking, chicken-hearted
men. We'll have that chest
open, if we die for it. And I'll thank you
for that bag, Mrs. Crossley,
to bring back our lawful money in."
Of course I said I would go with my mother,
and of course they all cried
out at our foolhardiness, but even then not
a man would go along with
us. All they would do was to give me a loaded
pistol lest we were
attacked, and to promise to have horses ready
saddled in case we were
pursued on our return, while one lad was to
ride forward to the doctor's
in search of armed assistance.
My heart was beating finely when we two set
forth in the cold night upon
this dangerous venture. A full moon was beginning
to rise and peered
redly through the upper edges of the fog,
and this increased our haste,
for it was plain, before we came forth again,
that all would be as
bright as day, and our departure exposed to
the eyes of any watchers.
We slipped along the hedges, noiseless and
swift, nor did we see or hear
anything to increase our terrors, till, to
our relief, the door of the
Admiral Benbow had closed behind us.
I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood and
panted for a moment in the
dark, alone in the house with the dead captain's
body. Then my mother
got a candle in the bar, and holding each
other's hands, we advanced
into the parlour. He lay as we had left him,
on his back, with his eyes
open and one arm stretched out.
"Draw down the blind, Jim," whispered my mother;
"they might come and
watch outside. And now," said she when I had
done so, "we have to get
the key off THAT; and who's to touch it, I
should like to know!" and she
gave a kind of sob as she said the words.
I went down on my knees at once. On the floor
close to his hand there
was a little round of paper, blackened on
the one side. I could not
doubt that this was the BLACK SPOT; and taking
it up, I found written
on the other side, in a very good, clear hand,
this short message: "You
have till ten tonight."
"He had till ten, Mother," said I; and just
as I said it, our old clock
began striking. This sudden noise startled
us shockingly; but the news
was good, for it was only six.
"Now, Jim," she said, "that key."
I felt in his pockets, one after another.
A few small coins, a thimble,
and some thread and big needles, a piece of
pigtail tobacco bitten away
at the end, his gully with the crooked handle,
a pocket compass, and a
tinder box were all that they contained, and
I began to despair.
"Perhaps it's round his neck," suggested my
mother.
Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open
his shirt at the neck, and
there, sure enough, hanging to a bit of tarry
string, which I cut with
his own gully, we found the key. At this triumph
we were filled with
hope and hurried upstairs without delay to
the little room where he had
slept so long and where his box had stood
since the day of his arrival.
It was like any other seaman's chest on the
outside, the initial "B"
burned on the top of it with a hot iron, and
the corners somewhat
smashed and broken as by long, rough usage.
"Give me the key," said my mother; and though
the lock was very stiff,
she had turned it and thrown back the lid
in a twinkling.
A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose from
the interior, but nothing
was to be seen on the top except a suit of
very good clothes, carefully
brushed and folded. They had never been worn,
my mother said. Under
that, the miscellany began--a quadrant, a
tin canikin, several sticks of
tobacco, two brace of very handsome pistols,
a piece of bar silver, an
old Spanish watch and some other trinkets
of little value and mostly of
foreign make, a pair of compasses mounted
with brass, and five or six
curious West Indian shells. I have often wondered
since why he should
have carried about these shells with him in
his wandering, guilty, and
hunted life.
In the meantime, we had found nothing of any
value but the silver and
the trinkets, and neither of these were in
our way. Underneath there
was an old boat-cloak, whitened with sea-salt
on many a harbour-bar. My
mother pulled it up with impatience, and there
lay before us, the last
things in the chest, a bundle tied up in oilcloth,
and looking like
papers, and a canvas bag that gave forth,
at a touch, the jingle of
gold.
"I'll show these rogues that I'm an honest
woman," said my mother. "I'll
have my dues, and not a farthing over. Hold
Mrs. Crossley's bag." And
she began to count over the amount of the
captain's score from the
sailor's bag into the one that I was holding.
It was a long, difficult business, for the
coins were of all countries
and sizes--doubloons, and louis d'ors, and
guineas, and pieces of eight,
and I know not what besides, all shaken together
at random. The guineas,
too, were about the scarcest, and it was with
these only that my mother
knew how to make her count.
When we were about half-way through, I suddenly
put my hand upon her
arm, for I had heard in the silent frosty
air a sound that brought my
heart into my mouth--the tap-tapping of the
blind man's stick upon the
frozen road. It drew nearer and nearer, while
we sat holding our breath.
Then it struck sharp on the inn door, and
then we could hear the handle
being turned and the bolt rattling as the
wretched being tried to enter;
and then there was a long time of silence
both within and without.
At last the tapping recommenced, and, to our
indescribable joy and
gratitude, died slowly away again until it
ceased to be heard.
"Mother," said I, "take the whole and let's
be going," for I was sure
the bolted door must have seemed suspicious
and would bring the whole
hornet's nest about our ears, though how thankful
I was that I had
bolted it, none could tell who had never met
that terrible blind man.
But my mother, frightened as she was, would
not consent to take a
fraction more than was due to her and was
obstinately unwilling to be
content with less. It was not yet seven, she
said, by a long way; she
knew her rights and she would have them; and
she was still arguing with
me when a little low whistle sounded a good
way off upon the hill. That
was enough, and more than enough, for both
of us.
"I'll take what I have," she said, jumping
to her feet.
"And I'll take this to square the count,"
said I, picking up the oilskin
packet.
Next moment we were both groping downstairs,
leaving the candle by
the empty chest; and the next we had opened
the door and were in full
retreat. We had not started a moment too soon.
The fog was rapidly
dispersing; already the moon shone quite clear
on the high ground on
either side; and it was only in the exact
bottom of the dell and round
the tavern door that a thin veil still hung
unbroken to conceal the
first steps of our escape. Far less than half-way
to the hamlet, very
little beyond the bottom of the hill, we must
come forth into the
moonlight. Nor was this all, for the sound
of several footsteps running
came already to our ears, and as we looked
back in their direction, a
light tossing to and fro and still rapidly
advancing showed that one of
the newcomers carried a lantern.
"My dear," said my mother suddenly, "take
the money and run on. I am
going to faint."
This was certainly the end for both of us,
I thought. How I cursed the
cowardice of the neighbours; how I blamed
my poor mother for her honesty
and her greed, for her past foolhardiness
and present weakness! We were
just at the little bridge, by good fortune;
and I helped her, tottering
as she was, to the edge of the bank, where,
sure enough, she gave a sigh
and fell on my shoulder. I do not know how
I found the strength to do it
at all, and I am afraid it was roughly done,
but I managed to drag her
down the bank and a little way under the arch.
Farther I could not move
her, for the bridge was too low to let me
do more than crawl below it.
So there we had to stay--my mother almost
entirely exposed and both of
us within earshot of
the inn.
5
The Last of the Blind Man
MY curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than
my fear, for I could not
remain where I was, but crept back to the
bank again, whence, sheltering
my head behind a bush of broom, I might command
the road before our
door. I was scarcely in position ere my enemies
began to arrive, seven
or eight of them, running hard, their feet
beating out of time along
the road and the man with the lantern some
paces in front. Three men ran
together, hand in hand; and I made out, even
through the mist, that the
middle man of this trio was the blind beggar.
The next moment his voice
showed me that I was right.
"Down with the door!" he cried.
"Aye, aye, sir!" answered two or three; and
a rush was made upon the
Admiral Benbow, the lantern-bearer following;
and then I could see
them pause, and hear speeches passed in a
lower key, as if they were
surprised to find the door open. But the pause
was brief, for the blind
man again issued his commands. His voice sounded
louder and higher, as
if he were afire with eagerness and rage.
"In, in, in!" he shouted, and cursed them
for their delay.
Four or five of them obeyed at once, two remaining
on the road with the
formidable beggar. There was a pause, then
a cry of surprise, and then a
voice shouting from the house, "Bill's dead."
But the blind man swore at them again for
their delay.
"Search him, some of you shirking lubbers,
and the rest of you aloft and
get the chest," he cried.
I could hear their feet rattling up our old
stairs, so that the
house must have shook with it. Promptly afterwards,
fresh sounds of
astonishment arose; the window of the captain's
room was thrown open
with a slam and a jingle of broken glass,
and a man leaned out into the
moonlight, head and shoulders, and addressed
the blind beggar on the
road below him.
"Pew," he cried, "they've been before us.
Someone's turned the chest out
alow and aloft."
"Is it there?" roared Pew.
"The money's there."
The blind man cursed the money.
"Flint's fist, I mean," he cried.
"We don't see it here nohow," returned the
man.
"Here, you below there, is it on Bill?" cried
the blind man again.
At that another fellow, probably him who had
remained below to search
the captain's body, came to the door of the
inn. "Bill's been overhauled
a'ready," said he; "nothin' left."
"It's these people of the inn--it's that boy.
I wish I had put his eyes
out!" cried the blind man, Pew. "There were
no time ago--they had the
door bolted when I tried it. Scatter, lads,
and find 'em."
"Sure enough, they left their glim here,"
said the fellow from the
window.
"Scatter and find 'em! Rout the house out!"
reiterated Pew, striking
with his stick upon the road.
Then there followed a great to-do through
all our old inn, heavy feet
pounding to and fro, furniture thrown over,
doors kicked in, until the
very rocks re-echoed and the men came out
again, one after another, on
the road and declared that we were nowhere
to be found. And just
the same whistle that had alarmed my mother
and myself over the dead
captain's money was once more clearly audible
through the night,
but this time twice repeated. I had thought
it to be the blind man's
trumpet, so to speak, summoning his crew to
the assault, but I now found
that it was a signal from the hillside towards
the hamlet, and from its
effect upon the buccaneers, a signal to warn
them of approaching danger.
"There's Dirk again," said one. "Twice! We'll
have to budge, mates."
"Budge, you skulk!" cried Pew. "Dirk was a
fool and a coward from the
first--you wouldn't mind him. They must be
close by; they can't be far;
you have your hands on it. Scatter and look
for them, dogs! Oh, shiver
my soul," he cried, "if I had eyes!"
This appeal seemed to produce some effect,
for two of the fellows began
to look here and there among the lumber, but
half-heartedly, I thought,
and with half an eye to their own danger all
the time, while the rest
stood irresolute on the road.
"You have your hands on thousands, you fools,
and you hang a leg! You'd
be as rich as kings if you could find it,
and you know it's here, and
you stand there skulking. There wasn't one
of you dared face Bill, and
I did it--a blind man! And I'm to lose my
chance for you! I'm to be a
poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when
I might be rolling in a
coach! If you had the pluck of a weevil in
a biscuit you would catch
them still."
"Hang it, Pew, we've got the doubloons!" grumbled
one.
"They might have hid the blessed thing," said
another. "Take the
Georges, Pew, and don't stand here squalling."
Squalling was the word for it; Pew's anger
rose so high at these
objections till at last, his passion completely
taking the upper hand,
he struck at them right and left in his blindness
and his stick sounded
heavily on more than one.
These, in their turn, cursed back at the blind
miscreant, threatened him
in horrid terms, and tried in vain to catch
the stick and wrest it from
his grasp.
This quarrel was the saving of us, for while
it was still raging,
another sound came from the top of the hill
on the side of the
hamlet--the tramp of horses galloping. Almost
at the same time a
pistol-shot, flash and report, came from the
hedge side. And that was
plainly the last signal of danger, for the
buccaneers turned at once
and ran, separating in every direction, one
seaward along the cove, one
slant across the hill, and so on, so that
in half a minute not a sign of
them remained but Pew. Him they had deserted,
whether in sheer panic
or out of revenge for his ill words and blows
I know not; but there he
remained behind, tapping up and down the road
in a frenzy, and groping
and calling for his comrades. Finally he took
a wrong turn and ran a few
steps past me, towards the hamlet, crying,
"Johnny, Black Dog, Dirk,"
and other names, "you won't leave old Pew,
mates--not old Pew!"
Just then the noise of horses topped the rise,
and four or five riders
came in sight in the moonlight and swept at
full gallop down the slope.
At this Pew saw his error, turned with a scream,
and ran straight for
the ditch, into which he rolled. But he was
on his feet again in a
second and made another dash, now utterly
bewildered, right under the
nearest of the coming horses.
The rider tried to save him, but in vain.
Down went Pew with a cry that
rang high into the night; and the four hoofs
trampled and spurned him
and passed by. He fell on his side, then gently
collapsed upon his face
and moved no more.
I leaped to my feet and hailed the riders.
They were pulling up, at any
rate, horrified at the accident; and I soon
saw what they were. One,
tailing out behind the rest, was a lad that
had gone from the hamlet to
Dr. Livesey's; the rest were revenue officers,
whom he had met by the
way, and with whom he had had the intelligence
to return at once. Some
news of the lugger in Kitt's Hole had found
its way to Supervisor Dance
and set him forth that night in our direction,
and to that circumstance
my mother and I owed our preservation from
death.
Pew was dead, stone dead. As for my mother,
when we had carried her up
to the hamlet, a little cold water and salts
and that soon brought her
back again, and she was none the worse for
her terror, though she still
continued to deplore the balance of the money.
In the meantime the
supervisor rode on, as fast as he could, to
Kitt's Hole; but his men
had to dismount and grope down the dingle,
leading, and sometimes
supporting, their horses, and in continual
fear of ambushes; so it was
no great matter for surprise that when they
got down to the Hole the
lugger was already under way, though still
close in. He hailed her. A
voice replied, telling him to keep out of
the moonlight or he would get
some lead in him, and at the same time a bullet
whistled close by his
arm. Soon after, the lugger doubled the point
and disappeared. Mr. Dance
stood there, as he said, "like a fish out
of water," and all he could do
was to dispatch a man to B---- to warn the
cutter. "And that," said he,
"is just about as good as nothing. They've
got off clean, and there's
an end. Only," he added, "I'm glad I trod
on Master Pew's corns," for by
this time he had heard my story.
I went back with him to the Admiral Benbow,
and you cannot imagine a
house in such a state of smash; the very clock
had been thrown down
by these fellows in their furious hunt after
my mother and myself;
and though nothing had actually been taken
away except the captain's
money-bag and a little silver from the till,
I could see at once that we
were ruined. Mr. Dance could make nothing
of the scene.
"They got the money, you say? Well, then,
Hawkins, what in fortune were
they after? More money, I suppose?"
"No, sir; not money, I think," replied I.
"In fact, sir, I believe I
have the thing in my breast pocket; and to
tell you the truth, I should
like to get it put in safety."
"To be sure, boy; quite right," said he. "I'll
take it, if you like."
"I thought perhaps Dr. Livesey--" I began.
"Perfectly right," he interrupted very cheerily,
"perfectly right--a
gentleman and a magistrate. And, now I come
to think of it, I might as
well ride round there myself and report to
him or squire. Master Pew's
dead, when all's done; not that I regret it,
but he's dead, you see, and
people will make it out against an officer
of his Majesty's revenue,
if make it out they can. Now, I'll tell you,
Hawkins, if you like, I'll
take you along."
I thanked him heartily for the offer, and
we walked back to the hamlet
where the horses were. By the time I had told
mother of my purpose they
were all in the saddle.
"Dogger," said Mr. Dance, "you have a good
horse; take up this lad
behind you."
As soon as I was mounted, holding on to Dogger's
belt, the supervisor
gave the word, and the party struck out at
a bouncing trot on the road
to Dr. Livesey's house.
6
The Captain's Papers
WE rode hard all the way till we drew up before
Dr. Livesey's door. The
house was all dark to the front.
Mr. Dance told me to jump down and knock,
and Dogger gave me a stirrup
to descend by. The door was opened almost
at once by the maid.
"Is Dr. Livesey in?" I asked.
No, she said, he had come home in the afternoon
but had gone up to the
hall to dine and pass the evening with the
squire.
"So there we go, boys," said Mr. Dance.
This time, as the distance was short, I did
not mount, but ran with
Dogger's stirrup-leather to the lodge gates
and up the long, leafless,
moonlit avenue to where the white line of
the hall buildings looked on
either hand on great old gardens. Here Mr.
Dance dismounted, and taking
me along with him, was admitted at a word
into the house.
The servant led us down a matted passage and
showed us at the end into a
great library, all lined with bookcases and
busts upon the top of them,
where the squire and Dr. Livesey sat, pipe
in hand, on either side of a
bright fire.
I had never seen the squire so near at hand.
He was a tall man, over six
feet high, and broad in proportion, and he
had a bluff, rough-and-ready
face, all roughened and reddened and lined
in his long travels. His
eyebrows were very black, and moved readily,
and this gave him a look of
some temper, not bad, you would say, but quick
and high.
"Come in, Mr. Dance," says he, very stately
and condescending.
"Good evening, Dance," says the doctor with
a nod. "And good evening to
you, friend Jim. What good wind brings you
here?"
The supervisor stood up straight and stiff
and told his story like a
lesson; and you should have seen how the two
gentlemen leaned forward
and looked at each other, and forgot to smoke
in their surprise and
interest. When they heard how my mother went
back to the inn, Dr.
Livesey fairly slapped his thigh, and the
squire cried "Bravo!" and
broke his long pipe against the grate. Long
before it was done, Mr.
Trelawney (that, you will remember, was the
squire's name) had got up
from his seat and was striding about the room,
and the doctor, as if to
hear the better, had taken off his powdered
wig and sat there looking
very strange indeed with his own close-cropped
black poll.
At last Mr. Dance finished the story.
"Mr. Dance," said the squire, "you are a very
noble fellow. And as for
riding down that black, atrocious miscreant,
I regard it as an act of
virtue, sir, like stamping on a cockroach.
This lad Hawkins is a trump,
I perceive. Hawkins, will you ring that bell?
Mr. Dance must have some
ale."
"And so, Jim," said the doctor, "you have
the thing that they were
after, have you?"
"Here it is, sir," said I, and gave him the
oilskin packet.
The doctor looked it all over, as if his fingers
were itching to open
it; but instead of doing that, he put it quietly
in the pocket of his
coat.
"Squire," said he, "when Dance has had his
ale he must, of course, be
off on his Majesty's service; but I mean to
keep Jim Hawkins here to
sleep at my house, and with your permission,
I propose we should have up
the cold pie and let him sup."
"As you will, Livesey," said the squire; "Hawkins
has earned better than
cold pie."
So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put
on a sidetable, and I made
a hearty supper, for I was as hungry as a
hawk, while Mr. Dance was
further complimented and at last dismissed.
"And now, squire," said the doctor.
"And now, Livesey," said the squire in the
same breath.
"One at a time, one at a time," laughed Dr.
Livesey. "You have heard of
this Flint, I suppose?"
"Heard of him!" cried the squire. "Heard of
him, you say! He was the
bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed. Blackbeard
was a child to Flint.
The Spaniards were so prodigiously afraid
of him that, I tell you, sir,
I was sometimes proud he was an Englishman.
I've seen his top-sails with
these eyes, off Trinidad, and the cowardly
son of a rum-puncheon that I
sailed with put back--put back, sir, into
Port of Spain."
"Well, I've heard of him myself, in England,"
said the doctor. "But the
point is, had he money?"
"Money!" cried the squire. "Have you heard
the story? What were these
villains after but money? What do they care
for but money? For what
would they risk their rascal carcasses but
money?"
"That we shall soon know," replied the doctor.
"But you are so
confoundedly hot-headed and exclamatory that
I cannot get a word in.
What I want to know is this: Supposing that
I have here in my pocket
some clue to where Flint buried his treasure,
will that treasure amount
to much?"
"Amount, sir!" cried the squire. "It will
amount to this: If we have the
clue you talk about, I fit out a ship in Bristol
dock, and take you and
Hawkins here along, and I'll have that treasure
if I search a year."
"Very well," said the doctor. "Now, then,
if Jim is agreeable, we'll
open the packet"; and he laid it before him
on the table.
The bundle was sewn together, and the doctor
had to get out his
instrument case and cut the stitches with
his medical scissors. It
contained two things--a book and a sealed
paper.
"First of all we'll try the book," observed
the doctor.
The squire and I were both peering over his
shoulder as he opened
it, for Dr. Livesey had kindly motioned me
to come round from the
side-table, where I had been eating, to enjoy
the sport of the search.
On the first page there were only some scraps
of writing, such as a man
with a pen in his hand might make for idleness
or practice. One was the
same as the tattoo mark, "Billy Bones his
fancy"; then there was "Mr. W.
Bones, mate," "No more rum," "Off Palm Key
he got itt," and some other
snatches, mostly single words and unintelligible.
I could not help
wondering who it was that had "got itt," and
what "itt" was that he got.
A knife in his back as like as not.
"Not much instruction there," said Dr. Livesey
as he passed on.
The next ten or twelve pages were filled with
a curious series of
entries. There was a date at one end of the
line and at the other a
sum of money, as in common account-books,
but instead of explanatory
writing, only a varying number of crosses
between the two. On the 12th
of June, 1745, for instance, a sum of seventy
pounds had plainly become
due to someone, and there was nothing but
six crosses to explain the
cause. In a few cases, to be sure, the name
of a place would be added,
as "Offe Caraccas," or a mere entry of latitude
and longitude, as "62o
17' 20", 19o 2' 40"."
The record lasted over nearly twenty years,
the amount of the separate
entries growing larger as time went on, and
at the end a grand total
had been made out after five or six wrong
additions, and these words
appended, "Bones, his pile."
"I can't make head or tail of this," said
Dr. Livesey.
"The thing is as clear as noonday," cried
the squire. "This is the
black-hearted hound's account-book. These
crosses stand for the names of
ships or towns that they sank or plundered.
The sums are the scoundrel's
share, and where he feared an ambiguity, you
see he added something
clearer. 'Offe Caraccas,' now; you see, here
was some unhappy vessel
boarded off that coast. God help the poor
souls that manned her--coral
long ago."
"Right!" said the doctor. "See what it is
to be a traveller. Right! And
the amounts increase, you see, as he rose
in rank."
There was little else in the volume but a
few bearings of places noted
in the blank leaves towards the end and a
table for reducing French,
English, and Spanish moneys to a common value.
"Thrifty man!" cried the doctor. "He wasn't
the one to be cheated."
"And now," said the squire, "for the other."
The paper had been sealed in several places
with a thimble by way of
seal; the very thimble, perhaps, that I had
found in the captain's
pocket. The doctor opened the seals with great
care, and there fell out
the map of an island, with latitude and longitude,
soundings, names of
hills and bays and inlets, and every particular
that would be needed
to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its
shores. It was about nine
miles long and five across, shaped, you might
say, like a fat dragon
standing up, and had two fine land-locked
harbours, and a hill in the
centre part marked "The Spy-glass." There
were several additions of a
later date, but above all, three crosses of
red ink--two on the north
part of the island, one in the southwest--and
beside this last, in
the same red ink, and in a small, neat hand,
very different from the
captain's tottery characters, these words:
"Bulk of treasure here."
Over on the back the same hand had written
this further information:
Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point
to
the N. of N.N.E.
Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E.
Ten feet.
The bar silver is in the north cache; you
can find
it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms
south of the black crag with the face on it.
The arms are easy found, in the sand-hill,
N.
point of north inlet cape, bearing E. and
a
quarter N.
J.F.
That was all; but brief as it was, and to
me incomprehensible, it filled
the squire and Dr. Livesey with delight.
"Livesey," said the squire, "you will give
up this wretched practice
at once. Tomorrow I start for Bristol. In
three weeks' time--three
weeks!--two weeks--ten days--we'll have the
best ship, sir, and the
choicest crew in England. Hawkins shall come
as cabin-boy. You'll make
a famous cabin-boy, Hawkins. You, Livesey,
are ship's doctor; I am
admiral. We'll take Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter.
We'll have favourable
winds, a quick passage, and not the least
difficulty in finding the
spot, and money to eat, to roll in, to play
duck and drake with ever
after."
"Trelawney," said the doctor, "I'll go with
you; and I'll go bail for
it, so will Jim, and be a credit to the undertaking.
There's only one
man I'm afraid of."
"And who's that?" cried the squire. "Name
the dog, sir!"
"You," replied the doctor; "for you cannot
hold your tongue. We are not
the only men who know of this paper. These
fellows who attacked the
inn tonight--bold, desperate blades, for sure--and
the rest who stayed
aboard that lugger, and more, I dare say,
not far off, are, one and all,
through thick and thin, bound that they'll
get that money. We must none
of us go alone till we get to sea. Jim and
I shall stick together in the
meanwhile; you'll take Joyce and Hunter when
you ride to Bristol, and
from first to last, not one of us must breathe
a word of what we've
found."
"Livesey," returned the squire, "you are always
in the right of it. I'll
be as silent as the grave."
PART TWO--The Sea-cook
7
I Go to Bristol
IT was longer than the squire imagined ere
we were ready for the sea,
and none of our first plans--not even Dr.
Livesey's, of keeping me
beside him--could be carried out as we intended.
The doctor had to go
to London for a physician to take charge of
his practice; the squire was
hard at work at Bristol; and I lived on at
the hall under the charge of
old Redruth, the gamekeeper, almost a prisoner,
but full of sea-dreams
and the most charming anticipations of strange
islands and adventures.
I brooded by the hour together over the map,
all the details of which
I well remembered. Sitting by the fire in
the housekeeper's room, I
approached that island in my fancy from every
possible direction; I
explored every acre of its surface; I climbed
a thousand times to that
tall hill they call the Spy-glass, and from
the top enjoyed the most
wonderful and changing prospects. Sometimes
the isle was thick with
savages, with whom we fought, sometimes full
of dangerous animals that
hunted us, but in all my fancies nothing occurred
to me so strange and
tragic as our actual adventures.
So the weeks passed on, till one fine day
there came a letter addressed
to Dr. Livesey, with this addition, "To be
opened, in the case of his
absence, by Tom Redruth or young Hawkins."
Obeying this order, we
found, or rather I found--for the gamekeeper
was a poor hand at reading
anything but print--the following important
news:
Old Anchor Inn, Bristol, March 1, 17--
Dear Livesey--As I do not know whether you
are at the hall or still in London, I send
this in
double to both places.
The ship is bought and fitted. She lies at
anchor, ready for sea. You never imagined
a
sweeter schooner--a child might sail her--two
hundred tons; name, HISPANIOLA.
I got her through my old friend, Blandly,
who
has proved himself throughout the most surprising
trump. The admirable fellow literally slaved
in
my interest, and so, I may say, did everyone
in
Bristol, as soon as they got wind of the port
we
sailed for--treasure, I mean.
"Redruth," said I, interrupting the letter,
"Dr. Livesey will not like
that. The squire has been talking, after all."
"Well, who's a better right?" growled the
gamekeeper. "A pretty rum go
if squire ain't to talk for Dr. Livesey, I
should think."
At that I gave up all attempts at commentary
and read straight on:
Blandly himself found the HISPANIOLA, and
by the most admirable management got her for
the
merest trifle. There is a class of men in
Bristol
monstrously prejudiced against Blandly. They
go
the length of declaring that this honest creature
would do anything for money, that the HISPANIOLA
belonged to him, and that he sold it me absurdly
high--the most transparent calumnies. None
of them
dare, however, to deny the merits of the ship.
So far there was not a hitch. The
workpeople, to be sure--riggers and what not--were
most annoyingly slow; but time cured that.
It was
the crew that troubled me.
I wished a round score of men--in case of
natives, buccaneers, or the odious French--and
I
had the worry of the deuce itself to find
so much
as half a dozen, till the most remarkable
stroke
of fortune brought me the very man that I
required.
I was standing on the dock, when, by the
merest accident, I fell in talk with him.
I found
he was an old sailor, kept a public-house,
knew
all the seafaring men in Bristol, had lost
his
health ashore, and wanted a good berth as
cook to
get to sea again. He had hobbled down there
that
morning, he said, to get a smell of the salt.
I was monstrously touched--so would you have
been--and, out of pure pity, I engaged him
on the
spot to be ship's cook. Long John Silver,
he is
called, and has lost a leg; but that I regarded
as
a recommendation, since he lost it in his
country's service, under the immortal Hawke.
He
has no pension, Livesey. Imagine the abominable
age we live in!
Well, sir, I thought I had only found a cook,
but it was a crew I had discovered. Between
Silver and myself we got together in a few
days a
company of the toughest old salts imaginable--not
pretty to look at, but fellows, by their faces,
of
the most indomitable spirit. I declare we
could
fight a frigate.
Long John even got rid of two out of the six
or seven I had already engaged. He showed
me in a
moment that they were just the sort of fresh-water
swabs we had to fear in an adventure of
importance.
I am in the most magnificent health and
spirits, eating like a bull, sleeping like
a tree,
yet I shall not enjoy a moment till I hear
my old
tarpaulins tramping round the capstan. Seaward,
ho! Hang the treasure! It's the glory of the
sea
that has turned my head. So now, Livesey,
come
post; do not lose an hour, if you respect
me.
Let young Hawkins go at once to see his
mother, with Redruth for a guard; and then
both
come full speed to Bristol.
John Trelawney
Postscript--I did not tell you that Blandly,
who, by the way, is to send a consort after
us if
we don't turn up by the end of August, had
found
an admirable fellow for sailing master--a
stiff
man, which I regret, but in all other respects
a
treasure. Long John Silver unearthed a very
competent man for a mate, a man named Arrow.
I
have a boatswain who pipes, Livesey; so things
shall go man-o'-war fashion on board the good
ship
HISPANIOLA.
I forgot to tell you that Silver is a man
of
substance; I know of my own knowledge that
he has
a banker's account, which has never been
overdrawn. He leaves his wife to manage the
inn;
and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of
old
bachelors like you and I may be excused for
guessing that it is the wife, quite as much
as the
health, that sends him back to roving.
J. T.
P.P.S.--Hawkins may stay one night with his
mother.
J. T.
You can fancy the excitement into which that
letter put me. I was half
beside myself with glee; and if ever I despised
a man, it was old
Tom Redruth, who could do nothing but grumble
and lament. Any of the
under-gamekeepers would gladly have changed
places with him; but such
was not the squire's pleasure, and the squire's
pleasure was like law
among them all. Nobody but old Redruth would
have dared so much as even
to grumble.
The next morning he and I set out on foot
for the Admiral Benbow, and
there I found my mother in good health and
spirits. The captain, who had
so long been a cause of so much discomfort,
was gone where the wicked
cease from troubling. The squire had had everything
repaired, and the
public rooms and the sign repainted, and had
added some furniture--above
all a beautiful armchair for mother in the
bar. He had found her a boy
as an apprentice also so that she should not
want help while I was gone.
It was on seeing that boy that I understood,
for the first time, my
situation. I had thought up to that moment
of the adventures before me,
not at all of the home that I was leaving;
and now, at sight of this
clumsy stranger, who was to stay here in my
place beside my mother, I
had my first attack of tears. I am afraid
I led that boy a dog's life,
for as he was new to the work, I had a hundred
opportunities of setting
him right and putting him down, and I was
not slow to profit by them.
The night passed, and the next day, after
dinner, Redruth and I were
afoot again and on the road. I said good-bye
to Mother and the
cove where I had lived since I was born, and
the dear old Admiral
Benbow--since he was repainted, no longer
quite so dear. One of my last
thoughts was of the captain, who had so often
strode along the beach
with his cocked hat, his sabre-cut cheek,
and his old brass telescope.
Next moment we had turned the corner and my
home was out of sight.
The mail picked us up about dusk at the Royal
George on the heath. I was
wedged in between Redruth and a stout old
gentleman, and in spite of the
swift motion and the cold night air, I must
have dozed a great deal from
the very first, and then slept like a log
up hill and down dale through
stage after stage, for when I was awakened
at last it was by a punch
in the ribs, and I opened my eyes to find
that we were standing still
before a large building in a city street and
that the day had already
broken a long time.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"Bristol," said Tom. "Get down."
Mr. Trelawney had taken up his residence at
an inn far down the docks to
superintend the work upon the schooner. Thither
we had now to walk, and
our way, to my great delight, lay along the
quays and beside the great
multitude of ships of all sizes and rigs and
nations. In one, sailors
were singing at their work, in another there
were men aloft, high over
my head, hanging to threads that seemed no
thicker than a spider's.
Though I had lived by the shore all my life,
I seemed never to have been
near the sea till then. The smell of tar and
salt was something new.
I saw the most wonderful figureheads, that
had all been far over the
ocean. I saw, besides, many old sailors, with
rings in their ears, and
whiskers curled in ringlets, and tarry pigtails,
and their swaggering,
clumsy sea-walk; and if I had seen as many
kings or archbishops I could
not have been more delighted.
And I was going to sea myself, to sea in a
schooner, with a piping
boatswain and pig-tailed singing seamen, to
sea, bound for an unknown
island, and to seek for buried treasure!
While I was still in this delightful dream,
we came suddenly in front
of a large inn and met Squire Trelawney, all
dressed out like a
sea-officer, in stout blue cloth, coming out
of the door with a smile on
his face and a capital imitation of a sailor's
walk.
"Here you are," he cried, "and the doctor
came last night from London.
Bravo! The ship's company complete!"
"Oh, sir," cried I, "when do we sail?"
"Sail!" says he. "We sail tomorrow!"
8
At the Sign of the Spy-glass
WHEN I had done breakfasting the squire gave
me a note addressed to John
Silver, at the sign of the Spy-glass, and
told me I should easily
find the place by following the line of the
docks and keeping a bright
lookout for a little tavern with a large brass
telescope for sign. I
set off, overjoyed at this opportunity to
see some more of the ships and
seamen, and picked my way among a great crowd
of people and carts and
bales, for the dock was now at its busiest,
until I found the tavern in
question.
It was a bright enough little place of entertainment.
The sign was
newly painted; the windows had neat red curtains;
the floor was cleanly
sanded. There was a street on each side and
an open door on both, which
made the large, low room pretty clear to see
in, in spite of clouds of
tobacco smoke.
The customers were mostly seafaring men, and
they talked so loudly that
I hung at the door, almost afraid to enter.
As I was waiting, a man came out of a side
room, and at a glance I was
sure he must be Long John. His left leg was
cut off close by the hip,
and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch,
which he managed with
wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it
like a bird. He was very tall
and strong, with a face as big as a ham--plain
and pale, but intelligent
and smiling. Indeed, he seemed in the most
cheerful spirits, whistling
as he moved about among the tables, with a
merry word or a slap on the
shoulder for the more favoured of his guests.
Now, to tell you the truth, from the very
first mention of Long John in
Squire Trelawney's letter I had taken a fear
in my mind that he might
prove to be the very one-legged sailor whom
I had watched for so long at
the old Benbow. But one look at the man before
me was enough. I had seen
the captain, and Black Dog, and the blind
man, Pew, and I thought I knew
what a buccaneer was like--a very different
creature, according to me,
from this clean and pleasant-tempered landlord.
I plucked up courage at once, crossed the
threshold, and walked right up
to the man where he stood, propped on his
crutch, talking to a customer.
"Mr. Silver, sir?" I asked, holding out the
note.
"Yes, my lad," said he; "such is my name,
to be sure. And who may you
be?" And then as he saw the squire's letter,
he seemed to me to give
something almost like a start.
"Oh!" said he, quite loud, and offering his
hand. "I see. You are our
new cabin-boy; pleased I am to see you."
And he took my hand in his large firm grasp.
Just then one of the customers at the far
side rose suddenly and made
for the door. It was close by him, and he
was out in the street in a
moment. But his hurry had attracted my notice,
and I recognized him at
glance. It was the tallow-faced man, wanting
two fingers, who had come
first to the Admiral Benbow.
"Oh," I cried, "stop him! It's Black Dog!"
"I don't care two coppers who he is," cried
Silver. "But he hasn't paid
his score. Harry, run and catch him."
One of the others who was nearest the door
leaped up and started in
pursuit.
"If he were Admiral Hawke he shall pay his
score," cried Silver; and
then, relinquishing my hand, "Who did you
say he was?" he asked. "Black
what?"
"Dog, sir," said I. "Has Mr. Trelawney not
told you of the buccaneers?
He was one of them."
"So?" cried Silver. "In my house! Ben, run
and help Harry. One of those
swabs, was he? Was that you drinking with
him, Morgan? Step up here."
The man whom he called Morgan--an old, grey-haired,
mahogany-faced
sailor--came forward pretty sheepishly, rolling
his quid.
"Now, Morgan," said Long John very sternly,
"you never clapped your eyes
on that Black--Black Dog before, did you,
now?"
"Not I, sir," said Morgan with a salute.
"You didn't know his name, did you?"
"No, sir."
"By the powers, Tom Morgan, it's as good for
you!" exclaimed the
landlord. "If you had been mixed up with the
like of that, you would
never have put another foot in my house, you
may lay to that. And what
was he saying to you?"
"I don't rightly know, sir," answered Morgan.
"Do you call that a head on your shoulders,
or a blessed dead-eye?"
cried Long John. "Don't rightly know, don't
you! Perhaps you don't
happen to rightly know who you was speaking
to, perhaps? Come, now, what
was he jawing--v'yages, cap'ns, ships? Pipe
up! What was it?"
"We was a-talkin' of keel-hauling," answered
Morgan.
"Keel-hauling, was you? And a mighty suitable
thing, too, and you may
lay to that. Get back to your place for a
lubber, Tom."
And then, as Morgan rolled back to his seat,
Silver added to me in a
confidential whisper that was very flattering,
as I thought, "He's
quite an honest man, Tom Morgan, on'y stupid.
And now," he ran on again,
aloud, "let's see--Black Dog? No, I don't
know the name, not I. Yet I
kind of think I've--yes, I've seen the swab.
He used to come here with a
blind beggar, he used."
"That he did, you may be sure," said I. "I
knew that blind man too. His
name was Pew."
"It was!" cried Silver, now quite excited.
"Pew! That were his name for
certain. Ah, he looked a shark, he did! If
we run down this Black Dog,
now, there'll be news for Cap'n Trelawney!
Ben's a good runner; few
seamen run better than Ben. He should run
him down, hand over hand, by
the powers! He talked o' keel-hauling, did
he? I'LL keel-haul him!"
All the time he was jerking out these phrases
he was stumping up and
down the tavern on his crutch, slapping tables
with his hand, and giving
such a show of excitement as would have convinced
an Old Bailey judge
or a Bow Street runner. My suspicions had
been thoroughly reawakened on
finding Black Dog at the Spy-glass, and I
watched the cook narrowly. But
he was too deep, and too ready, and too clever
for me, and by the time
the two men had come back out of breath and
confessed that they had lost
the track in a crowd, and been scolded like
thieves, I would have gone
bail for the innocence of Long John Silver.
"See here, now, Hawkins," said he, "here's
a blessed hard thing on a
man like me, now, ain't it? There's Cap'n
Trelawney--what's he to think?
Here I have this confounded son of a Dutchman
sitting in my own house
drinking of my own rum! Here you comes and
tells me of it plain; and
here I let him give us all the slip before
my blessed deadlights! Now,
Hawkins, you do me justice with the cap'n.
You're a lad, you are, but
you're as smart as paint. I see that when
you first come in. Now, here
it is: What could I do, with this old timber
I hobble on? When I was an
A B master mariner I'd have come up alongside
of him, hand over hand,
and broached him to in a brace of old shakes,
I would; but now--"
And then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and
his jaw dropped as though he
had remembered something.
"The score!" he burst out. "Three goes o'
rum! Why, shiver my timbers,
if I hadn't forgotten my score!"
And falling on a bench, he laughed until the
tears ran down his cheeks.
I could not help joining, and we laughed together,
peal after peal,
until the tavern rang again.
"Why, what a precious old sea-calf I am!"
he said at last, wiping his
cheeks. "You and me should get on well, Hawkins,
for I'll take my davy
I should be rated ship's boy. But come now,
stand by to go about. This
won't do. Dooty is dooty, messmates. I'll
put on my old cockerel hat,
and step along of you to Cap'n Trelawney,
and report this here affair.
For mind you, it's serious, young Hawkins;
and neither you nor me's come
out of it with what I should make so bold
as to call credit. Nor you
neither, says you; not smart--none of the
pair of us smart. But dash my
buttons! That was a good un about my score."
And he began to laugh again, and that so heartily,
that though I did not
see the joke as he did, I was again obliged
to join him in his mirth.
On our little walk along the quays, he made
himself the most interesting
companion, telling me about the different
ships that we passed by,
their rig, tonnage, and nationality, explaining
the work that was going
forward--how one was discharging, another
taking in cargo, and a third
making ready for sea--and every now and then
telling me some little
anecdote of ships or seamen or repeating a
nautical phrase till I had
learned it perfectly. I began to see that
here was one of the best of
possible shipmates.
When we got to the inn, the squire and Dr.
Livesey were seated together,
finishing a quart of ale with a toast in it,
before they should go
aboard the schooner on a visit of inspection.
Long John told the story from first to last,
with a great deal of spirit
and the most perfect truth. "That was how
it were, now, weren't it,
Hawkins?" he would say, now and again, and
I could always bear him
entirely out.
The two gentlemen regretted that Black Dog
had got away, but we all
agreed there was nothing to be done, and after
he had been complimented,
Long John took up his crutch and departed.
"All hands aboard by four this afternoon,"
shouted the squire after him.
"Aye, aye, sir," cried the cook, in the passage.
"Well, squire," said Dr. Livesey, "I don't
put much faith in your
discoveries, as a general thing; but I will
say this, John Silver suits
me."
"The man's a perfect trump," declared the
squire.
"And now," added the doctor, "Jim may come
on board with us, may he
not?"
"To be sure he may," says squire. "Take your
hat, Hawkins, and we'll see
the ship."
9
Powder and Arms
THE HISPANIOLA lay some way out, and we went
under the figureheads and
round the sterns of many other ships, and
their cables sometimes grated
underneath our keel, and sometimes swung above
us. At last, however,
we got alongside, and were met and saluted
as we stepped aboard by the
mate, Mr. Arrow, a brown old sailor with earrings
in his ears and a
squint. He and the squire were very thick
and friendly, but I soon
observed that things were not the same between
Mr. Trelawney and the
captain.
This last was a sharp-looking man who seemed
angry with everything on
board and was soon to tell us why, for we
had hardly got down into the
cabin when a sailor followed us.
"Captain Smollett, sir, axing to speak with
you," said he.
"I am always at the captain's orders. Show
him in," said the squire.
The captain, who was close behind his messenger,
entered at once and
shut the door behind him.
"Well, Captain Smollett, what have you to
say? All well, I hope; all
shipshape and seaworthy?"
"Well, sir," said the captain, "better speak
plain, I believe, even at
the risk of offence. I don't like this cruise;
I don't like the men; and
I don't like my officer. That's short and
sweet."
"Perhaps, sir, you don't like the ship?" inquired
the squire, very
angry, as I could see.
"I can't speak as to that, sir, not having
seen her tried," said the
captain. "She seems a clever craft; more I
can't say."
"Possibly, sir, you may not like your employer,
either?" says the
squire.
But here Dr. Livesey cut in.
"Stay a bit," said he, "stay a bit. No use
of such questions as that but
to produce ill feeling. The captain has said
too much or he has said too
little, and I'm bound to say that I require
an explanation of his words.
You don't, you say, like this cruise. Now,
why?"
"I was engaged, sir, on what we call sealed
orders, to sail this ship
for that gentleman where he should bid me,"
said the captain. "So far
so good. But now I find that every man before
the mast knows more than I
do. I don't call that fair, now, do you?"
"No," said Dr. Livesey, "I don't."
"Next," said the captain, "I learn we are
going after treasure--hear
it from my own hands, mind you. Now, treasure
is ticklish work; I don't
like treasure voyages on any account, and
I don't like them, above all,
when they are secret and when (begging your
pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the
secret has been told to the parrot."
"Silver's parrot?" asked the squire.
"It's a way of speaking," said the captain.
"Blabbed, I mean. It's my
belief neither of you gentlemen know what
you are about, but I'll tell
you my way of it--life or death, and a close
run."
"That is all clear, and, I dare say, true
enough," replied Dr. Livesey.
"We take the risk, but we are not so ignorant
as you believe us. Next,
you say you don't like the crew. Are they
not good seamen?"
"I don't like them, sir," returned Captain
Smollett. "And I think I
should have had the choosing of my own hands,
if you go to that."
"Perhaps you should," replied the doctor.
"My friend should, perhaps,
have taken you along with him; but the slight,
if there be one, was
unintentional. And you don't like Mr. Arrow?"
"I don't, sir. I believe he's a good seaman,
but he's too free with
the crew to be a good officer. A mate should
keep himself to
himself--shouldn't drink with the men before
the mast!"
"Do you mean he drinks?" cried the squire.
"No, sir," replied the captain, "only that
he's too familiar."
"Well, now, and the short and long of it,
captain?" asked the doctor.
"Tell us what you want."
"Well, gentlemen, are you determined to go
on this cruise?"
"Like iron," answered the squire.
"Very good," said the captain. "Then, as you've
heard me very patiently,
saying things that I could not prove, hear
me a few words more. They are
putting the powder and the arms in the fore
hold. Now, you have a good
place under the cabin; why not put them there?--first
point. Then, you
are bringing four of your own people with
you, and they tell me some of
them are to be berthed forward. Why not give
them the berths here beside
the cabin?--second point."
"Any more?" asked Mr. Trelawney.
"One more," said the captain. "There's been
too much blabbing already."
"Far too much," agreed the doctor.
"I'll tell you what I've heard myself," continued
Captain Smollett:
"that you have a map of an island, that there's
crosses on the map to
show where treasure is, and that the island
lies--" And then he named
the latitude and longitude exactly.
"I never told that," cried the squire, "to
a soul!"
"The hands know it, sir," returned the captain.
"Livesey, that must have been you or Hawkins,"
cried the squire.
"It doesn't much matter who it was," replied
the doctor. And I could
see that neither he nor the captain paid much
regard to Mr. Trelawney's
protestations. Neither did I, to be sure,
he was so loose a talker; yet
in this case I believe he was really right
and that nobody had told the
situation of the island.
"Well, gentlemen," continued the captain,
"I don't know who has this
map; but I make it a point, it shall be kept
secret even from me and Mr.
Arrow. Otherwise I would ask you to let me
resign."
"I see," said the doctor. "You wish us to
keep this matter dark and to
make a garrison of the stern part of the ship,
manned with my friend's
own people, and provided with all the arms
and powder on board. In other
words, you fear a mutiny."
"Sir," said Captain Smollett, "with no intention
to take offence, I
deny your right to put words into my mouth.
No captain, sir, would be
justified in going to sea at all if he had
ground enough to say that. As
for Mr. Arrow, I believe him thoroughly honest;
some of the men are the
same; all may be for what I know. But I am
responsible for the ship's
safety and the life of every man Jack aboard
of her. I see things going,
as I think, not quite right. And I ask you
to take certain precautions
or let me resign my berth. And that's all."
"Captain Smollett," began the doctor with
a smile, "did ever you hear
the fable of the mountain and the mouse? You'll
excuse me, I dare say,
but you remind me of that fable. When you
came in here, I'll stake my
wig, you meant more than this."
"Doctor," said the captain, "you are smart.
When I came in here I meant
to get discharged. I had no thought that Mr.
Trelawney would hear a
word."
"No more I would," cried the squire. "Had
Livesey not been here I should
have seen you to the deuce. As it is, I have
heard you. I will do as you
desire, but I think the worse of you."
"That's as you please, sir," said the captain.
"You'll find I do my
duty."
And with that he took his leave.
"Trelawney," said the doctor, "contrary to
all my notions, I believed
you have managed to get two honest men on
board with you--that man and
John Silver."
"Silver, if you like," cried the squire; "but
as for that intolerable
humbug, I declare I think his conduct unmanly,
unsailorly, and downright
un-English."
"Well," says the doctor, "we shall see."
When we came on deck, the men had begun already
to take out the arms and
powder, yo-ho-ing at their work, while the
captain and Mr. Arrow stood
by superintending.
The new arrangement was quite to my liking.
The whole schooner had been
overhauled; six berths had been made astern
out of what had been the
after-part of the main hold; and this set
of cabins was only joined to
the galley and forecastle by a sparred passage
on the port side. It had
been originally meant that the captain, Mr.
Arrow, Hunter, Joyce, the
doctor, and the squire were to occupy these
six berths. Now Redruth and
I were to get two of them and Mr. Arrow and
the captain were to sleep
on deck in the companion, which had been enlarged
on each side till you
might almost have called it a round-house.
Very low it was still, of
course; but there was room to swing two hammocks,
and even the mate
seemed pleased with the arrangement. Even
he, perhaps, had been doubtful
as to the crew, but that is only guess, for
as you shall hear, we had
not long the benefit of his opinion.
We were all hard at work, changing the powder
and the berths, when
the last man or two, and Long John along with
them, came off in a
shore-boat.
The cook came up the side like a monkey for
cleverness, and as soon as
he saw what was doing, "So ho, mates!" says
he. "What's this?"
"We're a-changing of the powder, Jack," answers
one.
"Why, by the powers," cried Long John, "if
we do, we'll miss the morning
tide!"
"My orders!" said the captain shortly. "You
may go below, my man. Hands
will want supper."
"Aye, aye, sir," answered the cook, and touching
his forelock, he
disappeared at once in the direction of his
galley.
"That's a good man, captain," said the doctor.
"Very likely, sir," replied Captain Smollett.
"Easy with that,
men--easy," he ran on, to the fellows who
were shifting the powder; and
then suddenly observing me examining the swivel
we carried amidships,
a long brass nine, "Here you, ship's boy,"
he cried, "out o' that! Off
with you to the cook and get some work."
And then as I was hurrying off I heard him
say, quite loudly, to the
doctor, "I'll have no favourites on my ship."
I assure you I was quite of the squire's way
of thinking, and hated the
captain deeply.
10
The Voyage
ALL that night we were in a great bustle getting
things stowed in their
place, and boatfuls of the squire's friends,
Mr. Blandly and the like,
coming off to wish him a good voyage and a
safe return. We never had
a night at the Admiral Benbow when I had half
the work; and I was
dog-tired when, a little before dawn, the
boatswain sounded his pipe
and the crew began to man the capstan-bars.
I might have been twice
as weary, yet I would not have left the deck,
all was so new and
interesting to me--the brief commands, the
shrill note of the whistle,
the men bustling to their places in the glimmer
of the ship's lanterns.
"Now, Barbecue, tip us a stave," cried one
voice.
"The old one," cried another.
"Aye, aye, mates," said Long John, who was
standing by, with his crutch
under his arm, and at once broke out in the
air and words I knew so
well:
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--"
And then the whole crew bore chorus:--
"Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
And at the third "Ho!" drove the bars before
them with a will.
Even at that exciting moment it carried me
back to the old Admiral
Benbow in a second, and I seemed to hear the
voice of the captain piping
in the chorus. But soon the anchor was short
up; soon it was hanging
dripping at the bows; soon the sails began
to draw, and the land and
shipping to flit by on either side; and before
I could lie down to
snatch an hour of slumber the HISPANIOLA had
begun her voyage to the
Isle of Treasure.
I am not going to relate that voyage in detail.
It was fairly
prosperous. The ship proved to be a good ship,
the crew were capable
seamen, and the captain thoroughly understood
his business. But before
we came the length of Treasure Island, two
or three things had happened
which require to be known.
Mr. Arrow, first of all, turned out even worse
than the captain had
feared. He had no command among the men, and
people did what they
pleased with him. But that was by no means
the worst of it, for after a
day or two at sea he began to appear on deck
with hazy eye, red cheeks,
stuttering tongue, and other marks of drunkenness.
Time after time
he was ordered below in disgrace. Sometimes
he fell and cut himself;
sometimes he lay all day long in his little
bunk at one side of the
companion; sometimes for a day or two he would
be almost sober and
attend to his work at least passably.
In the meantime, we could never make out where
he got the drink. That
was the ship's mystery. Watch him as we pleased,
we could do nothing to
solve it; and when we asked him to his face,
he would only laugh if
he were drunk, and if he were sober deny solemnly
that he ever tasted
anything but water.
He was not only useless as an officer and
a bad influence amongst
the men, but it was plain that at this rate
he must soon kill himself
outright, so nobody was much surprised, nor
very sorry, when one dark
night, with a head sea, he disappeared entirely
and was seen no more.
"Overboard!" said the captain. "Well, gentlemen,
that saves the trouble
of putting him in irons."
But there we were, without a mate; and it
was necessary, of course, to
advance one of the men. The boatswain, Job
Anderson, was the likeliest
man aboard, and though he kept his old title,
he served in a way as
mate. Mr. Trelawney had followed the sea,
and his knowledge made him
very useful, for he often took a watch himself
in easy weather. And the
coxswain, Israel Hands, was a careful, wily,
old, experienced seaman who
could be trusted at a pinch with almost anything.
He was a great confidant of Long John Silver,
and so the mention of
his name leads me on to speak of our ship's
cook, Barbecue, as the men
called him.
Aboard ship he carried his crutch by a lanyard
round his neck, to have
both hands as free as possible. It was something
to see him wedge the
foot of the crutch against a bulkhead, and
propped against it, yielding
to every movement of the ship, get on with
his cooking like someone safe
ashore. Still more strange was it to see him
in the heaviest of weather
cross the deck. He had a line or two rigged
up to help him across the
widest spaces--Long John's earrings, they
were called; and he would hand
himself from one place to another, now using
the crutch, now trailing it
alongside by the lanyard, as quickly as another
man could walk. Yet some
of the men who had sailed with him before
expressed their pity to see
him so reduced.
"He's no common man, Barbecue," said the coxswain
to me. "He had good
schooling in his young days and can speak
like a book when so minded;
and brave--a lion's nothing alongside of Long
John! I seen him grapple
four and knock their heads together--him unarmed."
All the crew respected and even obeyed him.
He had a way of talking
to each and doing everybody some particular
service. To me he was
unweariedly kind, and always glad to see me
in the galley, which he kept
as clean as a new pin, the dishes hanging
up burnished and his parrot in
a cage in one corner.
"Come away, Hawkins," he would say; "come
and have a yarn with John.
Nobody more welcome than yourself, my son.
Sit you down and hear the
news. Here's Cap'n Flint--I calls my parrot
Cap'n Flint, after the
famous buccaneer--here's Cap'n Flint predicting
success to our v'yage.
Wasn't you, cap'n?"
And the parrot would say, with great rapidity,
"Pieces of eight! Pieces
of eight! Pieces of eight!" till you wondered
that it was not out of
breath, or till John threw his handkerchief
over the cage.
"Now, that bird," he would say, "is, maybe,
two hundred years
old, Hawkins--they live forever mostly; and
if anybody's seen more
wickedness, it must be the devil himself.
She's sailed with England,
the great Cap'n England, the pirate. She's
been at Madagascar, and at
Malabar, and Surinam, and Providence, and
Portobello. She was at the
fishing up of the wrecked plate ships. It's
there she learned 'Pieces
of eight,' and little wonder; three hundred
and fifty thousand of 'em,
Hawkins! She was at the boarding of the viceroy
of the Indies out of
Goa, she was; and to look at her you would
think she was a babby. But
you smelt powder--didn't you, cap'n?"
"Stand by to go about," the parrot would scream.
"Ah, she's a handsome craft, she is," the
cook would say, and give her
sugar from his pocket, and then the bird would
peck at the bars and
swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness.
"There," John would
add, "you can't touch pitch and not be mucked,
lad. Here's this poor old
innocent bird o' mine swearing blue fire,
and none the wiser, you may
lay to that. She would swear the same, in
a manner of speaking, before
chaplain." And John would touch his forelock
with a solemn way he had
that made me think he was the best of men.
In the meantime, the squire and Captain Smollett
were still on pretty
distant terms with one another. The squire
made no bones about the
matter; he despised the captain. The captain,
on his part, never spoke
but when he was spoken to, and then sharp
and short and dry, and not a
word wasted. He owned, when driven into a
corner, that he seemed to have
been wrong about the crew, that some of them
were as brisk as he wanted
to see and all had behaved fairly well. As
for the ship, he had taken a
downright fancy to her. "She'll lie a point
nearer the wind than a man
has a right to expect of his own married wife,
sir. But," he would add,
"all I say is, we're not home again, and I
don't like the cruise."
The squire, at this, would turn away and march
up and down the deck,
chin in air.
"A trifle more of that man," he would say,
"and I shall explode."
We had some heavy weather, which only proved
the qualities of the
HISPANIOLA. Every man on board seemed well
content, and they must have
been hard to please if they had been otherwise,
for it is my belief
there was never a ship's company so spoiled
since Noah put to sea.
Double grog was going on the least excuse;
there was duff on odd days,
as, for instance, if the squire heard it was
any man's birthday, and
always a barrel of apples standing broached
in the waist for anyone to
help himself that had a fancy.
"Never knew good come of it yet," the captain
said to Dr. Livesey.
"Spoil forecastle hands, make devils. That's
my belief."
But good did come of the apple barrel, as
you shall hear, for if it had
not been for that, we should have had no note
of warning and might all
have perished by the hand of treachery.
This was how it came about.
We had run up the trades to get the wind of
the island we were after--I
am not allowed to be more plain--and now we
were running down for it
with a bright lookout day and night. It was
about the last day of our
outward voyage by the largest computation;
some time that night, or at
latest before noon of the morrow, we should
sight the Treasure Island.
We were heading S.S.W. and had a steady breeze
abeam and a quiet sea.
The HISPANIOLA rolled steadily, dipping her
bowsprit now and then with
a whiff of spray. All was drawing alow and
aloft; everyone was in the
bravest spirits because we were now so near
an end of the first part of
our adventure.
Now, just after sundown, when all my work
was over and I was on my way
to my berth, it occurred to me that I should
like an apple. I ran on
deck. The watch was all forward looking out
for the island. The man at
the helm was watching the luff of the sail
and whistling away gently
to himself, and that was the only sound excepting
the swish of the sea
against the bows and around the sides of the
ship.
In I got bodily into the apple barrel, and
found there was scarce an
apple left; but sitting down there in the
dark, what with the sound of
the waters and the rocking movement of the
ship, I had either fallen
asleep or was on the point of doing so when
a heavy man sat down with
rather a clash close by. The barrel shook
as he leaned his shoulders
against it, and I was just about to jump up
when the man began to speak.
It was Silver's voice, and before I had heard
a dozen words, I would
not have shown myself for all the world, but
lay there, trembling and
listening, in the extreme of fear and curiosity,
for from these dozen
words I understood that the lives of all the
honest men aboard depended
upon me alone.
11
What I Heard in the Apple Barrel
"NO, not I," said Silver. "Flint was cap'n;
I was quartermaster, along
of my timber leg. The same broadside I lost
my leg, old Pew lost his
deadlights. It was a master surgeon, him that
ampytated me--out of
college and all--Latin by the bucket, and
what not; but he was hanged
like a dog, and sun-dried like the rest, at
Corso Castle. That
was Roberts' men, that was, and comed of changing
names to their
ships--ROYAL FORTUNE and so on. Now, what
a ship was christened, so let
her stay, I says. So it was with the CASSANDRA,
as brought us all safe
home from Malabar, after England took the
viceroy of the Indies; so it
was with the old WALRUS, Flint's old ship,
as I've seen amuck with the
red blood and fit to sink with gold."
"Ah!" cried another voice, that of the youngest
hand on board, and
evidently full of admiration. "He was the
flower of the flock, was
Flint!"
"Davis was a man too, by all accounts," said
Silver. "I never sailed
along of him; first with England, then with
Flint, that's my story;
and now here on my own account, in a manner
of speaking. I laid by nine
hundred safe, from England, and two thousand
after Flint. That ain't bad
for a man before the mast--all safe in bank.
'Tain't earning now, it's
saving does it, you may lay to that. Where's
all England's men now? I
dunno. Where's Flint's? Why, most on 'em aboard
here, and glad to get
the duff--been begging before that, some on
'em. Old Pew, as had lost
his sight, and might have thought shame, spends
twelve hundred pound in
a year, like a lord in Parliament. Where is
he now? Well, he's dead now
and under hatches; but for two year before
that, shiver my timbers,
the man was starving! He begged, and he stole,
and he cut throats, and
starved at that, by the powers!"
"Well, it ain't much use, after all," said
the young seaman.
"'Tain't much use for fools, you may lay to
it--that, nor nothing,"
cried Silver. "But now, you look here: you're
young, you are, but you're
as smart as paint. I see that when I set my
eyes on you, and I'll talk
to you like a man."
You may imagine how I felt when I heard this
abominable old rogue
addressing another in the very same words
of flattery as he had used
to myself. I think, if I had been able, that
I would have killed
him through the barrel. Meantime, he ran on,
little supposing he was
overheard.
"Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They
lives rough, and they risk
swinging, but they eat and drink like fighting-cocks,
and when a cruise
is done, why, it's hundreds of pounds instead
of hundreds of farthings
in their pockets. Now, the most goes for rum
and a good fling, and to
sea again in their shirts. But that's not
the course I lay. I puts it
all away, some here, some there, and none
too much anywheres, by reason
of suspicion. I'm fifty, mark you; once back
from this cruise, I set up
gentleman in earnest. Time enough too, says
you. Ah, but I've lived easy
in the meantime, never denied myself o' nothing
heart desires, and slep'
soft and ate dainty all my days but when at
sea. And how did I begin?
Before the mast, like you!"
"Well," said the other, "but all the other
money's gone now, ain't it?
You daren't show face in Bristol after this."
"Why, where might you suppose it was?" asked
Silver derisively.
"At Bristol, in banks and places," answered
his companion.
"It were," said the cook; "it were when we
weighed anchor. But my old
missis has it all by now. And the Spy-glass
is sold, lease and goodwill
and rigging; and the old girl's off to meet
me. I would tell you where,
for I trust you, but it'd make jealousy among
the mates."
"And can you trust your missis?" asked the
other.
"Gentlemen of fortune," returned the cook,
"usually trusts little among
themselves, and right they are, you may lay
to it. But I have a way with
me, I have. When a mate brings a slip on his
cable--one as knows me, I
mean--it won't be in the same world with old
John. There was some that
was feared of Pew, and some that was feared
of Flint; but Flint his own
self was feared of me. Feared he was, and
proud. They was the roughest
crew afloat, was Flint's; the devil himself
would have been feared to go
to sea with them. Well now, I tell you, I'm
not a boasting man, and you
seen yourself how easy I keep company, but
when I was quartermaster,
LAMBS wasn't the word for Flint's old buccaneers.
Ah, you may be sure of
yourself in old John's ship."
"Well, I tell you now," replied the lad, "I
didn't half a quarter like
the job till I had this talk with you, John;
but there's my hand on it
now."
"And a brave lad you were, and smart too,"
answered Silver, shaking
hands so heartily that all the barrel shook,
"and a finer figurehead for
a gentleman of fortune I never clapped my
eyes on."
By this time I had begun to understand the
meaning of their terms. By a
"gentleman of fortune" they plainly meant
neither more nor less than a
common pirate, and the little scene that I
had overheard was the last
act in the corruption of one of the honest
hands--perhaps of the last
one left aboard. But on this point I was soon
to be relieved, for Silver
giving a little whistle, a third man strolled
up and sat down by the
party.
"Dick's square," said Silver.
"Oh, I know'd Dick was square," returned the
voice of the coxswain,
Israel Hands. "He's no fool, is Dick." And
he turned his quid and spat.
"But look here," he went on, "here's what
I want to know, Barbecue: how
long are we a-going to stand off and on like
a blessed bumboat? I've had
a'most enough o' Cap'n Smollett; he's hazed
me long enough, by thunder!
I want to go into that cabin, I do. I want
their pickles and wines, and
that."
"Israel," said Silver, "your head ain't much
account, nor ever was. But
you're able to hear, I reckon; leastways,
your ears is big enough.
Now, here's what I say: you'll berth forward,
and you'll live hard, and
you'll speak soft, and you'll keep sober till
I give the word; and you
may lay to that, my son."
"Well, I don't say no, do I?" growled the
coxswain. "What I say is,
when? That's what I say."
"When! By the powers!" cried Silver. "Well
now, if you want to know,
I'll tell you when. The last moment I can
manage, and that's when.
Here's a first-rate seaman, Cap'n Smollett,
sails the blessed ship for
us. Here's this squire and doctor with a map
and such--I don't know
where it is, do I? No more do you, says you.
Well then, I mean this
squire and doctor shall find the stuff, and
help us to get it aboard,
by the powers. Then we'll see. If I was sure
of you all, sons of double
Dutchmen, I'd have Cap'n Smollett navigate
us half-way back again before
I struck."
"Why, we're all seamen aboard here, I should
think," said the lad Dick.
"We're all forecastle hands, you mean," snapped
Silver. "We can steer
a course, but who's to set one? That's what
all you gentlemen split on,
first and last. If I had my way, I'd have
Cap'n Smollett work us back
into the trades at least; then we'd have no
blessed miscalculations and
a spoonful of water a day. But I know the
sort you are. I'll finish with
'em at the island, as soon's the blunt's on
board, and a pity it is. But
you're never happy till you're drunk. Split
my sides, I've a sick heart
to sail with the likes of you!"
"Easy all, Long John," cried Israel. "Who's
a-crossin' of you?"
"Why, how many tall ships, think ye, now,
have I seen laid aboard? And
how many brisk lads drying in the sun at Execution
Dock?" cried Silver.
"And all for this same hurry and hurry and
hurry. You hear me? I seen
a thing or two at sea, I have. If you would
on'y lay your course, and a
p'int to windward, you would ride in carriages,
you would. But not you!
I know you. You'll have your mouthful of rum
tomorrow, and go hang."
"Everybody knowed you was a kind of a chapling,
John; but there's others
as could hand and steer as well as you," said
Israel. "They liked a bit
o' fun, they did. They wasn't so high and
dry, nohow, but took their
fling, like jolly companions every one."
"So?" says Silver. "Well, and where are they
now? Pew was that sort,
and he died a beggar-man. Flint was, and he
died of rum at Savannah. Ah,
they was a sweet crew, they was! On'y, where
are they?"
"But," asked Dick, "when we do lay 'em athwart,
what are we to do with
'em, anyhow?"
"There's the man for me!" cried the cook admiringly.
"That's what I call
business. Well, what would you think? Put
'em ashore like maroons? That
would have been England's way. Or cut 'em
down like that much pork? That
would have been Flint's, or Billy Bones's."
"Billy was the man for that," said Israel.
"'Dead men don't bite,' says
he. Well, he's dead now hisself; he knows
the long and short on it now;
and if ever a rough hand come to port, it
was Billy."
"Right you are," said Silver; "rough and ready.
But mark you here,
I'm an easy man--I'm quite the gentleman,
says you; but this time it's
serious. Dooty is dooty, mates. I give my
vote--death. When I'm in
Parlyment and riding in my coach, I don't
want none of these sea-lawyers
in the cabin a-coming home, unlooked for,
like the devil at prayers.
Wait is what I say; but when the time comes,
why, let her rip!"
"John," cries the coxswain, "you're a man!"
"You'll say so, Israel when you see," said
Silver. "Only one thing I
claim--I claim Trelawney. I'll wring his calf's
head off his body with
these hands, Dick!" he added, breaking off.
"You just jump up, like a
sweet lad, and get me an apple, to wet my
pipe like."
You may fancy the terror I was in! I should
have leaped out and run for
it if I had found the strength, but my limbs
and heart alike misgave me.
I heard Dick begin to rise, and then someone
seemingly stopped him, and
the voice of Hands exclaimed, "Oh, stow that!
Don't you get sucking of
that bilge, John. Let's have a go of the rum."
"Dick," said Silver, "I trust you. I've a
gauge on the keg, mind.
There's the key; you fill a pannikin and bring
it up."
Terrified as I was, I could not help thinking
to myself that this must
have been how Mr. Arrow got the strong waters
that destroyed him.
Dick was gone but a little while, and during
his absence Israel spoke
straight on in the cook's ear. It was but
a word or two that I could
catch, and yet I gathered some important news,
for besides other scraps
that tended to the same purpose, this whole
clause was audible: "Not
another man of them'll jine." Hence there
were still faithful men on
board.
When Dick returned, one after another of the
trio took the pannikin and
drank--one "To luck," another with a "Here's
to old Flint," and Silver
himself saying, in a kind of song, "Here's
to ourselves, and hold your
luff, plenty of prizes and plenty of duff."
Just then a sort of brightness fell upon me
in the barrel, and looking
up, I found the moon had risen and was silvering
the mizzen-top and
shining white on the luff of the fore-sail;
and almost at the same time
the voice of the lookout shouted, "Land ho!"
12
Council of War
THERE was a great rush of feet across the
deck. I could hear people
tumbling up from the cabin and the forecastle,
and slipping in an
instant outside my barrel, I dived behind
the fore-sail, made a double
towards the stern, and came out upon the open
deck in time to join
Hunter and Dr. Livesey in the rush for the
weather bow.
There all hands were already congregated.
A belt of fog had lifted
almost simultaneously with the appearance
of the moon. Away to the
south-west of us we saw two low hills, about
a couple of miles apart,
and rising behind one of them a third and
higher hill, whose peak was
still buried in the fog. All three seemed
sharp and conical in figure.
So much I saw, almost in a dream, for I had
not yet recovered from my
horrid fear of a minute or two before. And
then I heard the voice of
Captain Smollett issuing orders. The HISPANIOLA
was laid a couple of
points nearer the wind and now sailed a course
that would just clear the
island on the east.
"And now, men," said the captain, when all
was sheeted home, "has any
one of you ever seen that land ahead?"
"I have, sir," said Silver. "I've watered
there with a trader I was cook
in."
"The anchorage is on the south, behind an
islet, I fancy?" asked the
captain.
"Yes, sir; Skeleton Island they calls it.
It were a main place for
pirates once, and a hand we had on board knowed
all their names for it.
That hill to the nor'ard they calls the Fore-mast
Hill; there are three
hills in a row running south'ard--fore, main,
and mizzen, sir. But the
main--that's the big un, with the cloud on
it--they usually calls
the Spy-glass, by reason of a lookout they
kept when they was in the
anchorage cleaning, for it's there they cleaned
their ships, sir, asking
your pardon."
"I have a chart here," says Captain Smollett.
"See if that's the place."
Long John's eyes burned in his head as he
took the chart, but by the
fresh look of the paper I knew he was doomed
to disappointment. This
was not the map we found in Billy Bones's
chest, but an accurate copy,
complete in all things--names and heights
and soundings--with the single
exception of the red crosses and the written
notes. Sharp as must have
been his annoyance, Silver had the strength
of mind to hide it.
"Yes, sir," said he, "this is the spot, to
be sure, and very prettily
drawed out. Who might have done that, I wonder?
The pirates were too
ignorant, I reckon. Aye, here it is: 'Capt.
Kidd's Anchorage'--just
the name my shipmate called it. There's a
strong current runs along the
south, and then away nor'ard up the west coast.
Right you was, sir,"
says he, "to haul your wind and keep the weather
of the island.
Leastways, if such was your intention as to
enter and careen, and there
ain't no better place for that in these waters."
"Thank you, my man," says Captain Smollett.
"I'll ask you later on to
give us a help. You may go."
I was surprised at the coolness with which
John avowed his knowledge
of the island, and I own I was half-frightened
when I saw him drawing
nearer to myself. He did not know, to be sure,
that I had overheard his
council from the apple barrel, and yet I had
by this time taken such a
horror of his cruelty, duplicity, and power
that I could scarce conceal
a shudder when he laid his hand upon my arm.
"Ah," says he, "this here is a sweet spot,
this island--a sweet spot for
a lad to get ashore on. You'll bathe, and
you'll climb trees, and you'll
hunt goats, you will; and you'll get aloft
on them hills like a goat
yourself. Why, it makes me young again. I
was going to forget my timber
leg, I was. It's a pleasant thing to be young
and have ten toes, and you
may lay to that. When you want to go a bit
of exploring, you just ask
old John, and he'll put up a snack for you
to take along."
And clapping me in the friendliest way upon
the shoulder, he hobbled off
forward and went below.
Captain Smollett, the squire, and Dr. Livesey
were talking together on
the quarter-deck, and anxious as I was to
tell them my story, I durst
not interrupt them openly. While I was still
casting about in my
thoughts to find some probable excuse, Dr.
Livesey called me to his
side. He had left his pipe below, and being
a slave to tobacco, had
meant that I should fetch it; but as soon
as I was near enough to speak
and not to be overheard, I broke immediately,
"Doctor, let me speak. Get
the captain and squire down to the cabin,
and then make some pretence to
send for me. I have terrible news."
The doctor changed countenance a little, but
next moment he was master
of himself.
"Thank you, Jim," said he quite loudly, "that
was all I wanted to know,"
as if he had asked me a question.
And with that he turned on his heel and rejoined
the other two. They
spoke together for a little, and though none
of them started, or raised
his voice, or so much as whistled, it was
plain enough that Dr. Livesey
had communicated my request, for the next
thing that I heard was the
captain giving an order to Job Anderson, and
all hands were piped on
deck.
"My lads," said Captain Smollett, "I've a
word to say to you. This
land that we have sighted is the place we
have been sailing for. Mr.
Trelawney, being a very open-handed gentleman,
as we all know, has just
asked me a word or two, and as I was able
to tell him that every man on
board had done his duty, alow and aloft, as
I never ask to see it done
better, why, he and I and the doctor are going
below to the cabin to
drink YOUR health and luck, and you'll have
grog served out for you to
drink OUR health and luck. I'll tell you what
I think of this: I think
it handsome. And if you think as I do, you'll
give a good sea-cheer for
the gentleman that does it."
The cheer followed--that was a matter of course;
but it rang out so full
and hearty that I confess I could hardly believe
these same men were
plotting for our blood.
"One more cheer for Cap'n Smollett," cried
Long John when the first had
subsided.
And this also was given with a will.
On the top of that the three gentlemen went
below, and not long after,
word was sent forward that Jim Hawkins was
wanted in the cabin.
I found them all three seated round the table,
a bottle of Spanish wine
and some raisins before them, and the doctor
smoking away, with his wig
on his lap, and that, I knew, was a sign that
he was agitated. The stern
window was open, for it was a warm night,
and you could see the moon
shining behind on the ship's wake.
"Now, Hawkins," said the squire, "you have
something to say. Speak up."
I did as I was bid, and as short as I could
make it, told the whole
details of Silver's conversation. Nobody interrupted
me till I was done,
nor did any one of the three of them make
so much as a movement, but
they kept their eyes upon my face from first
to last.
"Jim," said Dr. Livesey, "take a seat."
And they made me sit down at table beside
them, poured me out a glass of
wine, filled my hands with raisins, and all
three, one after the other,
and each with a bow, drank my good health,
and their service to me, for
my luck and courage.
"Now, captain," said the squire, "you were
right, and I was wrong. I own
myself an ass, and I await your orders."
"No more an ass than I, sir," returned the
captain. "I never heard of a
crew that meant to mutiny but what showed
signs before, for any man that
had an eye in his head to see the mischief
and take steps according. But
this crew," he added, "beats me."
"Captain," said the doctor, "with your permission,
that's Silver. A very
remarkable man."
"He'd look remarkably well from a yard-arm,
sir," returned the captain.
"But this is talk; this don't lead to anything.
I see three or four
points, and with Mr. Trelawney's permission,
I'll name them."
"You, sir, are the captain. It is for you
to speak," says Mr. Trelawney
grandly.
"First point," began Mr. Smollett. "We must
go on, because we can't turn
back. If I gave the word to go about, they
would rise at once. Second
point, we have time before us--at least until
this treasure's found.
Third point, there are faithful hands. Now,
sir, it's got to come
to blows sooner or later, and what I propose
is to take time by the
forelock, as the saying is, and come to blows
some fine day when they
least expect it. We can count, I take it,
on your own home servants, Mr.
Trelawney?"
"As upon myself," declared the squire.
"Three," reckoned the captain; "ourselves
make seven, counting Hawkins
here. Now, about the honest hands?"
"Most likely Trelawney's own men," said the
doctor; "those he had picked
up for himself before he lit on Silver."
"Nay," replied the squire. "Hands was one
of mine."
"I did think I could have trusted Hands,"
added the captain.
"And to think that they're all Englishmen!"
broke out the squire. "Sir,
I could find it in my heart to blow the ship
up."
"Well, gentlemen," said the captain, "the
best that I can say is not
much. We must lay to, if you please, and keep
a bright lookout. It's
trying on a man, I know. It would be pleasanter
to come to blows. But
there's no help for it till we know our men.
Lay to, and whistle for a
wind, that's my view."
"Jim here," said the doctor, "can help us
more than anyone. The men are
not shy with him, and Jim is a noticing lad."
"Hawkins, I put prodigious faith in you,"
added the squire.
I began to feel pretty desperate at this,
for I felt altogether
helpless; and yet, by an odd train of circumstances,
it was indeed
through me that safety came. In the meantime,
talk as we pleased, there
were only seven out of the twenty-six on whom
we knew we could rely; and
out of these seven one was a boy, so that
the grown men on our side were
six to their nineteen.
PART THREE--My Shore Adventure
13
How My Shore Adventure Began
THE appearance of the island when I came on
deck next morning was
altogether changed. Although the breeze had
now utterly ceased, we had
made a great deal of way during the night
and were now lying becalmed
about half a mile to the south-east of the
low eastern coast.
Grey-coloured woods covered a large part of
the surface. This even tint
was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow
sand-break in the lower lands,
and by many tall trees of the pine family,
out-topping the others--some
singly, some in clumps; but the general colouring
was uniform and sad.
The hills ran up clear above the vegetation
in spires of naked rock.
All were strangely shaped, and the Spy-glass,
which was by three or four
hundred feet the tallest on the island, was
likewise the strangest in
configuration, running up sheer from almost
every side and then suddenly
cut off at the top like a pedestal to put
a statue on.
The HISPANIOLA was rolling scuppers under
in the ocean swell. The booms
were tearing at the blocks, the rudder was
banging to and fro, and the
whole ship creaking, groaning, and jumping
like a manufactory. I had
to cling tight to the backstay, and the world
turned giddily before my
eyes, for though I was a good enough sailor
when there was way on, this
standing still and being rolled about like
a bottle was a thing I never
learned to stand without a qualm or so, above
all in the morning, on an
empty stomach.
Perhaps it was this--perhaps it was the look
of the island, with its
grey, melancholy woods, and wild stone spires,
and the surf that we
could both see and hear foaming and thundering
on the steep beach--at
least, although the sun shone bright and hot,
and the shore birds were
fishing and crying all around us, and you
would have thought anyone
would have been glad to get to land after
being so long at sea, my heart
sank, as the saying is, into my boots; and
from the first look onward, I
hated the very thought of Treasure Island.
We had a dreary morning's work before us,
for there was no sign of any
wind, and the boats had to be got out and
manned, and the ship warped
three or four miles round the corner of the
island and up the narrow
passage to the haven behind Skeleton Island.
I volunteered for one of
the boats, where I had, of course, no business.
The heat was sweltering,
and the men grumbled fiercely over their work.
Anderson was in command
of my boat, and instead of keeping the crew
in order, he grumbled as
loud as the worst.
"Well," he said with an oath, "it's not forever."
I thought this was a very bad sign, for up
to that day the men had gone
briskly and willingly about their business;
but the very sight of the
island had relaxed the cords of discipline.
All the way in, Long John stood by the steersman
and conned the ship.
He knew the passage like the palm of his hand,
and though the man in the
chains got everywhere more water than was
down in the chart, John never
hesitated once.
"There's a strong scour with the ebb," he
said, "and this here passage
has been dug out, in a manner of speaking,
with a spade."
We brought up just where the anchor was in
the chart, about a third of
a mile from each shore, the mainland on one
side and Skeleton Island on
the other. The bottom was clean sand. The
plunge of our anchor sent up
clouds of birds wheeling and crying over the
woods, but in less than a
minute they were down again and all was once
more silent.
The place was entirely land-locked, buried
in woods, the trees coming
right down to high-water mark, the shores
mostly flat, and the hilltops
standing round at a distance in a sort of
amphitheatre, one here, one
there. Two little rivers, or rather two swamps,
emptied out into this
pond, as you might call it; and the foliage
round that part of the shore
had a kind of poisonous brightness. From the
ship we could see nothing
of the house or stockade, for they were quite
buried among trees; and if
it had not been for the chart on the companion,
we might have been the
first that had ever anchored there since the
island arose out of the
seas.
There was not a breath of air moving, nor
a sound but that of the
surf booming half a mile away along the beaches
and against the rocks
outside. A peculiar stagnant smell hung over
the anchorage--a smell of
sodden leaves and rotting tree trunks. I observed
the doctor sniffing
and sniffing, like someone tasting a bad egg.
"I don't know about treasure," he said, "but
I'll stake my wig there's
fever here."
If the conduct of the men had been alarming
in the boat, it became truly
threatening when they had come aboard. They
lay about the deck growling
together in talk. The slightest order was
received with a black look and
grudgingly and carelessly obeyed. Even the
honest hands must have caught
the infection, for there was not one man aboard
to mend another. Mutiny,
it was plain, hung over us like a thunder-cloud.
And it was not only we of the cabin party
who perceived the danger. Long
John was hard at work going from group to
group, spending himself in
good advice, and as for example no man could
have shown a better. He
fairly outstripped himself in willingness
and civility; he was all
smiles to everyone. If an order were given,
John would be on his crutch
in an instant, with the cheeriest "Aye, aye,
sir!" in the world; and
when there was nothing else to do, he kept
up one song after another, as
if to conceal the discontent of the rest.
Of all the gloomy features of that gloomy
afternoon, this obvious
anxiety on the part of Long John appeared
the worst.
We held a council in the cabin.
"Sir," said the captain, "if I risk another
order, the whole ship'll
come about our ears by the run. You see, sir,
here it is. I get a rough
answer, do I not? Well, if I speak back, pikes
will be going in two
shakes; if I don't, Silver will see there's
something under that, and
the game's up. Now, we've only one man to
rely on."
"And who is that?" asked the squire.
"Silver, sir," returned the captain; "he's
as anxious as you and I to
smother things up. This is a tiff; he'd soon
talk 'em out of it if he
had the chance, and what I propose to do is
to give him the chance.
Let's allow the men an afternoon ashore. If
they all go, why we'll fight
the ship. If they none of them go, well then,
we hold the cabin, and God
defend the right. If some go, you mark my
words, sir, Silver'll bring
'em aboard again as mild as lambs."
It was so decided; loaded pistols were served
out to all the sure men;
Hunter, Joyce, and Redruth were taken into
our confidence and received
the news with less surprise and a better spirit
than we had looked for,
and then the captain went on deck and addressed
the crew.
"My lads," said he, "we've had a hot day and
are all tired and out of
sorts. A turn ashore'll hurt nobody--the boats
are still in the water;
you can take the gigs, and as many as please
may go ashore for the
afternoon. I'll fire a gun half an hour before
sundown."
I believe the silly fellows must have thought
they would break their
shins over treasure as soon as they were landed,
for they all came out
of their sulks in a moment and gave a cheer
that started the echo in a
faraway hill and sent the birds once more
flying and squalling round the
anchorage.
The captain was too bright to be in the way.
He whipped out of sight
in a moment, leaving Silver to arrange the
party, and I fancy it was as
well he did so. Had he been on deck, he could
no longer so much as
have pretended not to understand the situation.
It was as plain as day.
Silver was the captain, and a mighty rebellious
crew he had of it. The
honest hands--and I was soon to see it proved
that there were such on
board--must have been very stupid fellows.
Or rather, I suppose the
truth was this, that all hands were disaffected
by the example of the
ringleaders--only some more, some less; and
a few, being good fellows in
the main, could neither be led nor driven
any further. It is one thing
to be idle and skulk and quite another to
take a ship and murder a
number of innocent men.
At last, however, the party was made up. Six
fellows were to stay on
board, and the remaining thirteen, including
Silver, began to embark.
Then it was that there came into my head the
first of the mad notions
that contributed so much to save our lives.
If six men were left by
Silver, it was plain our party could not take
and fight the ship; and
since only six were left, it was equally plain
that the cabin party
had no present need of my assistance. It occurred
to me at once to go
ashore. In a jiffy I had slipped over the
side and curled up in the
fore-sheets of the nearest boat, and almost
at the same moment she
shoved off.
No one took notice of me, only the bow oar
saying, "Is that you, Jim?
Keep your head down." But Silver, from the
other boat, looked sharply
over and called out to know if that were me;
and from that moment I
began to regret what I had done.
The crews raced for the beach, but the boat
I was in, having some start
and being at once the lighter and the better
manned, shot far ahead of
her consort, and the bow had struck among
the shore-side trees and I
had caught a branch and swung myself out and
plunged into the nearest
thicket while Silver and the rest were still
a hundred yards behind.
"Jim, Jim!" I heard him shouting.
But you may suppose I paid no heed; jumping,
ducking, and breaking
through, I ran straight before my nose till
I could run no longer.
14
The
First Blow
I WAS so pleased at having given the slip
to Long John that I began to
enjoy myself and look around me with some
interest on the strange land
that I was in.
I had crossed a marshy tract full of willows,
bulrushes, and odd,
outlandish, swampy trees; and I had now come
out upon the skirts of an
open piece of undulating, sandy country, about
a mile long, dotted with
a few pines and a great number of contorted
trees, not unlike the oak
in growth, but pale in the foliage, like willows.
On the far side of
the open stood one of the hills, with two
quaint, craggy peaks shining
vividly in the sun.
I now felt for the first time the joy of exploration.
The isle was
uninhabited; my shipmates I had left behind,
and nothing lived in front
of me but dumb brutes and fowls. I turned
hither and thither among the
trees. Here and there were flowering plants,
unknown to me; here and
there I saw snakes, and one raised his head
from a ledge of rock and
hissed at me with a noise not unlike the spinning
of a top. Little did
I suppose that he was a deadly enemy and that
the noise was the famous
rattle.
Then I came to a long thicket of these oaklike
trees--live, or
evergreen, oaks, I heard afterwards they should
be called--which grew
low along the sand like brambles, the boughs
curiously twisted, the
foliage compact, like thatch. The thicket
stretched down from the top of
one of the sandy knolls, spreading and growing
taller as it went, until
it reached the margin of the broad, reedy
fen, through which the nearest
of the little rivers soaked its way into the
anchorage. The marsh was
steaming in the strong sun, and the outline
of the Spy-glass trembled
through the haze.
All at once there began to go a sort of bustle
among the bulrushes;
a wild duck flew up with a quack, another
followed, and soon over the
whole surface of the marsh a great cloud of
birds hung screaming and
circling in the air. I judged at once that
some of my shipmates must be
drawing near along the borders of the fen.
Nor was I deceived, for soon
I heard the very distant and low tones of
a human voice, which, as I
continued to give ear, grew steadily louder
and nearer.
This put me in a great fear, and I crawled
under cover of the nearest
live-oak and squatted there, hearkening, as
silent as a mouse.
Another voice answered, and then the first
voice, which I now recognized
to be Silver's, once more took up the story
and ran on for a long while
in a stream, only now and again interrupted
by the other. By the sound
they must have been talking earnestly, and
almost fiercely; but no
distinct word came to my hearing.
At last the speakers seemed to have paused
and perhaps to have sat down,
for not only did they cease to draw any nearer,
but the birds themselves
began to grow more quiet and to settle again
to their places in the
swamp.
And now I began to feel that I was neglecting
my business, that since
I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore
with these desperadoes, the
least I could do was to overhear them at their
councils, and that my
plain and obvious duty was to draw as close
as I could manage, under the
favourable ambush of the crouching trees.
I could tell the direction of the speakers
pretty exactly, not only by
the sound of their voices but by the behaviour
of the few birds that
still hung in alarm above the heads of the
intruders.
Crawling on all fours, I made steadily but
slowly towards them, till at
last, raising my head to an aperture among
the leaves, I could see clear
down into a little green dell beside the marsh,
and closely set about
with trees, where Long John Silver and another
of the crew stood face to
face in conversation.
The sun beat full upon them. Silver had thrown
his hat beside him on the
ground, and his great, smooth, blond face,
all shining with heat, was
lifted to the other man's in a kind of appeal.
"Mate," he was saying, "it's because I thinks
gold dust of you--gold
dust, and you may lay to that! If I hadn't
took to you like pitch, do
you think I'd have been here a-warning of
you? All's up--you can't make
nor mend; it's to save your neck that I'm
a-speaking, and if one of the
wild uns knew it, where'd I be, Tom--now,
tell me, where'd I be?"
"Silver," said the other man--and I observed
he was not only red in the
face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his
voice shook too, like a
taut rope--"Silver," says he, "you're old,
and you're honest, or has the
name for it; and you've money too, which lots
of poor sailors hasn't;
and you're brave, or I'm mistook. And will
you tell me you'll let
yourself be led away with that kind of a mess
of swabs? Not you! As sure
as God sees me, I'd sooner lose my hand. If
I turn agin my dooty--"
And then all of a sudden he was interrupted
by a noise. I had found
one of the honest hands--well, here, at that
same moment, came news of
another. Far away out in the marsh there arose,
all of a sudden, a sound
like the cry of anger, then another on the
back of it; and then one
horrid, long-drawn scream. The rocks of the
Spy-glass re-echoed it a
score of times; the whole troop of marsh-birds
rose again, darkening
heaven, with a simultaneous whirr; and long
after that death yell was
still ringing in my brain, silence had re-established
its empire, and
only the rustle of the redescending birds
and the boom of the distant
surges disturbed the languor of the afternoon.
Tom had leaped at the sound, like a horse
at the spur, but Silver had
not winked an eye. He stood where he was,
resting lightly on his crutch,
watching his companion like a snake about
to spring.
"John!" said the sailor, stretching out his
hand.
"Hands off!" cried Silver, leaping back a
yard, as it seemed to me, with
the speed and security of a trained gymnast.
"Hands off, if you like, John Silver," said
the other. "It's a black
conscience that can make you feared of me.
But in heaven's name, tell
me, what was that?"
"That?" returned Silver, smiling away, but
warier than ever, his eye
a mere pin-point in his big face, but gleaming
like a crumb of glass.
"That? Oh, I reckon that'll be Alan."
And at this point Tom flashed out like a hero.
"Alan!" he cried. "Then rest his soul for
a true seaman! And as for you,
John Silver, long you've been a mate of mine,
but you're mate of mine
no more. If I die like a dog, I'll die in
my dooty. You've killed Alan,
have you? Kill me too, if you can. But I defies
you."
And with that, this brave fellow turned his
back directly on the cook
and set off walking for the beach. But he
was not destined to go far.
With a cry John seized the branch of a tree,
whipped the crutch out of
his armpit, and sent that uncouth missile
hurtling through the air.
It struck poor Tom, point foremost, and with
stunning violence, right
between the shoulders in the middle of his
back. His hands flew up, he
gave a sort of gasp, and fell.
Whether he were injured much or little, none
could ever tell. Like
enough, to judge from the sound, his back
was broken on the spot. But he
had no time given him to recover. Silver,
agile as a monkey even without
leg or crutch, was on the top of him next
moment and had twice buried
his knife up to the hilt in that defenceless
body. From my place of
ambush, I could hear him pant aloud as he
struck the blows.
I do not know what it rightly is to faint,
but I do know that for the
next little while the whole world swam away
from before me in a whirling
mist; Silver and the birds, and the tall Spy-glass
hilltop, going
round and round and topsy-turvy before my
eyes, and all manner of bells
ringing and distant voices shouting in my
ear.
When I came again to myself the monster had
pulled himself together,
his crutch under his arm, his hat upon his
head. Just before him Tom
lay motionless upon the sward; but the murderer
minded him not a whit,
cleansing his blood-stained knife the while
upon a wisp of grass.
Everything else was unchanged, the sun still
shining mercilessly on the
steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the
mountain, and I could scarce
persuade myself that murder had been actually
done and a human life
cruelly cut short a moment since before my
eyes.
But now John put his hand into his pocket,
brought out a whistle, and
blew upon it several modulated blasts that
rang far across the heated
air. I could not tell, of course, the meaning
of the signal, but
it instantly awoke my fears. More men would
be coming. I might be
discovered. 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 seemed, cut off upon both sides;
behind me the murderers,
before me this lurking nondescript. And immediately
I began to prefer
the dangers that I knew to those I knew not.
Silver himself appeared
less terrible in contrast with this creature
of the woods, and I turned
on my heel, and looking sharply behind me
over my shoulder, began to
retrace my steps in the direction of the boats.
Instantly the figure reappeared, and making
a wide circuit, began to
head me off. I was tired, at any rate; but
had I been as fresh as when I
rose, I could see it was in vain for me to
contend in speed with such an
adversary. From trunk to trunk the creature
flitted like a deer, running
manlike on two legs, but unlike any man that
I had ever seen, stooping
almost double as it ran. Yet a man it was,
I could no longer be in doubt
about that.
I began to recall what I had heard of cannibals.
I was within an ace of
calling for help. But the mere fact that he
was a man, however wild,
had somewhat reassured me, and my fear of
Silver began to revive in
proportion. I stood still, therefore, and
cast about for some method of
escape; and as I was so thinking, the recollection
of my pistol flashed
into my mind. As soon as I remembered I was
not defenceless, courage
glowed again in my heart and I set my face
resolutely for this man of
the island and walked briskly towards him.
He was concealed by this time behind another
tree trunk; but he must
have been watching me closely, for as soon
as I began to move in his
direction he reappeared and took a step to
meet me. Then he hesitated,
drew back, came forward again, and at last,
to my wonder and
confusion, threw himself on his knees and
held out his clasped hands in
supplication.
At that I once more stopped.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Ben Gunn," he answered, and his voice sounded
hoarse and awkward,
like a rusty lock. "I'm poor Ben Gunn, I am;
and I haven't spoke with a
Christian these three years."
I could now see that he was a white man like
myself and that his
features were even pleasing. His skin, wherever
it was exposed, was
burnt by the sun; even his lips were black,
and his fair eyes looked
quite startling in so dark a face. Of all
the beggar-men that I had seen
or fancied, he was the chief for raggedness.
He was clothed with tatters
of old ship's canvas and old sea-cloth, and
this extraordinary patchwork
was all held together by a system of the most
various and incongruous
fastenings, brass buttons, bits of stick,
and loops of tarry gaskin.
About his waist he wore an old brass-buckled
leather belt, which was the
one thing solid in his whole accoutrement.
"Three years!" I cried. "Were you shipwrecked?"
"Nay, mate," said he; "marooned."
I had heard the word, and I knew it stood
for a horrible kind of
punishment common enough among the buccaneers,
in which the offender
is put ashore with a little powder and shot
and left behind on some
desolate and distant island.
"Marooned three years agone," he continued,
"and lived on goats since
then, and berries, and oysters. Wherever a
man is, says I, a man can
do for himself. But, mate, my heart is sore
for Christian diet. You
mightn't happen to have a piece of cheese
about you, now? No? Well,
many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese--toasted,
mostly--and woke
up again, and here I were."
"If ever I can get aboard again," said I,
"you shall have cheese by the
stone."
All this time he had been feeling the stuff
of my jacket, smoothing
my hands, looking at my boots, and generally,
in the intervals of
his speech, showing a childish pleasure in
the presence of a fellow
creature. But at my last words he perked up
into a kind of startled
slyness.
"If ever you can get aboard again, says you?"
he repeated. "Why, now,
who's to hinder you?"
"Not you, I know," was my reply.
"And right you was," he cried. "Now you--what
do you call yourself,
mate?"
"Jim," I told him.
"Jim, Jim," says he, quite pleased apparently.
"Well, now, Jim, I've
lived that rough as you'd be ashamed to hear
of. Now, for instance, you
wouldn't think I had had a pious mother--to
look at me?" he asked.
"Why, no, not in particular," I answered.
"Ah, well," said he, "but I had--remarkable
pious. And I was a civil,
pious boy, and could rattle off my catechism
that fast, as you couldn't
tell one word from another. And here's what
it come to, Jim, and it
begun with chuck-farthen on the blessed grave-stones!
That's what it
begun with, but it went further'n that; and
so my mother told me, and
predicked the whole, she did, the pious woman!
But it were Providence
that put me here. I've thought it all out
in this here lonely island,
and I'm back on piety. You don't catch me
tasting rum so much, but just
a thimbleful for luck, of course, the first
chance I have. I'm bound
I'll be good, and I see the way to. And, Jim"--looking
all round him and
lowering his voice to a whisper--"I'm rich."
I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone
crazy in his solitude, and
I suppose I must have shown the feeling in
my face, for he repeated the
statement hotly: "Rich! Rich! I says. And
I'll tell you what: I'll make
a man of you, Jim. Ah, Jim, you'll bless your
stars, you will, you was
the first that found me!"
And at this there came suddenly a lowering
shadow over his face, and he
tightened his grasp upon my hand and raised
a forefinger threateningly
before my eyes.
"Now, Jim, you tell me true: that ain't Flint's
ship?" he asked.
At this I had a happy inspiration. I began
to believe that I had found
an ally, and I answered him at once.
"It's not Flint's ship, and Flint is dead;
but I'll tell you true, as
you ask me--there are some of Flint's hands
aboard; worse luck for the
rest of us."
"Not a man--with one--leg?" he gasped.
"Silver?" I asked.
"Ah, Silver!" says he. "That were his name."
"He's the cook, and the ringleader too."
He was still holding me by the wrist, and
at that he give it quite a
wring.
"If you was sent by Long John," he said, "I'm
as good as pork, and I
know it. But where was you, do you suppose?"
I had made my mind up in a moment, and by
way of answer told him
the whole story of our voyage and the predicament
in which we found
ourselves. He heard me with the keenest interest,
and when I had done he
patted me on the head.
"You're a good lad, Jim," he said; "and you're
all in a clove hitch,
ain't you? Well, you just put your trust in
Ben Gunn--Ben Gunn's the man
to do it. Would you think it likely, now,
that your squire would prove
a liberal-minded one in case of help--him
being in a clove hitch, as you
remark?"
I told him the squire was the most liberal
of men.
"Aye, but you see," returned Ben Gunn, "I
didn't mean giving me a gate
to keep, and a suit of livery clothes, and
such; that's not my mark,
Jim. What I mean is, would he be likely to
come down to the toon of, say
one thousand pounds out of money that's as
good as a man's own already?"
"I am sure he would," said I. "As it was,
all hands were to share."
"AND a passage home?" he added with a look
of great shrewdness.
"Why," I cried, "the squire's a gentleman.
And besides, if we got rid of
the others, we should want you to help work
the vessel home."
"Ah," said he, "so you would." And he seemed
very much relieved.
"Now, I'll tell you what," he went on. "So
much I'll tell you, and no
more. I were in Flint's ship when he buried
the treasure; he and
six along--six strong seamen. They was ashore
nigh on a week, and us
standing off and on in the old WALRUS. One
fine day up went the signal,
and here come Flint by himself in a little
boat, and his head done up in
a blue scarf. The sun was getting up, and
mortal white he looked about
the cutwater. But, there he was, you mind,
and the six all dead--dead
and buried. How he done it, not a man aboard
us could make out. It was
battle, murder, and sudden death, leastways--him
against six. Billy
Bones was the mate; Long John, he was quartermaster;
and they asked him
where the treasure was. 'Ah,' says he, 'you
can go ashore, if you like,
and stay,' he says; 'but as for the ship,
she'll beat up for more, by
thunder!' That's what he said.
"Well, I was in another ship three years back,
and we sighted this
island. 'Boys,' said I, 'here's Flint's treasure;
let's land and find
it.' The cap'n was displeased at that, but
my messmates were all of a
mind and landed. Twelve days they looked for
it, and every day they had
the worse word for me, until one fine morning
all hands went aboard. 'As
for you, Benjamin Gunn,' says they, 'here's
a musket,' they says, 'and
a spade, and pick-axe. You can stay here and
find Flint's money for
yourself,' they says.
"Well, Jim, three years have I been here,
and not a bite of Christian
diet from that day to this. But now, you look
here; look at me. Do I
look like a man before the mast? No, says
you. Nor I weren't, neither, I
says."
And with that he winked and pinched me hard.
"Just you mention them words to your squire,
Jim," he went on. "Nor he
weren't, neither--that's the words. Three
years he were the man of this
island, light and dark, fair and rain; and
sometimes he would maybe
think upon a prayer (says you), and sometimes
he would maybe think of
his old mother, so be as she's alive (you'll
say); but the most part
of Gunn's time (this is what you'll say)--the
most part of his time was
took up with another matter. And then you'll
give him a nip, like I do."
And he pinched me again in the most confidential
manner.
"Then," he continued, "then you'll up, and
you'll say this: Gunn is a
good man (you'll say), and he puts a precious
sight more confidence--a
precious sight, mind that--in a gen'leman
born than in these gen'leman
of fortune, having been one hisself."
"Well," I said, "I don't understand one word
that you've been saying.
But that's neither here nor there; for how
am I to get on board?"
"Ah," said he, "that's the hitch, for sure.
Well, there's my boat, that
I made with my two hands. I keep her under
the white rock. If the worst
come to the worst, we might try that after
dark. Hi!" he broke out.
"What's that?"
For just then, although the sun had still
an hour or two to run, all the
echoes of the island awoke and bellowed to
the thunder of a cannon.
"They have begun to fight!" I cried. "Follow
me."
And I began to run towards the anchorage,
my terrors all forgotten,
while close at my side the marooned man in
his goatskins trotted easily
and lightly.
"Left, left," says he; "keep to your left
hand, mate Jim! Under the
trees with you! Theer's where I killed my
first goat. They don't come
down here now; they're all mastheaded on them
mountings for the fear
of Benjamin Gunn. Ah! And there's the cetemery"--cemetery,
he must have
meant. "You see the mounds? I come here and
prayed, nows and thens, when
I thought maybe a Sunday would be about doo.
It weren't quite a chapel,
but it seemed more solemn like; and then,
says you, Ben Gunn was
short-handed--no chapling, nor so much as
a Bible and a flag, you says."
So he kept talking as I ran, neither expecting
nor receiving any answer.
The cannon-shot was followed after a considerable
interval by a volley
of small arms.
Another pause, and then, not a quarter of
a mile in front of me, I
beheld the Union Jack flutter in the air above
a wood.
PART FOUR--The Stockade
16
Narrative Continued by the Doctor: How the
Ship Was Abandoned
IT was about half past one--three bells in
the sea phrase--that the two
boats went ashore from the HISPANIOLA. The
captain, the squire, and I
were talking matters over in the cabin. Had
there been a breath of wind,
we should have fallen on the six mutineers
who were left aboard with
us, slipped our cable, and away to sea. But
the wind was wanting; and
to complete our helplessness, down came Hunter
with the news that Jim
Hawkins had slipped into a boat and was gone
ashore with the rest.
It never occurred to us to doubt Jim Hawkins,
but we were alarmed for
his safety. With the men in the temper they
were in, it seemed an even
chance if we should see the lad again. We
ran on deck. The pitch was
bubbling in the seams; the nasty stench of
the place turned me sick;
if ever a man smelt fever and dysentery, it
was in that abominable
anchorage. The six scoundrels were sitting
grumbling under a sail in the
forecastle; ashore we could see the gigs made
fast and a man sitting
in each, hard by where the river runs in.
One of them was whistling
"Lillibullero."
Waiting was a strain, and it was decided that
Hunter and I should go
ashore with the jolly-boat in quest of information.
The gigs had leaned to their right, but Hunter
and I pulled straight in,
in the direction of the stockade upon the
chart. The two who were
left guarding their boats seemed in a bustle
at our appearance;
"Lillibullero" stopped off, and I could see
the pair discussing what
they ought to do. Had they gone and told Silver,
all might have turned
out differently; but they had their orders,
I suppose, and decided to
sit quietly where they were and hark back
again to "Lillibullero."
There was a slight bend in the coast, and
I steered so as to put it
between us; even before we landed we had thus
lost sight of the gigs.
I jumped out and came as near running as I
durst, with a big silk
handkerchief under my hat for coolness' sake
and a brace of pistols
ready primed for safety.
I had not gone a hundred yards when I reached
the stockade.
This was how it was: a spring of clear water
rose almost at the top of a
knoll. Well, on the knoll, and enclosing the
spring, they had clapped a
stout loghouse fit to hold two score of people
on a pinch and loopholed
for musketry on either side. All round this
they had cleared a wide
space, and then the thing was completed by
a paling six feet high,
without door or opening, too strong to pull
down without time and labour
and too open to shelter the besiegers. The
people in the log-house had
them in every way; they stood quiet in shelter
and shot the others like
partridges. All they wanted was a good watch
and food; for, short of a
complete surprise, they might have held the
place against a regiment.
What particularly took my fancy was the spring.
For though we had a good
enough place of it in the cabin of the HISPANIOLA,
with plenty of arms
and ammunition, and things to eat, and excellent
wines, there had been
one thing overlooked--we had no water. I was
thinking this over when
there came ringing over the island the cry
of a man at the point of
death. I was not new to violent death--I have
served his Royal Highness
the Duke of Cumberland, and got a wound myself
at Fontenoy--but I know
my pulse went dot and carry one. "Jim Hawkins
is gone," was my first
thought.
It is something to have been an old soldier,
but more still to have been
a doctor. There is no time to dilly-dally
in our work. And so now I made
up my mind instantly, and with no time lost
returned to the shore and
jumped on board the jolly-boat.
By good fortune Hunter pulled a good oar.
We made the water fly, and the
boat was soon alongside and I aboard the schooner.
I found them all shaken, as was natural. The
squire was sitting down, as
white as a sheet, thinking of the harm he
had led us to, the good soul!
And one of the six forecastle hands was little
better.
"There's a man," says Captain Smollett, nodding
towards him, "new to
this work. He came nigh-hand fainting, doctor,
when he heard the cry.
Another touch of the rudder and that man would
join us."
I told my plan to the captain, and between
us we settled on the details
of its accomplishment.
We put old Redruth in the gallery between
the cabin and the forecastle,
with three or four loaded muskets and a mattress
for protection. Hunter
brought the boat round under the stern-port,
and Joyce and I set to work
loading her with powder tins, muskets, bags
of biscuits, kegs of pork, a
cask of cognac, and my invaluable medicine
chest.
In the meantime, the squire and the captain
stayed on deck, and the
latter hailed the coxswain, who was the principal
man aboard.
"Mr. Hands," he said, "here are two of us
with a brace of pistols each.
If any one of you six make a signal of any
description, that man's
dead."
They were a good deal taken aback, and after
a little consultation one
and all tumbled down the fore companion, thinking
no doubt to take us
on the rear. But when they saw Redruth waiting
for them in the sparred
galley, they went about ship at once, and
a head popped out again on
deck.
"Down, dog!" cries the captain.
And the head popped back again; and we heard
no more, for the time, of
these six very faint-hearted seamen.
By this time, tumbling things in as they came,
we had the jolly-boat
loaded as much as we dared. Joyce and I got
out through the stern-port,
and we made for shore again as fast as oars
could take us.
This second trip fairly aroused the watchers
along shore. "Lillibullero"
was dropped again; and just before we lost
sight of them behind the
little point, one of them whipped ashore and
disappeared. I had half a
mind to change my plan and destroy their boats,
but I feared that Silver
and the others might be close at hand, and
all might very well be lost
by trying for too much.
We had soon touched land in the same place
as before and set to
provision the block house. All three made
the first journey, heavily
laden, and tossed our stores over the palisade.
Then, leaving Joyce to
guard them--one man, to be sure, but with
half a dozen muskets--Hunter
and I returned to the jolly-boat and loaded
ourselves once more. So
we proceeded without pausing to take breath,
till the whole cargo was
bestowed, when the two servants took up their
position in the block
house, and I, with all my power, sculled back
to the HISPANIOLA.
That we should have risked a second boat load
seems more daring than it
really was. They had the advantage of numbers,
of course, but we had the
advantage of arms. Not one of the men ashore
had a musket, and before
they could get within range for pistol shooting,
we flattered ourselves
we should be able to give a good account of
a half-dozen at least.
The squire was waiting for me at the stern
window, all his faintness
gone from him. He caught the painter and made
it fast, and we fell to
loading the boat for our very lives. Pork,
powder, and biscuit was the
cargo, with only a musket and a cutlass apiece
for the squire and me
and Redruth and the captain. The rest of the
arms and powder we dropped
overboard in two fathoms and a half of water,
so that we could see
the bright steel shining far below us in the
sun, on the clean, sandy
bottom.
By this time the tide was beginning to ebb,
and the ship was swinging
round to her anchor. Voices were heard faintly
halloaing in the
direction of the two gigs; and though this
reassured us for Joyce and
Hunter, who were well to the eastward, it
warned our party to be off.
Redruth retreated from his place in the gallery
and dropped into the
boat, which we then brought round to the ship's
counter, to be handier
for Captain Smollett.
"Now, men," said he, "do you hear me?"
There was no answer from the forecastle.
"It's to you, Abraham Gray--it's to you I
am speaking."
Still no reply.
"Gray," resumed Mr. Smollett, a little louder,
"I am leaving this ship,
and I order you to follow your captain. I
know you are a good man at
bottom, and I dare say not one of the lot
of you's as bad as he makes
out. I have my watch here in my hand; I give
you thirty seconds to join
me in."
There was a pause.
"Come, my fine fellow," continued the captain;
"don't hang so long in
stays. I'm risking my life and the lives of
these good gentlemen every
second."
There was a sudden scuffle, a sound of blows,
and out burst Abraham
Gray with a knife cut on the side of the cheek,
and came running to the
captain like a dog to the whistle.
"I'm with you, sir," said he.
And the next moment he and the captain had
dropped aboard of us, and we
had shoved off and given way.
We were clear out of the ship, but not yet
ashore in our stockade.
17
Narrative Continued by the Doctor: The Jolly-boat's
Last Trip
THIS fifth trip was quite different from any
of the others. In the
first place, the little gallipot of a boat
that we were in was gravely
overloaded. Five grown men, and three of them--Trelawney,
Redruth, and
the captain--over six feet high, was already
more than she was meant
to carry. Add to that the powder, pork, and
bread-bags. The gunwale was
lipping astern. Several times we shipped a
little water, and my breeches
and the tails of my coat were all soaking
wet before we had gone a
hundred yards.
The captain made us trim the boat, and we
got her to lie a little more
evenly. All the same, we were afraid to breathe.
In the second place, the ebb was now making--a
strong rippling current
running westward through the basin, and then
south'ard and seaward down
the straits by which we had entered in the
morning. Even the ripples
were a danger to our overloaded craft, but
the worst of it was that we
were swept out of our true course and away
from our proper landing-place
behind the point. If we let the current have
its way we should come
ashore beside the gigs, where the pirates
might appear at any moment.
"I cannot keep her head for the stockade,
sir," said I to the captain.
I was steering, while he and Redruth, two
fresh men, were at the oars.
"The tide keeps washing her down. Could you
pull a little stronger?"
"Not without swamping the boat," said he.
"You must bear up, sir, if you
please--bear up until you see you're gaining."
I tried and found by experiment that the tide
kept sweeping us westward
until I had laid her head due east, or just
about right angles to the
way we ought to go.
"We'll never get ashore at this rate," said
I.
"If it's the only course that we can lie,
sir, we must even lie it,"
returned the captain. "We must keep upstream.
You see, sir," he went on,
"if once we dropped to leeward of the landing-place,
it's hard to say
where we should get ashore, besides the chance
of being boarded by the
gigs; whereas, the way we go the current must
slacken, and then we can
dodge back along the shore."
"The current's less a'ready, sir," said the
man Gray, who was sitting in
the fore-sheets; "you can ease her off a bit."
"Thank you, my man," said I, quite as if nothing
had happened, for we
had all quietly made up our minds to treat
him like one of ourselves.
Suddenly the captain spoke up again, and I
thought his voice was a
little changed.
"The gun!" said he.
"I have thought of that," said I, for I made
sure he was thinking of a
bombardment of the fort. "They could never
get the gun ashore, and if
they did, they could never haul it through
the woods."
"Look astern, doctor," replied the captain.
We had entirely forgotten the long nine; and
there, to our horror, were
the five rogues busy about her, getting off
her jacket, as they called
the stout tarpaulin cover under which she
sailed. Not only that, but
it flashed into my mind at the same moment
that the round-shot and the
powder for the gun had been left behind, and
a stroke with an axe would
put it all into the possession of the evil
ones abroad.
"Israel was Flint's gunner," said Gray hoarsely.
At any risk, we put the boat's head direct
for the landing-place. By
this time we had got so far out of the run
of the current that we kept
steerage way even at our necessarily gentle
rate of rowing, and I could
keep her steady for the goal. But the worst
of it was that with the
course I now held we turned our broadside
instead of our stern to the
HISPANIOLA and offered a target like a barn
door.
I could hear as well as see that brandy-faced
rascal Israel Hands
plumping down a round-shot on the deck.
"Who's the best shot?" asked the captain.
"Mr. Trelawney, out and away," said I.
"Mr. Trelawney, will you please pick me off
one of these men, sir?
Hands, if possible," said the captain.
Trelawney was as cool as steel. He looked
to the priming of his gun.
"Now," cried the captain, "easy with that
gun, sir, or you'll swamp the
boat. All hands stand by to trim her when
he aims."
The squire raised his gun, the rowing ceased,
and we leaned over to the
other side to keep the balance, and all was
so nicely contrived that we
did not ship a drop.
They had the gun, by this time, slewed round
upon the swivel, and Hands,
who was at the muzzle with the rammer, was
in consequence the most
exposed. However, we had no luck, for just
as Trelawney fired, down he
stooped, the ball whistled over him, and it
was one of the other four
who fell.
The cry he gave was echoed not only by his
companions on board but by a
great number of voices from the shore, and
looking in that direction
I saw the other pirates trooping out from
among the trees and tumbling
into their places in the boats.
"Here come the gigs, sir," said I.
"Give way, then," cried the captain. "We mustn't
mind if we swamp her
now. If we can't get ashore, all's up."
"Only one of the gigs is being manned, sir,"
I added; "the crew of the
other most likely going round by shore to
cut us off."
"They'll have a hot run, sir," returned the
captain. "Jack ashore, you
know. It's not them I mind; it's the round-shot.
Carpet bowls! My lady's
maid couldn't miss. Tell us, squire, when
you see the match, and we'll
hold water."
In the meanwhile we had been making headway
at a good pace for a boat so
overloaded, and we had shipped but little
water in the process. We were
now close in; thirty or forty strokes and
we should beach her, for the
ebb had already disclosed a narrow belt of
sand below the clustering
trees. The gig was no longer to be feared;
the little point had already
concealed it from our eyes. The ebb-tide,
which had so cruelly delayed
us, was now making reparation and delaying
our assailants. The one
source of danger was the gun.
"If I durst," said the captain, "I'd stop
and pick off another man."
But it was plain that they meant nothing should
delay their shot. They
had never so much as looked at their fallen
comrade, though he was not
dead, and I could see him trying to crawl
away.
"Ready!" cried the squire.
"Hold!" cried the captain, quick as an echo.
And he and Redruth backed with a great heave
that sent her stern bodily
under water. The report fell in at the same
instant of time. This was
the first that Jim heard, the sound of the
squire's shot not having
reached him. Where the ball passed, not one
of us precisely knew, but I
fancy it must have been over our heads and
that the wind of it may have
contributed to our disaster.
At any rate, the boat sank by the stern, quite
gently, in three feet of
water, leaving the captain and myself, facing
each other, on our feet.
The other three took complete headers, and
came up again drenched and
bubbling.
So far there was no great harm. No lives were
lost, and we could wade
ashore in safety. But there were all our stores
at the bottom, and to
make things worse, only two guns out of five
remained in a state for
service. Mine I had snatched from my knees
and held over my head, by
a sort of instinct. As for the captain, he
had carried his over his
shoulder by a bandoleer, and like a wise man,
lock uppermost. The other
three had gone down with the boat.
To add to our concern, we heard voices already
drawing near us in the
woods along shore, and we had not only the
danger of being cut off from
the stockade in our half-crippled state but
the fear before us whether,
if Hunter and Joyce were attacked by half
a dozen, they would have the
sense and conduct to stand firm. Hunter was
steady, that we knew; Joyce
was a doubtful case--a pleasant, polite man
for a valet and to brush
one's clothes, but not entirely fitted for
a man of war.
With all this in our minds, we waded ashore
as fast as we could, leaving
behind us the poor jolly-boat and a good half
of all our powder
and
provisions.
18
Narrative Continued by the Doctor: End of
the First Day's Fighting
WE made our best speed across the strip of
wood that now divided us from
the stockade, and at every step we took the
voices of the buccaneers
rang nearer. Soon we could hear their footfalls
as they ran and the
cracking of the branches as they breasted
across a bit of thicket.
I began to see we should have a brush for
it in earnest and looked to my
priming.
"Captain," said I, "Trelawney is the dead
shot. Give him your gun; his
own is useless."
They exchanged guns, and Trelawney, silent
and cool as he had been since
the beginning of the bustle, hung a moment
on his heel to see that all
was fit for service. At the same time, observing
Gray to be unarmed, I
handed him my cutlass. It did all our hearts
good to see him spit in his
hand, knit his brows, and make the blade sing
through the air. It was
plain from every line of his body that our
new hand was worth his salt.
Forty paces farther we came to the edge of
the wood and saw the stockade
in front of us. We struck the enclosure about
the middle of the south
side, and almost at the same time, seven mutineers--Job
Anderson, the
boatswain, at their head--appeared in full
cry at the southwestern
corner.
They paused as if taken aback, and before
they recovered, not only the
squire and I, but Hunter and Joyce from the
block house, had time to
fire. The four shots came in rather a scattering
volley, but they did
the business: one of the enemy actually fell,
and the rest, without
hesitation, turned and plunged into the trees.
After reloading, we walked down the outside
of the palisade to see to
the fallen enemy. He was stone dead--shot
through the heart.
We began to rejoice over our good success
when just at that moment a
pistol cracked in the bush, a ball whistled
close past my ear, and poor
Tom Redruth stumbled and fell his length on
the ground. Both the squire
and I returned the shot, but as we had nothing
to aim at, it is probable
we only wasted powder. Then we reloaded and
turned our attention to poor
Tom.
The captain and Gray were already examining
him, and I saw with half an
eye that all was over.
I believe the readiness of our return volley
had scattered the mutineers
once more, for we were suffered without further
molestation to get the
poor old gamekeeper hoisted over the stockade
and carried, groaning and
bleeding, into the log-house.
Poor old fellow, he had not uttered one word
of surprise, complaint,
fear, or even acquiescence from the very beginning
of our troubles till
now, when we had laid him down in the log-house
to die. He had lain like
a Trojan behind his mattress in the gallery;
he had followed every order
silently, doggedly, and well; he was the oldest
of our party by a score
of years; and now, sullen, old, serviceable
servant, it was he that was
to die.
The squire dropped down beside him on his
knees and kissed his hand,
crying like a child.
"Be I going, doctor?" he asked.
"Tom, my man," said I, "you're going home."
"I wish I had had a lick at them with the
gun first," he replied.
"Tom," said the squire, "say you forgive me,
won't you?"
"Would that be respectful like, from me to
you, squire?" was the answer.
"Howsoever, so be it, amen!"
After a little while of silence, he said he
thought somebody might read
a prayer. "It's the custom, sir," he added
apologetically. And not long
after, without another word, he passed away.
In the meantime the captain, whom I had observed
to be wonderfully
swollen about the chest and pockets, had turned
out a great many various
stores--the British colours, a Bible, a coil
of stoutish rope, pen, ink,
the log-book, and pounds of tobacco. He had
found a longish fir-tree
lying felled and trimmed in the enclosure,
and with the help of Hunter
he had set it up at the corner of the log-house
where the trunks crossed
and made an angle. Then, climbing on the roof,
he had with his own hand
bent and run up the colours.
This seemed mightily to relieve him. He re-entered
the log-house and set
about counting up the stores as if nothing
else existed. But he had an
eye on Tom's passage for all that, and as
soon as all was over, came
forward with another flag and reverently spread
it on the body.
"Don't you take on, sir," he said, shaking
the squire's hand. "All's
well with him; no fear for a hand that's been
shot down in his duty to
captain and owner. It mayn't be good divinity,
but it's a fact."
Then he pulled me aside.
"Dr. Livesey," he said, "in how many weeks
do you and squire expect the
consort?"
I told him it was a question not of weeks
but of months, that if we
were not back by the end of August Blandly
was to send to find us, but
neither sooner nor later. "You can calculate
for yourself," I said.
"Why, yes," returned the captain, scratching
his head; "and making a
large allowance, sir, for all the gifts of
Providence, I should say we
were pretty close hauled."
"How do you mean?" I asked.
"It's a pity, sir, we lost that second load.
That's what I mean,"
replied the captain. "As for powder and shot,
we'll do. But the rations
are short, very short--so short, Dr. Livesey,
that we're perhaps as well
without that extra mouth."
And he pointed to the dead body under the
flag.
Just then, with a roar and a whistle, a round-shot
passed high above the
roof of the log-house and plumped far beyond
us in the wood.
"Oho!" said the captain. "Blaze away! You've
little enough powder
already, my lads."
At the second trial, the aim was better, and
the ball descended inside
the stockade, scattering a cloud of sand but
doing no further damage.
"Captain," said the squire, "the house is
quite invisible from the ship.
It must be the flag they are aiming at. Would
it not be wiser to take it
in?"
"Strike my colours!" cried the captain. "No,
sir, not I"; and as soon
as he had said the words, I think we all agreed
with him. For it was
not only a piece of stout, seamanly, good
feeling; it was good policy
besides and showed our enemies that we despised
their cannonade.
All through the evening they kept thundering
away. Ball after ball flew
over or fell short or kicked up the sand in
the enclosure, but they had
to fire so high that the shot fell dead and
buried itself in the soft
sand. We had no ricochet to fear, and though
one popped in through the
roof of the log-house and out again through
the floor, we soon got used
to that sort of horse-play and minded it no
more than cricket.
"There is one good thing about all this,"
observed the captain; "the
wood in front of us is likely clear. The ebb
has made a good while; our
stores should be uncovered. Volunteers to
go and bring in pork."
Gray and Hunter were the first to come forward.
Well armed, they stole
out of the stockade, but it proved a useless
mission. The mutineers were
bolder than we fancied or they put more trust
in Israel's gunnery. For
four or five of them were busy carrying off
our stores and wading out
with them to one of the gigs that lay close
by, pulling an oar or so to
hold her steady against the current. Silver
was in the stern-sheets in
command; and every man of them was now provided
with a musket from some
secret magazine of their own.
The captain sat down to his log, and here
is the beginning of the entry:
Alexander Smollett, master; David Livesey,
ship's
doctor; Abraham Gray, carpenter's mate; John
Trelawney, owner; John Hunter and Richard
Joyce,
owner's servants, landsmen--being all that
is left
faithful of the ship's company--with stores
for ten
days at short rations, came ashore this day
and flew
British colours on the log-house in Treasure
Island.
Thomas Redruth, owner's servant, landsman,
shot by the
mutineers; James Hawkins, cabin-boy--
And at the same time, I was wondering over
poor Jim Hawkins' fate.
A hail on the land side.
"Somebody hailing us," said Hunter, who was
on guard.
"Doctor! Squire! Captain! Hullo, Hunter, is
that you?" came the cries.
And I ran to the door in time to see Jim Hawkins,
safe and sound, come
climbing over
the stockade.
19
Narrative Resumed by Jim Hawkins: The Garrison
in the Stockade
AS soon as Ben Gunn saw the colours he came
to a halt, stopped me by the
arm, and sat down.
"Now," said he, "there's your friends, sure
enough."
"Far more likely it's the mutineers," I answered.
"That!" he cried. "Why, in a place like this,
where nobody puts in but
gen'lemen of fortune, Silver would fly the
Jolly Roger, you don't make
no doubt of that. No, that's your friends.
There's been blows too, and I
reckon your friends has had the best of it;
and here they are ashore in
the old stockade, as was made years and years
ago by Flint. Ah, he was
the man to have a headpiece, was Flint! Barring
rum, his match were
never seen. He were afraid of none, not he;
on'y Silver--Silver was that
genteel."
"Well," said I, "that may be so, and so be
it; all the more reason that
I should hurry on and join my friends."
"Nay, mate," returned Ben, "not you. You're
a good boy, or I'm mistook;
but you're on'y a boy, all told. Now, Ben
Gunn is fly. Rum wouldn't
bring me there, where you're going--not rum
wouldn't, till I see your
born gen'leman and gets it on his word of
honour. And you won't forget
my words; 'A precious sight (that's what you'll
say), a precious sight
more confidence'--and then nips him."
And he pinched me the third time with the
same air of cleverness.
"And when Ben Gunn is wanted, you know where
to find him, Jim. Just
wheer you found him today. And him that comes
is to have a white thing
in his hand, and he's to come alone. Oh! And
you'll say this: 'Ben
Gunn,' says you, 'has reasons of his own.'"
"Well," said I, "I believe I understand. You
have something to propose,
and you wish to see the squire or the doctor,
and you're to be found
where I found you. Is that all?"
"And when? says you," he added. "Why, from
about noon observation to
about six bells."
"Good," said I, "and now may I go?"
"You won't forget?" he inquired anxiously.
"Precious sight, and reasons
of his own, says you. Reasons of his own;
that's the mainstay; as
between man and man. Well, then"--still holding
me--"I reckon you can
go, Jim. And, Jim, if you was to see Silver,
you wouldn't go for to sell
Ben Gunn? Wild horses wouldn't draw it from
you? No, says you. And if
them pirates camp ashore, Jim, what would
you say but there'd be widders
in the morning?"
Here he was interrupted by a loud report,
and a cannonball came tearing
through the trees and pitched in the sand
not a hundred yards from where
we two were talking. The next moment each
of us had taken to his heels
in a different direction.
For a good hour to come frequent reports shook
the island, and
balls kept crashing through the woods. I moved
from hiding-place to
hiding-place, always pursued, or so it seemed
to me, by these terrifying
missiles. But towards the end of the bombardment,
though still I durst
not venture in the direction of the stockade,
where the balls fell
oftenest, I had begun, in a manner, to pluck
up my heart again, and
after a long detour to the east, crept down
among the shore-side trees.
The sun had just set, the sea breeze was rustling
and tumbling in the
woods and ruffling the grey surface of the
anchorage; the tide, too, was
far out, and great tracts of sand lay uncovered;
the air, after the heat
of the day, chilled me through my jacket.
The HISPANIOLA still lay where she had anchored;
but, sure enough, there
was the Jolly Roger--the black flag of piracy--flying
from her peak.
Even as I looked, there came another red flash
and another report that
sent the echoes clattering, and one more round-shot
whistled through the
air. It was the last of the cannonade.
I lay for some time watching the bustle which
succeeded the attack. Men
were demolishing something with axes on the
beach near the stockade--the
poor jolly-boat, I afterwards discovered.
Away, near the mouth of the
river, a great fire was glowing among the
trees, and between that point
and the ship one of the gigs kept coming and
going, the men, whom I
had seen so gloomy, shouting at the oars like
children. But there was a
sound in their voices which suggested rum.
At length I thought I might return towards
the stockade. I was pretty
far down on the low, sandy spit that encloses
the anchorage to the east,
and is joined at half-water to Skeleton Island;
and now, as I rose to my
feet, I saw, some distance further down the
spit and rising from among
low bushes, an isolated rock, pretty high,
and peculiarly white in
colour. It occurred to me that this might
be the white rock of which Ben
Gunn had spoken and that some day or other
a boat might be wanted and I
should know where to look for one.
Then I skirted among the woods until I had
regained the rear, or
shoreward side, of the stockade, and was soon
warmly welcomed by the
faithful party.
I had soon told my story and began to look
about me. The log-house was
made of unsquared trunks of pine--roof, walls,
and floor. The latter
stood in several places as much as a foot
or a foot and a half above the
surface of the sand. There was a porch at
the door, and under this porch
the little spring welled up into an artificial
basin of a rather odd
kind--no other than a great ship's kettle
of iron, with the bottom
knocked out, and sunk "to her bearings," as
the captain said, among the
sand.
Little had been left besides the framework
of the house, but in one
corner there was a stone slab laid down by
way of hearth and an old
rusty iron basket to contain the fire.
The slopes of the knoll and all the inside
of the stockade had been
cleared of timber to build the house, and
we could see by the stumps
what a fine and lofty grove had been destroyed.
Most of the soil had
been washed away or buried in drift after
the removal of the trees; only
where the streamlet ran down from the kettle
a thick bed of moss and
some ferns and little creeping bushes were
still green among the sand.
Very close around the stockade--too close
for defence, they said--the
wood still flourished high and dense, all
of fir on the land side, but
towards the sea with a large admixture of
live-oaks.
The cold evening breeze, of which I have spoken,
whistled through every
chink of the rude building and sprinkled the
floor with a continual rain
of fine sand. There was sand in our eyes,
sand in our teeth, sand in our
suppers, sand dancing in the spring at the
bottom of the kettle, for all
the world like porridge beginning to boil.
Our chimney was a square hole
in the roof; it was but a little part of the
smoke that found its way
out, and the rest eddied about the house and
kept us coughing and piping
the eye.
Add to this that Gray, the new man, had his
face tied up in a bandage
for a cut he had got in breaking away from
the mutineers and that poor
old Tom Redruth, still unburied, lay along
the wall, stiff and stark,
under the Union Jack.
If we had been allowed to sit idle, we should
all have fallen in the
blues, but Captain Smollett was never the
man for that. All hands were
called up before him, and he divided us into
watches. The doctor and
Gray and I for one; the squire, Hunter, and
Joyce upon the other. Tired
though we all were, two were sent out for
firewood; two more were set to
dig a grave for Redruth; the doctor was named
cook; I was put sentry at
the door; and the captain himself went from
one to another, keeping up
our spirits and lending a hand wherever it
was wanted.
From time to time the doctor came to the door
for a little air and to
rest his eyes, which were almost smoked out
of his head, and whenever he
did so, he had a word for me.
"That man Smollett," he said once, "is a better
man than I am. And when
I say that it means a deal, Jim."
Another time he came and was silent for a
while. Then he put his head on
one side, and looked at me.
"Is this Ben Gunn a man?" he asked.
"I do not know, sir," said I. "I am not very
sure whether he's sane."
"If there's any doubt about the matter, he
is," returned the doctor. "A
man who has been three years biting his nails
on a desert island, Jim,
can't expect to appear as sane as you or me.
It doesn't lie in human
nature. Was it cheese you said he had a fancy
for?"
"Yes, sir, cheese," I answered.
"Well, Jim," says he, "just see the good that
comes of being dainty in
your food. You've seen my snuff-box, haven't
you? And you never saw me
take snuff, the reason being that in my snuff-box
I carry a piece of
Parmesan cheese--a cheese made in Italy, very
nutritious. Well, that's
for Ben Gunn!"
Before supper was eaten we buried old Tom
in the sand and stood round
him for a while bare-headed in the breeze.
A good deal of firewood had
been got in, but not enough for the captain's
fancy, and he shook his
head over it and told us we "must get back
to this tomorrow rather
livelier." Then, when we had eaten our pork
and each had a good stiff
glass of brandy grog, the three chiefs got
together in a corner to
discuss our prospects.
It appears they were at their wits' end what
to do, the stores being so
low that we must have been starved into surrender
long before help came.
But our best hope, it was decided, was to
kill off the buccaneers until
they either hauled down their flag or ran
away with the HISPANIOLA. From
nineteen they were already reduced to fifteen,
two others were wounded,
and one at least--the man shot beside the
gun--severely wounded, if he
were not dead. Every time we had a crack at
them, we were to take it,
saving our own lives, with the extremest care.
And besides that, we had
two able allies--rum and the climate.
As for the first, though we were about half
a mile away, we could hear
them roaring and singing late into the night;
and as for the second,
the doctor staked his wig that, camped where
they were in the marsh
and unprovided with remedies, the half of
them would be on their backs
before a week.
"So," he added, "if we are not all shot down
first they'll be glad to
be packing in the schooner. It's always a
ship, and they can get to
buccaneering again, I suppose."
"First ship that ever I lost," said Captain
Smollett.
I was dead tired, as you may fancy; and when
I got to sleep, which was
not till after a great deal of tossing, I
slept like a log of wood.
The rest had long been up and had already
breakfasted and increased the
pile of firewood by about half as much again
when I was wakened by a
bustle and the sound of voices.
"Flag of truce!" I heard someone say; and
then, immediately after, with
a cry of surprise, "Silver himself!"
And at that, up I jumped, and rubbing my eyes,
ran to a loophole
in the
wall.
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 buccaneer.
"Who goes? Stand, or we fire."
"Flag of truce," cried Silver.
The captain was in the porch, keeping himself
carefully out of the way
of a treacherous shot, should any be intended.
He turned and spoke to
us, "Doctor's watch on the lookout. Dr. Livesey
take the north side,
if you please; Jim, the east; Gray, west.
The watch below, all hands to
load muskets. Lively, men, and careful."
And then he turned again to the mutineers.
"And what do you want with your flag of truce?"
he cried.
This time it was the other man who replied.
"Cap'n Silver, sir, to come on board and make
terms," he shouted.
"Cap'n Silver! Don't know him. Who's he?"
cried the captain. And we
could hear him adding to himself, "Cap'n,
is it? My heart, and here's
promotion!"
Long John answered for himself. "Me, sir.
These poor lads have chosen me
cap'n, after your desertion, sir"--laying
a particular emphasis upon the
word "desertion." "We're willing to submit,
if we can come to terms,
and no bones about it. All I ask is your word,
Cap'n Smollett, to let me
safe and sound out of this here stockade,
and one minute to get out o'
shot before a gun is fired."
"My man," said Captain Smollett, "I have not
the slightest desire to
talk to you. If you wish to talk to me, you
can come, that's all. If
there's any treachery, it'll be on your side,
and the Lord help you."
"That's enough, cap'n," shouted Long John
cheerily. "A word from you's
enough. I know a gentleman, and you may lay
to that."
We could see the man who carried the flag
of truce attempting to hold
Silver back. Nor was that wonderful, seeing
how cavalier had been the
captain's answer. But Silver laughed at him
aloud and slapped him on the
back as if the idea of alarm had been absurd.
Then he advanced to the
stockade, threw over his crutch, got a leg
up, and with great vigour
and skill succeeded in surmounting the fence
and dropping safely to the
other side.
I will confess that I was far too much taken
up with what was going on
to be of the slightest use as sentry; indeed,
I had already deserted
my eastern loophole and crept up behind the
captain, who had now seated
himself on the threshold, with his elbows
on his knees, his head in his
hands, and his eyes fixed on the water as
it bubbled out of the old iron
kettle in the sand. He was whistling "Come,
Lasses and Lads."
Silver had terrible hard work getting up the
knoll. What with the
steepness of the incline, the thick tree stumps,
and the soft sand, he
and his crutch were as helpless as a ship
in stays. But he stuck to it
like a man in silence, and at last arrived
before the captain, whom
he saluted in the handsomest style. He was
tricked out in his best;
an immense blue coat, thick with brass buttons,
hung as low as to his
knees, and a fine laced hat was set on the
back of his head.
"Here you are, my man," said the captain,
raising his head. "You had
better sit down."
"You ain't a-going to let me inside, cap'n?"
complained Long John. "It's
a main cold morning, to be sure, sir, to sit
outside upon the sand."
"Why, Silver," said the captain, "if you had
pleased to be an honest
man, you might have been sitting in your galley.
It's your own doing.
You're either my ship's cook--and then you
were treated handsome--or
Cap'n Silver, a common mutineer and pirate,
and then you can go hang!"
"Well, well, cap'n," returned the sea-cook,
sitting down as he was
bidden on the sand, "you'll have to give me
a hand up again, that's all.
A sweet pretty place you have of it here.
Ah, there's Jim! The top of
the morning to you, Jim. Doctor, here's my
service. Why, there you all
are together like a happy family, in a manner
of speaking."
"If you have anything to say, my man, better
say it," said the captain.
"Right you were, Cap'n Smollett," replied
Silver. "Dooty is dooty, to be
sure. Well now, you look here, that was a
good lay of yours last
night. I don't deny it was a good lay. Some
of you pretty handy with a
handspike-end. And I'll not deny neither but
what some of my people was
shook--maybe all was shook; maybe I was shook
myself; maybe that's
why I'm here for terms. But you mark me, cap'n,
it won't do twice, by
thunder! We'll have to do sentry-go and ease
off a point or so on the
rum. Maybe you think we were all a sheet in
the wind's eye. But I'll
tell you I was sober; I was on'y dog tired;
and if I'd awoke a second
sooner, I'd 'a caught you at the act, I would.
He wasn't dead when I got
round to him, not he."
"Well?" says Captain Smollett as cool as can
be.
All that Silver said was a riddle to him,
but you would never have
guessed it from his tone. As for me, I began
to have an inkling. Ben
Gunn's last words came back to my mind. I
began to suppose that he had
paid the buccaneers a visit while they all
lay drunk together round
their fire, and I reckoned up with glee that
we had only fourteen
enemies to deal with.
"Well, here it is," said Silver. "We want
that treasure, and we'll have
it--that's our point! You would just as soon
save your lives, I reckon;
and that's yours. You have a chart, haven't
you?"
"That's as may be," replied the captain.
"Oh, well, you have, I know that," returned
Long John. "You needn't be
so husky with a man; there ain't a particle
of service in that, and you
may lay to it. What I mean is, we want your
chart. Now, I never meant
you no harm, myself."
"That won't do with me, my man," interrupted
the captain. "We know
exactly what you meant to do, and we don't
care, for now, you see, you
can't do it."
And the captain looked at him calmly and proceeded
to fill a pipe.
"If Abe Gray--" Silver broke out.
"Avast there!" cried Mr. Smollett. "Gray told
me nothing, and I asked
him nothing; and what's more, I would see
you and him and this whole
island blown clean out of the water into blazes
first. So there's my
mind for you, my man, on that."
This little whiff of temper seemed to cool
Silver down. He had been
growing nettled before, but now he pulled
himself together.
"Like enough," said he. "I would set no limits
to what gentlemen might
consider shipshape, or might not, as the case
were. And seein' as how
you are about to take a pipe, cap'n, I'll
make so free as do likewise."
And he filled a pipe and lighted it; and the
two men sat silently
smoking for quite a while, now looking each
other in the face, now
stopping their tobacco, now leaning forward
to spit. It was as good as
the play to see them.
"Now," resumed Silver, "here it is. You give
us the chart to get the
treasure by, and drop shooting poor seamen
and stoving of their heads in
while asleep. You do that, and we'll offer
you a choice. Either you come
aboard along of us, once the treasure shipped,
and then I'll give you my
affy-davy, upon my word of honour, to clap
you somewhere safe ashore. Or
if that ain't to your fancy, some of my hands
being rough and having
old scores on account of hazing, then you
can stay here, you can. We'll
divide stores with you, man for man; and I'll
give my affy-davy, as
before to speak the first ship I sight, and
send 'em here to pick you
up. Now, you'll own that's talking. Handsomer
you couldn't look to get,
now you. And I hope"--raising his voice--"that
all hands in this here
block house will overhaul my words, for what
is spoke to one is spoke to
all."
Captain Smollett rose from his seat and knocked
out the ashes of his
pipe in the palm of his left hand.
"Is that all?" he asked.
"Every last word, by thunder!" answered John.
"Refuse that, and you've
seen the last of me but musket-balls."
"Very good," said the captain. "Now you'll
hear me. If you'll come up
one by one, unarmed, I'll engage to clap you
all in irons and take you
home to a fair trial in England. If you won't,
my name is Alexander
Smollett, I've flown my sovereign's colours,
and I'll see you all
to Davy Jones. You can't find the treasure.
You can't sail the
ship--there's not a man among you fit to sail
the ship. You can't fight
us--Gray, there, got away from five of you.
Your ship's in irons, Master
Silver; you're on a lee shore, and so you'll
find. I stand here and tell
you so; and they're the last good words you'll
get from me, for in the
name of heaven, I'll put a bullet in your
back when next I meet you.
Tramp, my lad. Bundle out of this, please,
hand over hand, and double
quick."
Silver's face was a picture; his eyes started
in his head with wrath. He
shook the fire out of his pipe.
"Give me a hand up!" he cried.
"Not I," returned the captain.
"Who'll give me a hand up?" he roared.
Not a man among us moved. Growling the foulest
imprecations, he crawled
along the sand till he got hold of the porch
and could hoist himself
again upon his crutch. Then he spat into the
spring.
"There!" he cried. "That's what I think of
ye. Before an hour's out,
I'll stove in your old block house like a
rum puncheon. Laugh, by
thunder, laugh! Before an hour's out, ye'll
laugh upon the other side.
Them that die'll be the lucky ones."
And with a dreadful oath he stumbled off,
ploughed down the sand, was
helped across the stockade, after four or
five failures, by the man with
the flag of truce, and disappeared in an instant
afterwards among the
trees.
21
The Attack
AS soon as Silver disappeared, the captain,
who had been closely
watching him, turned towards the interior
of the house and found not a
man of us at his post but Gray. It was the
first time we had ever seen
him angry.
"Quarters!" he roared. And then, as we all
slunk back to our places,
"Gray," he said, "I'll put your name in the
log; you've stood by your
duty like a seaman. Mr. Trelawney, I'm surprised
at you, sir. Doctor,
I thought you had worn the king's coat! If
that was how you served at
Fontenoy, sir, you'd have been better in your
berth."
The doctor's watch were all back at their
loopholes, the rest were busy
loading the spare muskets, and everyone with
a red face, you may be
certain, and a flea in his ear, as the saying
is.
The captain looked on for a while in silence.
Then he spoke.
"My lads," said he, "I've given Silver a broadside.
I pitched it in
red-hot on purpose; and before the hour's
out, as he said, we shall be
boarded. We're outnumbered, I needn't tell
you that, but we fight in
shelter; and a minute ago I should have said
we fought with discipline.
I've no manner of doubt that we can drub them,
if you choose."
Then he went the rounds and saw, as he said,
that all was clear.
On the two short sides of the house, east
and west, there were only two
loopholes; on the south side where the porch
was, two again; and on the
north side, five. There was a round score
of muskets for the seven
of us; the firewood had been built into four
piles--tables, you might
say--one about the middle of each side, and
on each of these tables some
ammunition and four loaded muskets were laid
ready to the hand of the
defenders. In the middle, the cutlasses lay
ranged.
"Toss out the fire," said the captain; "the
chill is past, and we
mustn't have smoke in our eyes."
The iron fire-basket was carried bodily out
by Mr. Trelawney, and the
embers smothered among sand.
"Hawkins hasn't had his breakfast. Hawkins,
help yourself, and back to
your post to eat it," continued Captain Smollett.
"Lively, now, my lad;
you'll want it before you've done. Hunter,
serve out a round of brandy
to all hands."
And while this was going on, the captain completed,
in his own mind, the
plan of the defence.
"Doctor, you will take the door," he resumed.
"See, and don't expose
yourself; keep within, and fire through the
porch. Hunter, take the east
side, there. Joyce, you stand by the west,
my man. Mr. Trelawney, you
are the best shot--you and Gray will take
this long north side, with the
five loopholes; it's there the danger is.
If they can get up to it and
fire in upon us through our own ports, things
would begin to look dirty.
Hawkins, neither you nor I are much account
at the shooting; we'll stand
by to load and bear a hand."
As the captain had said, the chill was past.
As soon as the sun had
climbed above our girdle of trees, it fell
with all its force upon the
clearing and drank up the vapours at a draught.
Soon the sand was baking
and the resin melting in the logs of the block
house. Jackets and coats
were flung aside, shirts thrown open at the
neck and rolled up to the
shoulders; and we stood there, each at his
post, in a fever of heat and
anxiety.
An hour passed away.
"Hang them!" said the captain. "This is as
dull as the doldrums. Gray,
whistle for a wind."
And just at that moment came the first news
of the attack.
"If you please, sir," said Joyce, "if I see
anyone, am I to fire?"
"I told you so!" cried the captain.
"Thank you, sir," returned Joyce with the
same quiet civility.
Nothing followed for a time, but the remark
had set us all on the alert,
straining ears and eyes--the musketeers with
their pieces balanced in
their hands, the captain out in the middle
of the block house with his
mouth very tight and a frown on his face.
So some seconds passed, till suddenly Joyce
whipped up his musket
and fired. The report had scarcely died away
ere it was repeated and
repeated from without in a scattering volley,
shot behind shot, like
a string of geese, from every side of the
enclosure. Several bullets
struck the log-house, but not one entered;
and as the smoke cleared away
and vanished, the stockade and the woods around
it looked as quiet and
empty as before. Not a bough waved, not the
gleam of a musket-barrel
betrayed the presence of our foes.
"Did you hit your man?" asked the captain.
"No, sir," replied Joyce. "I believe not,
sir."
"Next best thing to tell the truth," muttered
Captain Smollett. "Load
his gun, Hawkins. How many should say there
were on your side, doctor?"
"I know precisely," said Dr. Livesey. "Three
shots were fired on this
side. I saw the three flashes--two close together--one
farther to the
west."
"Three!" repeated the captain. "And how many
on yours, Mr. Trelawney?"
But this was not so easily answered. There
had come many from the
north--seven by the squire's computation,
eight or nine according to
Gray. From the east and west only a single
shot had been fired. It was
plain, therefore, that the attack would be
developed from the north and
that on the other three sides we were only
to be annoyed by a show of
hostilities. But Captain Smollett made no
change in his arrangements. If
the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade,
he argued, they would
take possession of any unprotected loophole
and shoot us down like rats
in our own stronghold.
Nor had we much time left to us for thought.
Suddenly, with a loud
huzza, a little cloud of pirates leaped from
the woods on the north side
and ran straight on the stockade. At the same
moment, the fire was once
more opened from the woods, and a rifle ball
sang through the doorway
and knocked the doctor's musket into bits.
The boarders swarmed over the fence like monkeys.
Squire and Gray fired
again and yet again; three men fell, one forwards
into the enclosure,
two back on the outside. But of these, one
was evidently more frightened
than hurt, for he was on his feet again in
a crack and instantly
disappeared among the trees.
Two had bit the dust, one had fled, four had
made good their footing
inside our defences, while from the shelter
of the woods seven or eight
men, each evidently supplied with several
muskets, kept up a hot though
useless fire on the log-house.
The four who had boarded made straight before
them for the building,
shouting as they ran, and the men among the
trees shouted back to
encourage them. Several shots were fired,
but such was the hurry of the
marksmen that not one appears to have taken
effect. In a moment, the
four pirates had swarmed up the mound and
were upon us.
The head of Job Anderson, the boatswain, appeared
at the middle
loophole.
"At 'em, all hands--all hands!" he roared
in a voice of thunder.
At the same moment, another pirate grasped
Hunter's musket by the
muzzle, wrenched it from his hands, plucked
it through the loophole,
and with one stunning blow, laid the poor
fellow senseless on the floor.
Meanwhile a third, running unharmed all around
the house, appeared
suddenly in the doorway and fell with his
cutlass on the doctor.
Our position was utterly reversed. A moment
since we were firing, under
cover, at an exposed enemy; now it was we
who lay uncovered and could
not return a blow.
The log-house was full of smoke, to which
we owed our comparative
safety. Cries and confusion, the flashes and
reports of pistol-shots,
and one loud groan rang in my ears.
"Out, lads, out, and fight 'em in the open!
Cutlasses!" cried the
captain.
I snatched a cutlass from the pile, and someone,
at the same time
snatching another, gave me a cut across the
knuckles which I hardly
felt. I dashed out of the door into the clear
sunlight. Someone was
close behind, I knew not whom. Right in front,
the doctor was pursuing
his assailant down the hill, and just as my
eyes fell upon him, beat
down his guard and sent him sprawling on his
back with a great slash
across the face.
"Round the house, lads! Round the house!"
cried the captain; and even in
the hurly-burly, I perceived a change in his
voice.
Mechanically, I obeyed, turned eastwards,
and with my cutlass raised,
ran round the corner of the house. Next moment
I was face to face
with Anderson. He roared aloud, and his hanger
went up above his head,
flashing in the sunlight. I had not time to
be afraid, but as the blow
still hung impending, leaped in a trice upon
one side, and missing my
foot in the soft sand, rolled headlong down
the slope.
When I had first sallied from the door, the
other mutineers had been
already swarming up the palisade to make an
end of us. One man, in a red
night-cap, with his cutlass in his mouth,
had even got upon the top and
thrown a leg across. Well, so short had been
the interval that when I
found my feet again all was in the same posture,
the fellow with the red
night-cap still half-way over, another still
just showing his head above
the top of the stockade. And yet, in this
breath of time, the fight was
over and the victory was ours.
Gray, following close behind me, had cut down
the big boatswain ere
he had time to recover from his last blow.
Another had been shot at a
loophole in the very act of firing into the
house and now lay in agony,
the pistol still smoking in his hand. A third,
as I had seen, the doctor
had disposed of at a blow. Of the four who
had scaled the palisade, one
only remained unaccounted for, and he, having
left his cutlass on the
field, was now clambering out again with the
fear of death upon him.
"Fire--fire from the house!" cried the doctor.
"And you, lads, back into
cover."
But his words were unheeded, no shot was fired,
and the last boarder
made good his escape and disappeared with
the rest into the wood. In
three seconds nothing remained of the attacking
party but the five who
had fallen, four on the inside and one on
the outside of the palisade.
The doctor and Gray and I ran full speed for
shelter. The survivors
would soon be back where they had left their
muskets, and at any moment
the fire might recommence.
The house was by this time somewhat cleared
of smoke, and we saw at
a glance the price we had paid for victory.
Hunter lay beside his
loophole, stunned; Joyce by his, shot through
the head, never to move
again; while right in the centre, the squire
was supporting the captain,
one as pale as the other.
"The captain's wounded," said Mr. Trelawney.
"Have they run?" asked Mr. Smollett.
"All that could, you may be bound," returned
the doctor; "but there's
five of them will never run again."
"Five!" cried the captain. "Come, that's better.
Five against three
leaves us four to nine. That's better odds
than we had at starting. We
were seven to nineteen then, or thought we
were, and that's as bad to
bear."*
*The mutineers were soon only eight in number,
for the man shot by Mr.
Trelawney on board the schooner died that
same evening of his wound. But
this was, of course, not known till after
by the faithful party.
PART FIVE--My Sea Adventure
22
How My Sea Adventure Began
THERE was no return of the mutineers--not
so much as another shot out of
the woods. They had "got their rations for
that day," as the captain put
it, and we had the place to ourselves and
a quiet time to overhaul the
wounded and get dinner. Squire and I cooked
outside in spite of the
danger, and even outside we could hardly tell
what we were at, for
horror of the loud groans that reached us
from the doctor's patients.
Out of the eight men who had fallen in the
action, only three still
breathed--that one of the pirates who had
been shot at the loophole,
Hunter, and Captain Smollett; and of these,
the first two were as good
as dead; the mutineer indeed died under the
doctor's knife, and Hunter,
do what we could, never recovered consciousness
in this world. He
lingered all day, breathing loudly like the
old buccaneer at home in his
apoplectic fit, but the bones of his chest
had been crushed by the
blow and his skull fractured in falling, and
some time in the following
night, without sign or sound, he went to his
Maker.
As for the captain, his wounds were grievous
indeed, but not dangerous.
No organ was fatally injured. Anderson's ball--for
it was Job that
shot him first--had broken his shoulder-blade
and touched the lung, not
badly; the second had only torn and displaced
some muscles in the calf.
He was sure to recover, the doctor said, but
in the meantime, and for
weeks to come, he must not walk nor move his
arm, nor so much as speak
when he could help it.
My own accidental cut across the knuckles
was a flea-bite. Doctor
Livesey patched it up with plaster and pulled
my ears for me into the
bargain.
After dinner the squire and the doctor sat
by the captain's side awhile
in consultation; and when they had talked
to their hearts' content, it
being then a little past noon, the doctor
took up his hat and pistols,
girt on a cutlass, put the chart in his pocket,
and with a musket over
his shoulder crossed the palisade on the north
side and set off briskly
through the trees.
Gray and I were sitting together at the far
end of the block house, to
be out of earshot of our officers consulting;
and Gray took his pipe out
of his mouth and fairly forgot to put it back
again, so thunder-struck
he was at this occurrence.
"Why, in the name of Davy Jones," said he,
"is Dr. Livesey mad?"
"Why no," says I. "He's about the last of
this crew for that, I take
it."
"Well, shipmate," said Gray, "mad he may not
be; but if HE'S not, you
mark my words, I am."
"I take it," replied I, "the doctor has his
idea; and if I am right,
he's going now to see Ben Gunn."
I was right, as appeared later; but in the
meantime, the house being
stifling hot and the little patch of sand
inside the palisade ablaze
with midday sun, I began to get another thought
into my head, which was
not by any means so right. What I began to
do was to envy the doctor
walking in the cool shadow of the woods with
the birds about him and the
pleasant smell of the pines, while I sat grilling,
with my clothes
stuck to the hot resin, and so much blood
about me and so many poor
dead bodies lying all around that I took a
disgust of the place that was
almost as strong as fear.
All the time I was washing out the block house,
and then washing up
the things from dinner, this disgust and envy
kept growing stronger
and stronger, till at last, being near a bread-bag,
and no one then
observing me, I took the first step towards
my escapade and filled both
pockets of my coat with biscuit.
I was a fool, if you like, and certainly I
was going to do a foolish,
over-bold act; but I was determined to do
it with all the precautions in
my power. These biscuits, should anything
befall me, would keep me, at
least, from starving till far on in the next
day.
The next thing I laid hold of was a brace
of pistols, and as I already
had a powder-horn and bullets, I felt myself
well supplied with arms.
As for the scheme I had in my head, it was
not a bad one in itself. I
was to go down the sandy spit that divides
the anchorage on the east
from the open sea, find the white rock I had
observed last evening, and
ascertain whether it was there or not that
Ben Gunn had hidden his boat,
a thing quite worth doing, as I still believe.
But as I was certain I
should not be allowed to leave the enclosure,
my only plan was to take
French leave and slip out when nobody was
watching, and that was so bad
a way of doing it as made the thing itself
wrong. But I was only a boy,
and I had made my mind up.
Well, as things at last fell out, I found
an admirable opportunity. The
squire and Gray were busy helping the captain
with his bandages, the
coast was clear, I made a bolt for it over
the stockade and into the
thickest of the trees, and before my absence
was observed I was out of
cry of my companions.
This was my second folly, far worse than the
first, as I left but two
sound men to guard the house; but like the
first, it was a help towards
saving all of us.
I took my way straight for the east coast
of the island, for I was
determined to go down the sea side of the
spit to avoid all chance of
observation from the anchorage. It was already
late in the afternoon,
although still warm and sunny. As I continued
to thread the tall woods,
I could hear from far before me not only the
continuous thunder of the
surf, but a certain tossing of foliage and
grinding of boughs which
showed me the sea breeze had set in higher
than usual. Soon cool
draughts of air began to reach me, and a few
steps farther I came forth
into the open borders of the grove, and saw
the sea lying blue and sunny
to the horizon and the surf tumbling and tossing
its foam along the
beach.
I have never seen the sea quiet round Treasure
Island. The sun might
blaze overhead, the air be without a breath,
the surface smooth and
blue, but still these great rollers would
be running along all the
external coast, thundering and thundering
by day and night; and I scarce
believe there is one spot in the island where
a man would be out of
earshot of their noise.
I walked along beside the surf with great
enjoyment, till, thinking
I was now got far enough to the south, I took
the cover of some thick
bushes and crept warily up to the ridge of
the spit.
Behind me was the sea, in front the anchorage.
The sea breeze, as though
it had the sooner blown itself out by its
unusual violence, was already
at an end; it had been succeeded by light,
variable airs from the south
and south-east, carrying great banks of fog;
and the anchorage, under
lee of Skeleton Island, lay still and leaden
as when first we entered
it. The HISPANIOLA, in that unbroken mirror,
was exactly portrayed from
the truck to the waterline, the Jolly Roger
hanging from her peak.
Alongside lay one of the gigs, Silver in the
stern-sheets--him I could
always recognize--while a couple of men were
leaning over the stern
bulwarks, one of them with a red cap--the
very rogue that I had seen
some hours before stride-legs upon the palisade.
Apparently they were
talking and laughing, though at that distance--upwards
of a mile--I
could, of course, hear no word of what was
said. All at once there began
the most horrid, unearthly screaming, which
at first startled me badly,
though I had soon remembered the voice of
Captain Flint and even thought
I could make out the bird by her bright plumage
as she sat perched upon
her master's wrist.
Soon after, the jolly-boat shoved off and
pulled for shore, and the man
with the red cap and his comrade went below
by the cabin companion.
Just about the same time, the sun had gone
down behind the Spy-glass,
and as the fog was collecting rapidly, it
began to grow dark in earnest.
I saw I must lose no time if I were to find
the boat that evening.
The white rock, visible enough above the brush,
was still some eighth of
a mile further down the spit, and it took
me a goodish while to get up
with it, crawling, often on all fours, among
the scrub. Night had almost
come when I laid my hand on its rough sides.
Right below it there was
an exceedingly small hollow of green turf,
hidden by banks and a thick
underwood about knee-deep, that grew there
very plentifully; and in the
centre of the dell, sure enough, a little
tent of goat-skins, like what
the gipsies carry about with them in England.
I dropped into the hollow, lifted the side
of the tent, and there was
Ben Gunn's boat--home-made if ever anything
was home-made; a rude,
lop-sided framework of tough wood, and stretched
upon that a covering of
goat-skin, with the hair inside. The thing
was extremely small, even
for me, and I can hardly imagine that it could
have floated with a
full-sized man. There was one thwart set as
low as possible, a kind of
stretcher in the bows, and a double paddle
for propulsion.
I had not then seen a coracle, such as the
ancient Britons made, but
I have seen one since, and I can give you
no fairer idea of Ben Gunn's
boat than by saying it was like the first
and the worst coracle ever
made by man. But the great advantage of the
coracle it certainly
possessed, for it was exceedingly light and
portable.
Well, now that I had found the boat, you would
have thought I had had
enough of truantry for once, but in the meantime
I had taken another
notion and become so obstinately fond of it
that I would have carried
it out, I believe, in the teeth of Captain
Smollett himself. This was
to slip out under cover of the night, cut
the HISPANIOLA adrift, and let
her go ashore where she fancied. I had quite
made up my mind that the
mutineers, after their repulse of the morning,
had nothing nearer their
hearts than to up anchor and away to sea;
this, I thought, it would be
a fine thing to prevent, and now that I had
seen how they left their
watchmen unprovided with a boat, I thought
it might be done with little
risk.
Down I sat to wait for darkness, and made
a hearty meal of biscuit. It
was a night out of ten thousand for my purpose.
The fog had now buried
all heaven. As the last rays of daylight dwindled
and disappeared,
absolute blackness settled down on Treasure
Island. And when, at last,
I shouldered the coracle and groped my way
stumblingly out of the hollow
where I had supped, there were but two points
visible on the whole
anchorage.
One was the great fire on shore, by which
the defeated pirates lay
carousing in the swamp. The other, a mere
blur of light upon the
darkness, indicated the position of the anchored
ship. She had swung
round to the ebb--her bow was now towards
me--the only lights on board
were in the cabin, and what I saw was merely
a reflection on the fog of
the strong rays that flowed from the stern
window.
The ebb had already run some time, and I had
to wade through a long belt
of swampy sand, where I sank several times
above the ankle, before I
came to the edge of the retreating water,
and wading a little way in,
with some strength and dexterity, set my coracle,
keel downwards, on
the
surface.
23
The Ebb-tide Runs
THE coracle--as I had ample reason to know
before I was done with
her--was a very safe boat for a person of
my height and weight, both
buoyant and clever in a seaway; but she was
the most cross-grained,
lop-sided craft to manage. Do as you pleased,
she always made more
leeway than anything else, and turning round
and round was the manoeuvre
she was best at. Even Ben Gunn himself has
admitted that she was "queer
to handle till you knew her way."
Certainly I did not know her way. She turned
in every direction but the
one I was bound to go; the most part of the
time we were broadside on,
and I am very sure I never should have made
the ship at all but for the
tide. By good fortune, paddle as I pleased,
the tide was still sweeping
me down; and there lay the HISPANIOLA right
in the fairway, hardly to be
missed.
First she loomed before me like a blot of
something yet blacker than
darkness, then her spars and hull began to
take shape, and the next
moment, as it seemed (for, the farther I went,
the brisker grew the
current of the ebb), I was alongside of her
hawser and had laid hold.
The hawser was as taut as a bowstring, and
the current so strong she
pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull,
in the blackness, the
rippling current bubbled and chattered like
a little mountain stream.
One cut with my sea-gully and the HISPANIOLA
would go humming down the
tide.
So far so good, but it next occurred to my
recollection that a taut
hawser, suddenly cut, is a thing as dangerous
as a kicking horse. Ten to
one, if I were so foolhardy as to cut the
HISPANIOLA from her anchor, I
and the coracle would be knocked clean out
of the water.
This brought me to a full stop, and if fortune
had not again
particularly favoured me, I should have had
to abandon my design. But
the light airs which had begun blowing from
the south-east and south
had hauled round after nightfall into the
south-west. Just while I was
meditating, a puff came, caught the HISPANIOLA,
and forced her up into
the current; and to my great joy, I felt the
hawser slacken in my grasp,
and the hand by which I held it dip for a
second under water.
With that I made my mind up, took out my gully,
opened it with my teeth,
and cut one strand after another, till the
vessel swung only by two.
Then I lay quiet, waiting to sever these last
when the strain should be
once more lightened by a breath of wind.
All this time I had heard the sound of loud
voices from the cabin, but
to say truth, my mind had been so entirely
taken up with other thoughts
that I had scarcely given ear. Now, however,
when I had nothing else to
do, I began to pay more heed.
One I recognized for the coxswain's, Israel
Hands, that had been Flint's
gunner in former days. The other was, of course,
my friend of the red
night-cap. Both men were plainly the worse
of drink, and they were still
drinking, for even while I was listening,
one of them, with a drunken
cry, opened the stern window and threw out
something, which I divined to
be an empty bottle. But they were not only
tipsy; it was plain that they
were furiously angry. Oaths flew like hailstones,
and every now and
then there came forth such an explosion as
I thought was sure to end
in blows. But each time the quarrel passed
off and the voices grumbled
lower for a while, until the next crisis came
and in its turn passed
away without result.
On shore, I could see the glow of the great
camp-fire burning warmly
through the shore-side trees. Someone was
singing, a dull, old, droning
sailor's song, with a droop and a quaver at
the end of every verse,
and seemingly no end to it at all but the
patience of the singer. I had
heard it on the voyage more than once and
remembered these words:
"But one man of her crew alive,
What put to sea with seventy-five."
And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully
appropriate for a
company that had met such cruel losses in
the morning. But, indeed, from
what I saw, all these buccaneers were as callous
as the sea they sailed
on.
At last the breeze came; the schooner sidled
and drew nearer in the
dark; I felt the hawser slacken once more,
and with a good, tough
effort, cut the last fibres through.
The breeze had but little action on the coracle,
and I was almost
instantly swept against the bows of the HISPANIOLA.
At the same time,
the schooner began to turn upon her heel,
spinning slowly, end for end,
across the current.
I wrought like a fiend, for I expected every
moment to be swamped; and
since I found I could not push the coracle
directly off, I now shoved
straight astern. At length I was clear of
my dangerous neighbour, and
just as I gave the last impulsion, my hands
came across a light cord
that was trailing overboard across the stern
bulwarks. Instantly I
grasped it.
Why I should have done so I can hardly say.
It was at first mere
instinct, but once I had it in my hands and
found it fast, curiosity
began to get the upper hand, and I determined
I should have one look
through the cabin window.
I pulled in hand over hand on the cord, and
when I judged myself near
enough, rose at infinite risk to about half
my height and thus commanded
the roof and a slice of the interior of the
cabin.
By this time the schooner and her little consort
were gliding pretty
swiftly through the water; indeed, we had
already fetched up level with
the camp-fire. The ship was talking, as sailors
say, loudly, treading
the innumerable ripples with an incessant
weltering splash; and until I
got my eye above the window-sill I could not
comprehend why the watchmen
had taken no alarm. One glance, however, was
sufficient; and it was
only one glance that I durst take from that
unsteady skiff. It showed me
Hands and his companion locked together in
deadly wrestle, each with a
hand upon the other's throat.
I dropped upon the thwart again, none too
soon, for I was near
overboard. I could see nothing for the moment
but these two furious,
encrimsoned faces swaying together under the
smoky lamp, and I shut my
eyes to let them grow once more familiar with
the darkness.
The endless ballad had come to an end at last,
and the whole diminished
company about the camp-fire had broken into
the chorus I had heard so
often:
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
I was just thinking how busy drink and the
devil were at that very
moment in the cabin of the HISPANIOLA, when
I was surprised by a sudden
lurch of the coracle. At the same moment,
she yawed sharply and seemed
to change her course. The speed in the meantime
had strangely increased.
I opened my eyes at once. All round me were
little ripples, combing
over with a sharp, bristling sound and slightly
phosphorescent. The
HISPANIOLA herself, a few yards in whose wake
I was still being whirled
along, seemed to stagger in her course, and
I saw her spars toss a
little against the blackness of the night;
nay, as I looked longer, I
made sure she also was wheeling to the southward.
I glanced over my shoulder, and my heart jumped
against my ribs. There,
right behind me, was the glow of the camp-fire.
The current had turned
at right angles, sweeping round along with
it the tall schooner and
the little dancing coracle; ever quickening,
ever bubbling higher, ever
muttering louder, it went spinning through
the narrows for the open sea.
Suddenly the schooner in front of me gave
a violent yaw, turning,
perhaps, through twenty degrees; and almost
at the same moment one
shout followed another from on board; I could
hear feet pounding on
the companion ladder and I knew that the two
drunkards had at last been
interrupted in their quarrel and awakened
to a sense of their disaster.
I lay down flat in the bottom of that wretched
skiff and devoutly
recommended my spirit to its Maker. At the
end of the straits, I
made sure we must fall into some bar of raging
breakers, where all my
troubles would be ended speedily; and though
I could, perhaps, bear to
die, I could not bear to look upon my fate
as it approached.
So I must have lain for hours, continually
beaten to and fro upon the
billows, now and again wetted with flying
sprays, and never ceasing to
expect death at the next plunge. Gradually
weariness grew upon me; a
numbness, an occasional stupor, fell upon
my mind even in the midst of
my terrors, until sleep at last supervened
and in my sea-tossed coracle
I lay and dreamed of home and the old Admiral
Benbow.
24
The Cruise of the Coracle
IT was broad day when I awoke and found myself
tossing at the south-west
end of Treasure Island. The sun was up but
was still hid from me behind
the great bulk of the Spy-glass, which on
this side descended almost to
the sea in formidable cliffs.
Haulbowline Head and Mizzen-mast Hill were
at my elbow, the hill bare
and dark, the head bound with cliffs forty
or fifty feet high and
fringed with great masses of fallen rock.
I was scarce a quarter of a
mile to seaward, and it was my first thought
to paddle in and land.
That notion was soon given over. Among the
fallen rocks the breakers
spouted and bellowed; loud reverberations,
heavy sprays flying and
falling, succeeded one another from second
to second; and I saw myself,
if I ventured nearer, dashed to death upon
the rough shore or spending
my strength in vain to scale the beetling
crags.
Nor was that all, for crawling together on
flat tables of rock or
letting themselves drop into the sea with
loud reports I beheld huge
slimy monsters--soft snails, as it were, of
incredible bigness--two
or three score of them together, making the
rocks to echo with their
barkings.
I have understood since that they were sea
lions, and entirely harmless.
But the look of them, added to the difficulty
of the shore and the
high running of the surf, was more than enough
to disgust me of that
landing-place. I felt willing rather to starve
at sea than to confront
such perils.
In the meantime I had a better chance, as
I supposed, before me. North
of Haulbowline Head, the land runs in a long
way, leaving at low tide
a long stretch of yellow sand. To the north
of that, again, there comes
another cape--Cape of the Woods, as it was
marked upon the chart--buried
in tall green pines, which descended to the
margin of the sea.
I remembered what Silver had said about the
current that sets northward
along the whole west coast of Treasure Island,
and seeing from my
position that I was already under its influence,
I preferred to leave
Haulbowline Head behind me and reserve my
strength for an attempt to
land upon the kindlier-looking Cape of the
Woods.
There was a great, smooth swell upon the sea.
The wind blowing steady
and gentle from the south, there was no contrariety
between that and the
current, and the billows rose and fell unbroken.
Had it been otherwise, I must long ago have
perished; but as it was,
it is surprising how easily and securely my
little and light boat could
ride. Often, as I still lay at the bottom
and kept no more than an eye
above the gunwale, I would see a big blue
summit heaving close above me;
yet the coracle would but bounce a little,
dance as if on springs, and
subside on the other side into the trough
as lightly as a bird.
I began after a little to grow very bold and
sat up to try my skill at
paddling. But even a small change in the disposition
of the weight will
produce violent changes in the behaviour of
a coracle. And I had hardly
moved before the boat, giving up at once her
gentle dancing movement,
ran straight down a slope of water so steep
that it made me giddy, and
struck her nose, with a spout of spray, deep
into the side of the next
wave.
I was drenched and terrified, and fell instantly
back into my old
position, whereupon the coracle seemed to
find her head again and led
me as softly as before among the billows.
It was plain she was not to be
interfered with, and at that rate, since I
could in no way influence her
course, what hope had I left of reaching land?
I began to be horribly frightened, but I kept
my head, for all that.
First, moving with all care, I gradually baled
out the coracle with my
sea-cap; then, getting my eye once more above
the gunwale, I set myself
to study how it was she managed to slip so
quietly through the rollers.
I found each wave, instead of the big, smooth
glossy mountain it looks
from shore or from a vessel's deck, was for
all the world like any range
of hills on dry land, full of peaks and smooth
places and valleys. The
coracle, left to herself, turning from side
to side, threaded, so to
speak, her way through these lower parts and
avoided the steep slopes
and higher, toppling summits of the wave.
"Well, now," thought I to myself, "it is plain
I must lie where I am and
not disturb the balance; but it is plain also
that I can put the paddle
over the side and from time to time, in smooth
places, give her a shove
or two towards land." No sooner thought upon
than done. There I lay on
my elbows in the most trying attitude, and
every now and again gave a
weak stroke or two to turn her head to shore.
It was very tiring and slow work, yet I did
visibly gain ground; and as
we drew near the Cape of the Woods, though
I saw I must infallibly
miss that point, I had still made some hundred
yards of easting. I was,
indeed, close in. I could see the cool green
tree-tops swaying together
in the breeze, and I felt sure I should make
the next promontory without
fail.
It was high time, for I now began to be tortured
with thirst. The glow
of the sun from above, its thousandfold reflection
from the waves, the
sea-water that fell and dried upon me, caking
my very lips with salt,
combined to make my throat burn and my brain
ache. The sight of the
trees so near at hand had almost made me sick
with longing, but the
current had soon carried me past the point,
and as the next reach of sea
opened out, I beheld a sight that changed
the nature of my thoughts.
Right in front of me, not half a mile away,
I beheld the HISPANIOLA
under sail. I made sure, of course, that I
should be taken; but I was
so distressed for want of water that I scarce
knew whether to be glad
or sorry at the thought, and long before I
had come to a conclusion,
surprise had taken entire possession of my
mind and I could do nothing
but stare and wonder.
The HISPANIOLA was under her main-sail and
two jibs, and the beautiful
white canvas shone in the sun like snow or
silver. When I first
sighted her, all her sails were drawing; she
was lying a course about
north-west, and I presumed the men on board
were going round the island
on their way back to the anchorage. Presently
she began to fetch more
and more to the westward, so that I thought
they had sighted me and were
going about in chase. At last, however, she
fell right into the wind's
eye, was taken dead aback, and stood there
awhile helpless, with her
sails shivering.
"Clumsy fellows," said I; "they must still
be drunk as owls." And I
thought how Captain Smollett would have set
them skipping.
Meanwhile the schooner gradually fell off
and filled again upon another
tack, sailed swiftly for a minute or so, and
brought up once more dead
in the wind's eye. Again and again was this
repeated. To and fro, up and
down, north, south, east, and west, the HISPANIOLA
sailed by swoops
and dashes, and at each repetition ended as
she had begun, with idly
flapping canvas. It became plain to me that
nobody was steering. And if
so, where were the men? Either they were dead
drunk or had deserted her,
I thought, and perhaps if I could get on board
I might return the vessel
to her captain.
The current was bearing coracle and schooner
southward at an equal rate.
As for the latter's sailing, it was so wild
and intermittent, and she
hung each time so long in irons, that she
certainly gained nothing, if
she did not even lose. If only I dared to
sit up and paddle, I made
sure that I could overhaul her. The scheme
had an air of adventure
that inspired me, and the thought of the water
breaker beside the fore
companion doubled my growing courage.
Up I got, was welcomed almost instantly by
another cloud of spray, but
this time stuck to my purpose and set myself,
with all my strength and
caution, to paddle after the unsteered HISPANIOLA.
Once I shipped a sea
so heavy that I had to stop and bail, with
my heart fluttering like
a bird, but gradually I got into the way of
the thing and guided my
coracle among the waves, with only now and
then a blow upon her bows and
a dash of foam in my face.
I was now gaining rapidly on the schooner;
I could see the brass glisten
on the tiller as it banged about, and still
no soul appeared upon her
decks. I could not choose but suppose she
was deserted. If not, the men
were lying drunk below, where I might batten
them down, perhaps, and do
what I chose with the ship.
For some time she had been doing the worse
thing possible for
me--standing still. She headed nearly due
south, yawing, of course, all
the time. Each time she fell off, her sails
partly filled, and these
brought her in a moment right to the wind
again. I have said this was
the worst thing possible for me, for helpless
as she looked in this
situation, with the canvas cracking like cannon
and the blocks trundling
and banging on the deck, she still continued
to run away from me, not
only with the speed of the current, but by
the whole amount of her
leeway, which was naturally great.
But now, at last, I had my chance. The breeze
fell for some seconds,
very low, and the current gradually turning
her, the HISPANIOLA revolved
slowly round her centre and at last presented
me her stern, with the
cabin window still gaping open and the lamp
over the table still burning
on into the day. The main-sail hung drooped
like a banner. She was
stock-still but for the current.
For the last little while I had even lost,
but now redoubling my
efforts, I began once more to overhaul the
chase.
I was not a hundred yards from her when the
wind came again in a clap;
she filled on the port tack and was off again,
stooping and skimming
like a swallow.
My first impulse was one of despair, but my
second was towards joy.
Round she came, till she was broadside on
to me--round still till she
had covered a half and then two thirds and
then three quarters of the
distance that separated us. I could see the
waves boiling white under
her forefoot. Immensely tall she looked to
me from my low station in the
coracle.
And then, of a sudden, I began to comprehend.
I had scarce time to
think--scarce time to act and save myself.
I was on the summit of one
swell when the schooner came stooping over
the next. The bowsprit was
over my head. I sprang to my feet and leaped,
stamping the coracle under
water. With one hand I caught the jib-boom,
while my foot was lodged
between the stay and the brace; and as I still
clung there panting, a
dull blow told me that the schooner had charged
down upon and struck the
coracle and that I was left without retreat
on
the HISPANIOLA.
25
I Strike the Jolly Roger
I HAD scarce gained a position on the bowsprit
when the flying jib
flapped and filled upon the other tack, with
a report like a gun. The
schooner trembled to her keel under the reverse,
but next moment, the
other sails still drawing, the jib flapped
back again and hung idle.
This had nearly tossed me off into the sea;
and now I lost no time,
crawled back along the bowsprit, and tumbled
head foremost on the deck.
I was on the lee side of the forecastle, and
the mainsail, which was
still drawing, concealed from me a certain
portion of the after-deck.
Not a soul was to be seen. The planks, which
had not been swabbed since
the mutiny, bore the print of many feet, and
an empty bottle, broken by
the neck, tumbled to and fro like a live thing
in the scuppers.
Suddenly the HISPANIOLA came right into the
wind. The jibs behind me
cracked aloud, the rudder slammed to, the
whole ship gave a sickening
heave and shudder, and at the same moment
the main-boom swung inboard,
the sheet groaning in the blocks, and showed
me the lee after-deck.
There were the two watchmen, sure enough:
red-cap on his back, as stiff
as a handspike, with his arms stretched out
like those of a crucifix and
his teeth showing through his open lips; Israel
Hands propped against
the bulwarks, his chin on his chest, his hands
lying open before him on
the deck, his face as white, under its tan,
as a tallow candle.
For a while the ship kept bucking and sidling
like a vicious horse, the
sails filling, now on one tack, now on another,
and the boom swinging to
and fro till the mast groaned aloud under
the strain. Now and again too
there would come a cloud of light sprays over
the bulwark and a heavy
blow of the ship's bows against the swell;
so much heavier weather was
made of it by this great rigged ship than
by my home-made, lop-sided
coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea.
At every jump of the schooner, red-cap slipped
to and fro, but--what was
ghastly to behold--neither his attitude nor
his fixed teeth-disclosing
grin was anyway disturbed by this rough usage.
At every jump too, Hands
appeared still more to sink into himself and
settle down upon the
deck, his feet sliding ever the farther out,
and the whole body canting
towards the stern, so that his face became,
little by little, hid
from me; and at last I could see nothing beyond
his ear and the frayed
ringlet of one whisker.
At the same time, I observed, around both
of them, splashes of dark
blood upon the planks and began to feel sure
that they had killed each
other in their drunken wrath.
While I was thus looking and wondering, in
a calm moment, when the ship
was still, Israel Hands turned partly round
and with a low moan writhed
himself back to the position in which I had
seen him first. The moan,
which told of pain and deadly weakness, and
the way in which his jaw
hung open went right to my heart. But when
I remembered the talk I had
overheard from the apple barrel, all pity
left me.
I walked aft until I reached the main-mast.
"Come aboard, Mr. Hands," I said ironically.
He rolled his eyes round heavily, but he was
too far gone to express
surprise. All he could do was to utter one
word, "Brandy."
It occurred to me there was no time to lose,
and dodging the boom as it
once more lurched across the deck, I slipped
aft and down the companion
stairs into the cabin.
It was such a scene of confusion as you can
hardly fancy. All the
lockfast places had been broken open in quest
of the chart. The floor
was thick with mud where ruffians had sat
down to drink or consult after
wading in the marshes round their camp. The
bulkheads, all painted in
clear white and beaded round with gilt, bore
a pattern of dirty hands.
Dozens of empty bottles clinked together in
corners to the rolling of
the ship. One of the doctor's medical books
lay open on the table, half
of the leaves gutted out, I suppose, for pipelights.
In the midst of all
this the lamp still cast a smoky glow, obscure
and brown as umber.
I went into the cellar; all the barrels were
gone, and of the bottles
a most surprising number had been drunk out
and thrown away. Certainly,
since the mutiny began, not a man of them
could ever have been sober.
Foraging about, I found a bottle with some
brandy left, for Hands; and
for myself I routed out some biscuit, some
pickled fruits, a great bunch
of raisins, and a piece of cheese. With these
I came on deck, put down
my own stock behind the rudder head and well
out of the coxswain's
reach, went forward to the water-breaker,
and had a good deep drink of
water, and then, and not till then, gave Hands
the brandy.
He must have drunk a gill before he took the
bottle from his mouth.
"Aye," said he, "by thunder, but I wanted
some o' that!"
I had sat down already in my own corner and
begun to eat.
"Much hurt?" I asked him.
He grunted, or rather, I might say, he barked.
"If that doctor was aboard," he said, "I'd
be right enough in a couple
of turns, but I don't have no manner of luck,
you see, and that's what's
the matter with me. As for that swab, he's
good and dead, he is," he
added, indicating the man with the red cap.
"He warn't no seaman anyhow.
And where mought you have come from?"
"Well," said I, "I've come aboard to take
possession of this ship,
Mr. Hands; and you'll please regard me as
your captain until further
notice."
He looked at me sourly enough but said nothing.
Some of the colour had
come back into his cheeks, though he still
looked very sick and still
continued to slip out and settle down as the
ship banged about.
"By the by," I continued, "I can't have these
colours, Mr. Hands; and by
your leave, I'll strike 'em. Better none than
these."
And again dodging the boom, I ran to the colour
lines, handed down their
cursed black flag, and chucked it overboard.
"God save the king!" said I, waving my cap.
"And there's an end to
Captain Silver!"
He watched me keenly and slyly, his chin all
the while on his breast.
"I reckon," he said at last, "I reckon, Cap'n
Hawkins, you'll kind of
want to get ashore now. S'pose we talks."
"Why, yes," says I, "with all my heart, Mr.
Hands. Say on." And I went
back to my meal with a good appetite.
"This man," he began, nodding feebly at the
corpse "--O'Brien were his
name, a rank Irelander--this man and me got
the canvas on her, meaning
for to sail her back. Well, HE'S dead now,
he is--as dead as bilge; and
who's to sail this ship, I don't see. Without
I gives you a hint, you
ain't that man, as far's I can tell. Now,
look here, you gives me food
and drink and a old scarf or ankecher to tie
my wound up, you do, and
I'll tell you how to sail her, and that's
about square all round, I take
it."
"I'll tell you one thing," says I: "I'm not
going back to Captain Kidd's
anchorage. I mean to get into North Inlet
and beach her quietly there."
"To be sure you did," he cried. "Why, I ain't
sich an infernal lubber
after all. I can see, can't I? I've tried
my fling, I have, and I've
lost, and it's you has the wind of me. North
Inlet? Why, I haven't no
ch'ice, not I! I'd help you sail her up to
Execution Dock, by thunder!
So I would."
Well, as it seemed to me, there was some sense
in this. We struck our
bargain on the spot. In three minutes I had
the HISPANIOLA sailing
easily before the wind along the coast of
Treasure Island, with good
hopes of turning the northern point ere noon
and beating down again as
far as North Inlet before high water, when
we might beach her safely and
wait till the subsiding tide permitted us
to land.
Then I lashed the tiller and went below to
my own chest, where I got a
soft silk handkerchief of my mother's. With
this, and with my aid, Hands
bound up the great bleeding stab he had received
in the thigh, and after
he had eaten a little and had a swallow or
two more of the brandy, he
began to pick up visibly, sat straighter up,
spoke louder and clearer,
and looked in every way another man.
The breeze served us admirably. We skimmed
before it like a bird, the
coast of the island flashing by and the view
changing every minute.
Soon we were past the high lands and bowling
beside low, sandy country,
sparsely dotted with dwarf pines, and soon
we were beyond that again
and had turned the corner of the rocky hill
that ends the island on the
north.
I was greatly elated with my new command,
and pleased with the bright,
sunshiny weather and these different prospects
of the coast. I had now
plenty of water and good things to eat, and
my conscience, which had
smitten me hard for my desertion, was quieted
by the great conquest I
had made. I should, I think, have had nothing
left me to desire but for
the eyes of the coxswain as they followed
me derisively about the deck
and the odd smile that appeared continually
on his face. It was a smile
that had in it something both of pain and
weakness--a haggard old man's
smile; but there was, besides that, a grain
of derision, a shadow of
treachery, in his expression as he craftily
watched, and watched, and
watched me at my work.
26
Israel Hands
THE wind, serving us to a desire, now hauled
into the west. We could run
so much the easier from the north-east corner
of the island to the mouth
of the North Inlet. Only, as we had no power
to anchor and dared not
beach her till the tide had flowed a good
deal farther, time hung on our
hands. The coxswain told me how to lay the
ship to; after a good many
trials I succeeded, and we both sat in silence
over another meal.
"Cap'n," said he at length with that same
uncomfortable smile, "here's
my old shipmate, O'Brien; s'pose you was to
heave him overboard. I ain't
partic'lar as a rule, and I don't take no
blame for settling his hash,
but I don't reckon him ornamental now, do
you?"
"I'm not strong enough, and I don't like the
job; and there he lies, for
me," said I.
"This here's an unlucky ship, this HISPANIOLA,
Jim," he went on,
blinking. "There's a power of men been killed
in this HISPANIOLA--a
sight o' poor seamen dead and gone since you
and me took ship to
Bristol. I never seen sich dirty luck, not
I. There was this here
O'Brien now--he's dead, ain't he? Well now,
I'm no scholar, and you're a
lad as can read and figure, and to put it
straight, do you take it as a
dead man is dead for good, or do he come alive
again?"
"You can kill the body, Mr. Hands, but not
the spirit; you must know
that already," I replied. "O'Brien there is
in another world, and may be
watching us."
"Ah!" says he. "Well, that's unfort'nate--appears
as if killing parties
was a waste of time. Howsomever, sperrits
don't reckon for much, by what
I've seen. I'll chance it with the sperrits,
Jim. And now, you've spoke
up free, and I'll take it kind if you'd step
down into that there cabin
and get me a--well, a--shiver my timbers!
I can't hit the name on 't;
well, you get me a bottle of wine, Jim--this
here brandy's too strong
for my head."
Now, the coxswain's hesitation seemed to be
unnatural, and as for the
notion of his preferring wine to brandy, I
entirely disbelieved it. The
whole story was a pretext. He wanted me to
leave the deck--so much was
plain; but with what purpose I could in no
way imagine. His eyes never
met mine; they kept wandering to and fro,
up and down, now with a look
to the sky, now with a flitting glance upon
the dead O'Brien. All the
time he kept smiling and putting his tongue
out in the most guilty,
embarrassed manner, so that a child could
have told that he was bent on
some deception. I was prompt with my answer,
however, for I saw where
my advantage lay and that with a fellow so
densely stupid I could easily
conceal my suspicions to the end.
"Some wine?" I said. "Far better. Will you
have white or red?"
"Well, I reckon it's about the blessed same
to me, shipmate," he
replied; "so it's strong, and plenty of it,
what's the odds?"
"All right," I answered. "I'll bring you port,
Mr. Hands. But I'll have
to dig for it."
With that I scuttled down the companion with
all the noise I could,
slipped off my shoes, ran quietly along the
sparred gallery, mounted the
forecastle ladder, and popped my head out
of the fore companion. I
knew he would not expect to see me there,
yet I took every precaution
possible, and certainly the worst of my suspicions
proved too true.
He had risen from his position to his hands
and knees, and though his
leg obviously hurt him pretty sharply when
he moved--for I could hear
him stifle a groan--yet it was at a good,
rattling rate that he trailed
himself across the deck. In half a minute
he had reached the port
scuppers and picked, out of a coil of rope,
a long knife, or rather a
short dirk, discoloured to the hilt with blood.
He looked upon it for
a moment, thrusting forth his under jaw, tried
the point upon his hand,
and then, hastily concealing it in the bosom
of his jacket, trundled
back again into his old place against the
bulwark.
This was all that I required to know. Israel
could move about, he was
now armed, and if he had been at so much trouble
to get rid of me,
it was plain that I was meant to be the victim.
What he would do
afterwards--whether he would try to crawl
right across the island from
North Inlet to the camp among the swamps or
whether he would fire Long
Tom, trusting that his own comrades might
come first to help him--was,
of course, more than I could say.
Yet I felt sure that I could trust him in
one point, since in that
our interests jumped together, and that was
in the disposition of
the schooner. We both desired to have her
stranded safe enough, in a
sheltered place, and so that, when the time
came, she could be got off
again with as little labour and danger as
might be; and until that was
done I considered that my life would certainly
be spared.
While I was thus turning the business over
in my mind, I had not been
idle with my body. I had stolen back to the
cabin, slipped once more
into my shoes, and laid my hand at random
on a bottle of wine, and now,
with this for an excuse, I made my reappearance
on the deck.
Hands lay as I had left him, all fallen together
in a bundle and with
his eyelids lowered as though he were too
weak to bear the light. He
looked up, however, at my coming, knocked
the neck off the bottle like
a man who had done the same thing often, and
took a good swig, with his
favourite toast of "Here's luck!" Then he
lay quiet for a little, and
then, pulling out a stick of tobacco, begged
me to cut him a quid.
"Cut me a junk o' that," says he, "for I haven't
no knife and hardly
strength enough, so be as I had. Ah, Jim,
Jim, I reckon I've missed
stays! Cut me a quid, as'll likely be the
last, lad, for I'm for my long
home, and no mistake."
"Well," said I, "I'll cut you some tobacco,
but if I was you and thought
myself so badly, I would go to my prayers
like a Christian man."
"Why?" said he. "Now, you tell me why."
"Why?" I cried. "You were asking me just now
about the dead. You've
broken your trust; you've lived in sin and
lies and blood; there's a man
you killed lying at your feet this moment,
and you ask me why! For God's
mercy, Mr. Hands, that's why."
I spoke with a little heat, thinking of the
bloody dirk he had hidden
in his pocket and designed, in his ill thoughts,
to end me with. He,
for his part, took a great draught of the
wine and spoke with the most
unusual solemnity.
"For thirty years," he said, "I've sailed
the seas and seen good and
bad, better and worse, fair weather and foul,
provisions running out,
knives going, and what not. Well, now I tell
you, I never seen good come
o' goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my
fancy; dead men don't bite;
them's my views--amen, so be it. And now,
you look here," he added,
suddenly changing his tone, "we've had about
enough of this foolery. The
tide's made good enough by now. You just take
my orders, Cap'n Hawkins,
and we'll sail slap in and be done with it."
All told, we had scarce two miles to run;
but the navigation was
delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage
was not only narrow
and shoal, but lay east and west, so that
the schooner must be nicely
handled to be got in. I think I was a good,
prompt subaltern, and I am
very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot,
for we went about and about
and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty
and a neatness that
were a pleasure to behold.
Scarcely had we passed the heads before the
land closed around us. The
shores of North Inlet were as thickly wooded
as those of the southern
anchorage, but the space was longer and narrower
and more like, what in
truth it was, the estuary of a river. Right
before us, at the southern
end, we saw the wreck of a ship in the last
stages of dilapidation. It
had been a great vessel of three masts but
had lain so long exposed to
the injuries of the weather that it was hung
about with great webs of
dripping seaweed, and on the deck of it shore
bushes had taken root and
now flourished thick with flowers. It was
a sad sight, but it showed us
that the anchorage was calm.
"Now," said Hands, "look there; there's a
pet bit for to beach a ship
in. Fine flat sand, never a cat's paw, trees
all around of it, and
flowers a-blowing like a garding on that old
ship."
"And once beached," I inquired, "how shall
we get her off again?"
"Why, so," he replied: "you take a line ashore
there on the other side
at low water, take a turn about one of them
big pines; bring it back,
take a turn around the capstan, and lie to
for the tide. Come high
water, all hands take a pull upon the line,
and off she comes as sweet
as natur'. And now, boy, you stand by. We're
near the bit now, and she's
too much way on her. Starboard a little--so--steady--starboard--larboard
a little--steady--steady!"
So he issued his commands, which I breathlessly
obeyed, till, all of a
sudden, he cried, "Now, my hearty, luff!"
And I put the helm hard up,
and the HISPANIOLA swung round rapidly and
ran stem on for the low,
wooded shore.
The excitement of these last manoeuvres had
somewhat interfered with the
watch I had kept hitherto, sharply enough,
upon the coxswain. Even then
I was still so much interested, waiting for
the ship to touch, that I
had quite forgot the peril that hung over
my head and stood craning over
the starboard bulwarks and watching the ripples
spreading wide before
the bows. I might have fallen without a struggle
for my life had not a
sudden disquietude seized upon me and made
me turn my head. Perhaps I
had heard a creak or seen his shadow moving
with the tail of my eye;
perhaps it was an instinct like a cat's; but,
sure enough, when I looked
round, there was Hands, already half-way towards
me, with the dirk in
his right hand.
We must both have cried out aloud when our
eyes met, but while mine
was the shrill cry of terror, his was a roar
of fury like a charging
bully's. At the same instant, he threw himself
forward and I leapt
sideways towards the bows. As I did so, I
let go of the tiller, which
sprang sharp to leeward, and I think this
saved my life, for it struck
Hands across the chest and stopped him, for
the moment, dead.
Before he could recover, I was safe out of
the corner where he had me
trapped, with all the deck to dodge about.
Just forward of the main-mast
I stopped, drew a pistol from my pocket, took
a cool aim, though he had
already turned and was once more coming directly
after me, and drew the
trigger. The hammer fell, but there followed
neither flash nor sound;
the priming was useless with sea-water. I
cursed myself for my neglect.
Why had not I, long before, reprimed and reloaded
my only weapons? Then
I should not have been as now, a mere fleeing
sheep before this butcher.
Wounded as he was, it was wonderful how fast
he could move, his grizzled
hair tumbling over his face, and his face
itself as red as a red ensign
with his haste and fury. I had no time to
try my other pistol, nor
indeed much inclination, for I was sure it
would be useless. One thing I
saw plainly: I must not simply retreat before
him, or he would speedily
hold me boxed into the bows, as a moment since
he had so nearly boxed
me in the stern. Once so caught, and nine
or ten inches of the
blood-stained dirk would be my last experience
on this side of eternity.
I placed my palms against the main-mast, which
was of a goodish bigness,
and waited, every nerve upon the stretch.
Seeing that I meant to dodge, he also paused;
and a moment or two passed
in feints on his part and corresponding movements
upon mine. It was such
a game as I had often played at home about
the rocks of Black Hill Cove,
but never before, you may be sure, with such
a wildly beating heart as
now. Still, as I say, it was a boy's game,
and I thought I could hold
my own at it against an elderly seaman with
a wounded thigh. Indeed my
courage had begun to rise so high that I allowed
myself a few darting
thoughts on what would be the end of the affair,
and while I saw
certainly that I could spin it out for long,
I saw no hope of any
ultimate escape.
Well, while things stood thus, suddenly the
HISPANIOLA struck,
staggered, ground for an instant in the sand,
and then, swift as a
blow, canted over to the port side till the
deck stood at an angle
of forty-five degrees and about a puncheon
of water splashed into the
scupper holes and lay, in a pool, between
the deck and bulwark.
We were both of us capsized in a second, and
both of us rolled, almost
together, into the scuppers, the dead red-cap,
with his arms still
spread out, tumbling stiffly after us. So
near were we, indeed, that my
head came against the coxswain's foot with
a crack that made my teeth
rattle. Blow and all, I was the first afoot
again, for Hands had got
involved with the dead body. The sudden canting
of the ship had made the
deck no place for running on; I had to find
some new way of escape,
and that upon the instant, for my foe was
almost touching me. Quick as
thought, I sprang into the mizzen shrouds,
rattled up hand over hand,
and did not draw a breath till I was seated
on the cross-trees.
I had been saved by being prompt; the dirk
had struck not half a foot
below me as I pursued my upward flight; and
there stood Israel Hands
with his mouth open and his face upturned
to mine, a perfect statue of
surprise and disappointment.
Now that I had a moment to myself, I lost
no time in changing the
priming of my pistol, and then, having one
ready for service, and to
make assurance doubly sure, I proceeded to
draw the load of the other
and recharge it afresh from the beginning.
My new employment struck Hands all of a heap;
he began to see the dice
going against him, and after an obvious hesitation,
he also hauled
himself heavily into the shrouds, and with
the dirk in his teeth, began
slowly and painfully to mount. It cost him
no end of time and groans
to haul his wounded leg behind him, and I
had quietly finished my
arrangements before he was much more than
a third of the way up. Then,
with a pistol in either hand, I addressed
him.
"One more step, Mr. Hands," said I, "and I'll
blow your brains out! Dead
men don't bite, you know," I added with a
chuckle.
He stopped instantly. I could see by the working
of his face that he was
trying to think, and the process was so slow
and laborious that, in my
new-found security, I laughed aloud. At last,
with a swallow or two, he
spoke, his face still wearing the same expression
of extreme perplexity.
In order to speak he had to take the dagger
from his mouth, but in all
else he remained unmoved.
"Jim," says he, "I reckon we're fouled, you
and me, and we'll have to
sign articles. I'd have had you but for that
there lurch, but I don't
have no luck, not I; and I reckon I'll have
to strike, which comes hard,
you see, for a master mariner to a ship's
younker like you, Jim."
I was drinking in his words and smiling away,
as conceited as a cock
upon a wall, when, all in a breath, back went
his right hand over his
shoulder. Something sang like an arrow through
the air; I felt a blow
and then a sharp pang, and there I was pinned
by the shoulder to the
mast. In the horrid pain and surprise of the
moment--I scarce can say
it was by my own volition, and I am sure it
was without a conscious
aim--both my pistols went off, and both escaped
out of my hands. They
did not fall alone; with a choked cry, the
coxswain loosed his grasp
upon the shrouds and plunged head first into
the water.
27
"Pieces of Eight"
OWING to the cant of the vessel, the masts
hung far out over the water,
and from my perch on the cross-trees I had
nothing below me but the
surface of the bay. Hands, who was not so
far up, was in consequence
nearer to the ship and fell between me and
the bulwarks. He rose once to
the surface in a lather of foam and blood
and then sank again for good.
As the water settled, I could see him lying
huddled together on the
clean, bright sand in the shadow of the vessel's
sides. A fish or two
whipped past his body. Sometimes, by the quivering
of the water, he
appeared to move a little, as if he were trying
to rise. But he was dead
enough, for all that, being both shot and
drowned, and was food for fish
in the very place where he had designed my
slaughter.
I was no sooner certain of this than I began
to feel sick, faint, and
terrified. The hot blood was running over
my back and chest. The dirk,
where it had pinned my shoulder to the mast,
seemed to burn like a hot
iron; yet it was not so much these real sufferings
that distressed me,
for these, it seemed to me, I could bear without
a murmur; it was the
horror I had upon my mind of falling from
the cross-trees into that
still green water, beside the body of the
coxswain.
I clung with both hands till my nails ached,
and I shut my eyes as if to
cover up the peril. Gradually my mind came
back again, my pulses quieted
down to a more natural time, and I was once
more in possession of
myself.
It was my first thought to pluck forth the
dirk, but either it stuck too
hard or my nerve failed me, and I desisted
with a violent shudder. Oddly
enough, that very shudder did the business.
The knife, in fact, had come
the nearest in the world to missing me altogether;
it held me by a mere
pinch of skin, and this the shudder tore away.
The blood ran down the
faster, to be sure, but I was my own master
again and only tacked to the
mast by my coat and shirt.
These last I broke through with a sudden jerk,
and then regained the
deck by the starboard shrouds. For nothing
in the world would I have
again ventured, shaken as I was, upon the
overhanging port shrouds from
which Israel had so lately fallen.
I went below and did what I could for my wound;
it pained me a good deal
and still bled freely, but it was neither
deep nor dangerous, nor did it
greatly gall me when I used my arm. Then I
looked around me, and as the
ship was now, in a sense, my own, I began
to think of clearing it from
its last passenger--the dead man, O'Brien.
He had pitched, as I have said, against the
bulwarks, where he lay
like some horrible, ungainly sort of puppet,
life-size, indeed, but how
different from life's colour or life's comeliness!
In that position
I could easily have my way with him, and as
the habit of tragical
adventures had worn off almost all my terror
for the dead, I took him
by the waist as if he had been a sack of bran
and with one good heave,
tumbled him overboard. He went in with a sounding
plunge; the red cap
came off and remained floating on the surface;
and as soon as the splash
subsided, I could see him and Israel lying
side by side, both wavering
with the tremulous movement of the water.
O'Brien, though still quite a
young man, was very bald. There he lay, with
that bald head across the
knees of the man who had killed him and the
quick fishes steering to and
fro over both.
I was now alone upon the ship; the tide had
just turned. The sun was
within so few degrees of setting that already
the shadow of the pines
upon the western shore began to reach right
across the anchorage and
fall in patterns on the deck. The evening
breeze had sprung up, and
though it was well warded off by the hill
with the two peaks upon the
east, the cordage had begun to sing a little
softly to itself and the
idle sails to rattle to and fro.
I began to see a danger to the ship. The jibs
I speedily doused and
brought tumbling to the deck, but the main-sail
was a harder matter. Of
course, when the schooner canted over, the
boom had swung out-board, and
the cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung
even under water. I thought
this made it still more dangerous; yet the
strain was so heavy that I
half feared to meddle. At last I got my knife
and cut the halyards. The
peak dropped instantly, a great belly of loose
canvas floated broad upon
the water, and since, pull as I liked, I could
not budge the downhall,
that was the extent of what I could accomplish.
For the rest, the
HISPANIOLA must trust to luck, like myself.
By this time the whole anchorage had fallen
into shadow--the last rays,
I remember, falling through a glade of the
wood and shining bright as
jewels on the flowery mantle of the wreck.
It began to be chill; the
tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner
settling more and more
on her beam-ends.
I scrambled forward and looked over. It seemed
shallow enough, and
holding the cut hawser in both hands for a
last security, I let myself
drop softly overboard. The water scarcely
reached my waist; the sand was
firm and covered with ripple marks, and I
waded ashore in great spirits,
leaving the HISPANIOLA on her side, with her
main-sail trailing wide
upon the surface of the bay. About the same
time, the sun went fairly
down and the breeze whistled low in the dusk
among the tossing pines.
At least, and at last, I was off the sea,
nor had I returned thence
empty-handed. There lay the schooner, clear
at last from buccaneers
and ready for our own men to board and get
to sea again. I had nothing
nearer my fancy than to get home to the stockade
and boast of my
achievements. Possibly I might be blamed a
bit for my truantry, but the
recapture of the HISPANIOLA was a clenching
answer, and I hoped that
even Captain Smollett would confess I had
not lost my time.
So thinking, and in famous spirits, I began
to set my face homeward for
the block house and my companions. I remembered
that the most easterly
of the rivers which drain into Captain Kidd's
anchorage ran from the
two-peaked hill upon my left, and I bent my
course in that direction
that I might pass the stream while it was
small. The wood was pretty
open, and keeping along the lower spurs, I
had soon turned the corner
of that hill, and not long after waded to
the mid-calf across the
watercourse.
This brought me near to where I had encountered
Ben Gunn, the maroon;
and I walked more circumspectly, keeping an
eye on every side. The dusk
had come nigh hand completely, and as I opened
out the cleft between the
two peaks, I became aware of a wavering glow
against the sky, where, as
I judged, the man of the island was cooking
his supper before a roaring
fire. And yet I wondered, in my heart, that
he should show himself so
careless. For if I could see this radiance,
might it not reach the eyes
of Silver himself where he camped upon the
shore among the marshes?
Gradually the night fell blacker; it was all
I could do to guide myself
even roughly towards my destination; the double
hill behind me and the
Spy-glass on my right hand loomed faint and
fainter; the stars were few
and pale; and in the low ground where I wandered
I kept tripping among
bushes and rolling into sandy pits.
Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me.
I looked up; a pale glimmer
of moonbeams had alighted on the summit of
the Spy-glass, and soon after
I saw something broad and silvery moving low
down behind the trees, and
knew the moon had risen.
With this to help me, I passed rapidly over
what remained to me of my
journey, and sometimes walking, sometimes
running, impatiently drew near
to the stockade. Yet, as I began to thread
the grove that lies before
it, I was not so thoughtless but that I slacked
my pace and went a
trifle warily. It would have been a poor end
of my adventures to get
shot down by my own party in mistake.
The moon was climbing higher and higher, its
light began to fall here
and there in masses through the more open
districts of the wood, and
right in front of me a glow of a different
colour appeared among
the trees. It was red and hot, and now and
again it was a little
darkened--as it were, the embers of a bonfire
smouldering.
For the life of me I could not think what
it might be.
At last I came right down upon the borders
of the clearing. The western
end was already steeped in moonshine; the
rest, and the block house
itself, still lay in a black shadow chequered
with long silvery streaks
of light. On the other side of the house an
immense fire had burned
itself into clear embers and shed a steady,
red reverberation,
contrasted strongly with the mellow paleness
of the moon. There was not
a soul stirring nor a sound beside the noises
of the breeze.
I stopped, with much wonder in my heart, and
perhaps a little terror
also. It had not been our way to build great
fires; we were, indeed,
by the captain's orders, somewhat niggardly
of firewood, and I began to
fear that something had gone wrong while I
was absent.
I stole round by the eastern end, keeping
close in shadow, and at a
convenient place, where the darkness was thickest,
crossed the palisade.
To make assurance surer, I got upon my hands
and knees and crawled,
without a sound, towards the corner of the
house. As I drew nearer, my
heart was suddenly and greatly lightened.
It is not a pleasant noise in
itself, and I have often complained of it
at other times, but just
then it was like music to hear my friends
snoring together so loud and
peaceful in their sleep. The sea-cry of the
watch, that beautiful "All's
well," never fell more reassuringly on my
ear.
In the meantime, there was no doubt of one
thing; they kept an infamous
bad watch. If it had been Silver and his lads
that were now creeping
in on them, not a soul would have seen daybreak.
That was what it
was, thought I, to have the captain wounded;
and again I blamed myself
sharply for leaving them in that danger with
so few to mount guard.
By this time I had got to the door and stood
up. All was dark within,
so that I could distinguish nothing by the
eye. As for sounds, there
was the steady drone of the snorers and a
small occasional noise, a
flickering or pecking that I could in no way
account for.
With my arms before me I walked steadily in.
I should lie down in my own
place (I thought with a silent chuckle) and
enjoy their faces when they
found me in the morning.
My foot struck something yielding--it was
a sleeper's leg; and he turned
and groaned, but without awaking.
And then, all of a sudden, a shrill voice
broke forth out of the
darkness:
"Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces
of eight! Pieces of eight!
Pieces of eight!" and so forth, without pause
or change, like the
clacking of a tiny mill.
Silver's green parrot, Captain Flint! It was
she whom I had heard
pecking at a piece of bark; it was she, keeping
better watch than any
human being, who thus announced my arrival
with her wearisome refrain.
I had no time left me to recover. At the sharp,
clipping tone of the
parrot, the sleepers awoke and sprang up;
and with a mighty oath, the
voice of Silver cried, "Who goes?"
I turned to run, struck violently against
one person, recoiled, and ran
full into the arms of a second, who for his
part closed upon and held me
tight.
"Bring a torch, Dick," said Silver when my
capture was thus assured.
And one of the men left the log-house and
presently returned with a
lighted brand.
PART SIX--Captain Silver
28
In the Enemy's Camp
THE 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 the 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 had run back among
the woods in the great attack, and doubted
not that this was he.
The parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long
John's shoulder. He
himself, I thought, looked somewhat paler
and more stern than I was used
to. He still wore the fine broadcloth suit
in which he had fulfilled his
mission, but it was bitterly the worse for
wear, daubed with clay and
torn with the sharp briers of the wood.
"So," said he, "here's Jim Hawkins, shiver
my timbers! Dropped in, like,
eh? Well, come, I take that friendly."
And thereupon he sat down across the brandy
cask and began to fill a
pipe.
"Give me a loan of the link, Dick," said he;
and then, when he had a
good light, "That'll do, lad," he added; "stick
the glim in the wood
heap; and you, gentlemen, bring yourselves
to! You needn't stand up
for Mr. Hawkins; HE'LL excuse you, you may
lay to that. And so,
Jim"--stopping the tobacco--"here you were,
and quite a pleasant
surprise for poor old John. I see you were
smart when first I set my
eyes on you, but this here gets away from
me clean, it do."
To all this, as may be well supposed, I made
no answer. They had set me
with my back against the wall, and I stood
there, looking Silver in the
face, pluckily enough, I hope, to all outward
appearance, but with black
despair in my heart.
Silver took a whiff or two of his pipe with
great composure and then ran
on again.
"Now, you see, Jim, so be as you ARE here,"
says he, "I'll give you a
piece of my mind. I've always liked you, I
have, for a lad of spirit,
and the picter of my own self when I was young
and handsome. I always
wanted you to jine and take your share, and
die a gentleman, and now, my
cock, you've got to. Cap'n Smollett's a fine
seaman, as I'll own up to
any day, but stiff on discipline. 'Dooty is
dooty,' says he, and right
he is. Just you keep clear of the cap'n. The
doctor himself is gone dead
again you--'ungrateful scamp' was what he
said; and the short and the
long of the whole story is about here: you
can't go back to your own
lot, for they won't have you; and without
you start a third ship's
company all by yourself, which might be lonely,
you'll have to jine with
Cap'n Silver."
So far so good. My friends, then, were still
alive, and though I partly
believed the truth of Silver's statement,
that the cabin party were
incensed at me for my desertion, I was more
relieved than distressed by
what I heard.
"I don't say nothing as to your being in our
hands," continued Silver,
"though there you are, and you may lay to
it. I'm all for argyment; I
never seen good come out o' threatening. If
you like the service, well,
you'll jine; and if you don't, Jim, why, you're
free to answer no--free
and welcome, shipmate; and if fairer can be
said by mortal seaman,
shiver my sides!"
"Am I to answer, then?" I asked with a very
tremulous voice. Through all
this sneering talk, I was made to feel the
threat of death that overhung
me, and my cheeks burned and my heart beat
painfully in my breast.
"Lad," said Silver, "no one's a-pressing of
you. Take your bearings.
None of us won't hurry you, mate; time goes
so pleasant in your company,
you see."
"Well," says I, growing a bit bolder, "if
I'm to choose, I declare I
have a right to know what's what, and why
you're here, and where my
friends are."
"Wot's wot?" repeated one of the buccaneers
in a deep growl. "Ah, he'd
be a lucky one as knowed that!"
"You'll perhaps batten down your hatches till
you're spoke to, my
friend," cried Silver truculently to this
speaker. And then, in
his first gracious tones, he replied to me,
"Yesterday morning, Mr.
Hawkins," said he, "in the dog-watch, down
came Doctor Livesey with a
flag of truce. Says he, 'Cap'n Silver, you're
sold out. Ship's gone.'
Well, maybe we'd been taking a glass, and
a song to help it round. I
won't say no. Leastways, none of us had looked
out. We looked out, and
by thunder, the old ship was gone! I never
seen a pack o' fools look
fishier; and you may lay to that, if I tells
you that looked the
fishiest. 'Well,' says the doctor, 'let's
bargain.' We bargained, him
and I, and here we are: stores, brandy, block
house, the firewood you
was thoughtful enough to cut, and in a manner
of speaking, the whole
blessed boat, from cross-trees to kelson.
As for them, they've tramped;
I don't know where's they are."
He drew again quietly at his pipe.
"And lest you should take it into that head
of yours," he went on, "that
you was included in the treaty, here's the
last word that was said: 'How
many are you,' says I, 'to leave?' 'Four,'
says he; 'four, and one of us
wounded. As for that boy, I don't know where
he is, confound him,' says
he, 'nor I don't much care. We're about sick
of him.' These was his
words.
"Is that all?" I asked.
"Well, it's all that you're to hear, my son,"
returned Silver.
"And now I am to choose?"
"And now you are to choose, and you may lay
to that," said Silver.
"Well," said I, "I am not such a fool but
I know pretty well what I have
to look for. Let the worst come to the worst,
it's little I care. I've
seen too many die since I fell in with you.
But there's a thing or two
I have to tell you," I said, and by this time
I was quite excited; "and
the first is this: here you are, in a bad
way--ship lost, treasure lost,
men lost, your whole business gone to wreck;
and if you want to know who
did it--it was I! I was in the apple barrel
the night we sighted land,
and I heard you, John, and you, Dick Johnson,
and Hands, who is now at
the bottom of the sea, and told every word
you said before the hour was
out. And as for the schooner, it was I who
cut her cable, and it was I
that killed the men you had aboard of her,
and it was I who brought her
where you'll never see her more, not one of
you. The laugh's on my side;
I've had the top of this business from the
first; I no more fear you
than I fear a fly. Kill me, if you please,
or spare me. But one thing
I'll say, and no more; if you spare me, bygones
are bygones, and when
you fellows are in court for piracy, I'll
save you all I can. It is for
you to choose. Kill another and do yourselves
no good, or spare me and
keep a witness to save you from the gallows."
I stopped, for, I tell you, I was out of breath,
and to my wonder, not
a man of them moved, but all sat staring at
me like as many sheep. And
while they were still staring, I broke out
again, "And now, Mr. Silver,"
I said, "I believe you're the best man here,
and if things go to the
worst, I'll take it kind of you to let the
doctor know the way I took
it."
"I'll bear it in mind," said Silver with an
accent so curious that I
could not, for the life of me, decide whether
he were laughing at my
request or had been favourably affected by
my courage.
"I'll put one to that," cried the old mahogany-faced
seaman--Morgan
by name--whom I had seen in Long John's public-house
upon the quays of
Bristol. "It was him that knowed Black Dog."
"Well, and see here," added the sea-cook.
"I'll put another again to
that, by thunder! For it was this same boy
that faked the chart from
Billy Bones. First and last, we've split upon
Jim Hawkins!"
"Then here goes!" said Morgan with an oath.
And he sprang up, drawing his knife as if
he had been twenty.
"Avast, there!" cried Silver. "Who are you,
Tom Morgan? Maybe you
thought you was cap'n here, perhaps. By the
powers, but I'll teach you
better! Cross me, and you'll go where many
a good man's gone before you,
first and last, these thirty year back--some
to the yard-arm, shiver
my timbers, and some by the board, and all
to feed the fishes. There's
never a man looked me between the eyes and
seen a good day a'terwards,
Tom Morgan, you may lay to that."
Morgan paused, but a hoarse murmur rose from
the others.
"Tom's right," said one.
"I stood hazing long enough from one," added
another. "I'll be hanged if
I'll be hazed by you, John Silver."
"Did any of you gentlemen want to have it
out with ME?" roared Silver,
bending far forward from his position on the
keg, with his pipe still
glowing in his right hand. "Put a name on
what you're at; you ain't
dumb, I reckon. Him that wants shall get it.
Have I lived this many
years, and a son of a rum puncheon cock his
hat athwart my hawse at the
latter end of it? You know the way; you're
all gentlemen o' fortune, by
your account. Well, I'm ready. Take a cutlass,
him that dares, and I'll
see the colour of his inside, crutch and all,
before that pipe's empty."
Not a man stirred; not a man answered.
"That's your sort, is it?" he added, returning
his pipe to his mouth.
"Well, you're a gay lot to look at, anyway.
Not much worth to fight, you
ain't. P'r'aps you can understand King George's
English. I'm cap'n here
by 'lection. I'm cap'n here because I'm the
best man by a long sea-mile.
You won't fight, as gentlemen o' fortune should;
then, by thunder,
you'll obey, and you may lay to it! I like
that boy, now; I never seen
a better boy than that. He's more a man than
any pair of rats of you in
this here house, and what I say is this: let
me see him that'll lay a
hand on him--that's what I say, and you may
lay to it."
There was a long pause after this. I stood
straight up against the wall,
my heart still going like a sledge-hammer,
but with a ray of hope
now shining in my bosom. Silver leant back
against the wall, his arms
crossed, his pipe in the corner of his mouth,
as calm as though he had
been in church; yet his eye kept wandering
furtively, and he kept the
tail of it on his unruly followers. They,
on their part, drew gradually
together towards the far end of the block
house, and the low hiss of
their whispering sounded in my ear continuously,
like a stream. One
after another, they would look up, and the
red light of the torch would
fall for a second on their nervous faces;
but it was not towards me, it
was towards Silver that they turned their
eyes.
"You seem to have a lot to say," remarked
Silver, spitting far into the
air. "Pipe up and let me hear it, or lay to."
"Ax your pardon, sir," returned one of the
men; "you're pretty free with
some of the rules; maybe you'll kindly keep
an eye upon the rest. This
crew's dissatisfied; this crew don't vally
bullying a marlin-spike; this
crew has its rights like other crews, I'll
make so free as that; and by
your own rules, I take it we can talk together.
I ax your pardon, sir,
acknowledging you for to be captaing at this
present; but I claim my
right, and steps outside for a council."
And with an elaborate sea-salute, this fellow,
a long, ill-looking,
yellow-eyed man of five and thirty, stepped
coolly towards the door and
disappeared out of the house. One after another
the rest followed his
example, each making a salute as he passed,
each adding some apology.
"According to rules," said one. "Forecastle
council," said Morgan. And
so with one remark or another all marched
out and left Silver and me
alone with the torch.
The sea-cook instantly removed his pipe.
"Now, look you here, Jim Hawkins," he said
in a steady whisper that was
no more than audible, "you're within half
a plank of death, and what's
a long sight worse, of torture. They're going
to throw me off. But, you
mark, I stand by you through thick and thin.
I didn't mean to; no, not
till you spoke up. I was about desperate to
lose that much blunt, and
be hanged into the bargain. But I see you
was the right sort. I says to
myself, you stand by Hawkins, John, and Hawkins'll
stand by you. You're
his last card, and by the living thunder,
John, he's yours! Back to
back, says I. You save your witness, and he'll
save your neck!"
I began dimly to understand.
"You mean all's lost?" I asked.
"Aye, by gum, I do!" he answered. "Ship gone,
neck gone--that's the
size of it. Once I looked into that bay, Jim
Hawkins, and seen no
schooner--well, I'm tough, but I gave out.
As for that lot and their
council, mark me, they're outright fools and
cowards. I'll save your
life--if so be as I can--from them. But, see
here, Jim--tit for tat--you
save Long John from swinging."
I was bewildered; it seemed a thing so hopeless
he was asking--he, the
old buccaneer, the ringleader throughout.
"What I can do, that I'll do," I said.
"It's a bargain!" cried Long John. "You speak
up plucky, and by thunder,
I've a chance!"
He hobbled to the torch, where it stood propped
among the firewood, and
took a fresh light to his pipe.
"Understand me, Jim," he said, returning.
"I've a head on my shoulders,
I have. I'm on squire's side now. I know you've
got that ship safe
somewheres. How you done it, I don't know,
but safe it is. I guess Hands
and O'Brien turned soft. I never much believed
in neither of THEM. Now
you mark me. I ask no questions, nor I won't
let others. I know when
a game's up, I do; and I know a lad that's
staunch. Ah, you that's
young--you and me might have done a power
of good together!"
He drew some cognac from the cask into a tin
cannikin.
"Will you taste, messmate?" he asked; and
when I had refused: "Well,
I'll take a drain myself, Jim," said he. "I
need a caulker, for there's
trouble on hand. And talking o' trouble, why
did that doctor give me the
chart, Jim?"
My face expressed a wonder so unaffected that
he saw the needlessness of
further questions.
"Ah, well, he did, though," said he. "And
there's something under that,
no doubt--something, surely, under that, Jim--bad
or good."
And he took another swallow of the brandy,
shaking his great fair head
like a man who looks forward to
the worst.
29
The Black Spot Again
THE council of buccaneers had lasted some
time, when one of them
re-entered the house, and with a repetition
of the same salute, which
had in my eyes an ironical air, begged for
a moment's loan of the torch.
Silver briefly agreed, and this emissary retired
again, leaving us
together in the dark.
"There's a breeze coming, Jim," said Silver,
who had by this time
adopted quite a friendly and familiar tone.
I turned to the loophole nearest me and looked
out. The embers of the
great fire had so far burned themselves out
and now glowed so low and
duskily that I understood why these conspirators
desired a torch. About
half-way down the slope to the stockade, they
were collected in a group;
one held the light, another was on his knees
in their midst, and I saw
the blade of an open knife shine in his hand
with varying colours in
the moon and torchlight. The rest were all
somewhat stooping, as though
watching the manoeuvres of this last. I could
just make out that he
had a book as well as a knife in his hand,
and was still wondering how
anything so incongruous had come in their
possession when the kneeling
figure rose once more to his feet and the
whole party began to move
together towards the house.
"Here they come," said I; and I returned to
my former position, for it
seemed beneath my dignity that they should
find me watching them.
"Well, let 'em come, lad--let 'em come," said
Silver cheerily. "I've
still a shot in my locker."
The door opened, and the five men, standing
huddled together just
inside, pushed one of their number forward.
In any other circumstances
it would have been comical to see his slow
advance, hesitating as he set
down each foot, but holding his closed right
hand in front of him.
"Step up, lad," cried Silver. "I won't eat
you. Hand it over, lubber. I
know the rules, I do; I won't hurt a depytation."
Thus encouraged, the buccaneer stepped forth
more briskly, and having
passed something to Silver, from hand to hand,
slipped yet more smartly
back again to his companions.
The sea-cook looked at what had been given
him.
"The black spot! I thought so," he observed.
"Where might you have got
the paper? Why, hillo! Look here, now; this
ain't lucky! You've gone and
cut this out of a Bible. What fool's cut a
Bible?"
"Ah, there!" said Morgan. "There! Wot did
I say? No good'll come o'
that, I said."
"Well, you've about fixed it now, among you,"
continued Silver. "You'll
all swing now, I reckon. What soft-headed
lubber had a Bible?"
"It was Dick," said one.
"Dick, was it? Then Dick can get to prayers,"
said Silver. "He's seen
his slice of luck, has Dick, and you may lay
to that."
But here the long man with the yellow eyes
struck in.
"Belay that talk, John Silver," he said. "This
crew has tipped you the
black spot in full council, as in dooty bound;
just you turn it over, as
in dooty bound, and see what's wrote there.
Then you can talk."
"Thanky, George," replied the sea-cook. "You
always was brisk for
business, and has the rules by heart, George,
as I'm pleased to see.
Well, what is it, anyway? Ah! 'Deposed'--that's
it, is it? Very pretty
wrote, to be sure; like print, I swear. Your
hand o' write, George? Why,
you was gettin' quite a leadin' man in this
here crew. You'll be cap'n
next, I shouldn't wonder. Just oblige me with
that torch again, will
you? This pipe don't draw."
"Come, now," said George, "you don't fool
this crew no more. You're a
funny man, by your account; but you're over
now, and you'll maybe step
down off that barrel and help vote."
"I thought you said you knowed the rules,"
returned Silver
contemptuously. "Leastways, if you don't,
I do; and I wait here--and I'm
still your cap'n, mind--till you outs with
your grievances and I reply;
in the meantime, your black spot ain't worth
a biscuit. After that,
we'll see."
"Oh," replied George, "you don't be under
no kind of apprehension; WE'RE
all square, we are. First, you've made a hash
of this cruise--you'll be
a bold man to say no to that. Second, you
let the enemy out o' this here
trap for nothing. Why did they want out? I
dunno, but it's pretty plain
they wanted it. Third, you wouldn't let us
go at them upon the march.
Oh, we see through you, John Silver; you want
to play booty, that's
what's wrong with you. And then, fourth, there's
this here boy."
"Is that all?" asked Silver quietly.
"Enough, too," retorted George. "We'll all
swing and sun-dry for your
bungling."
"Well now, look here, I'll answer these four
p'ints; one after another
I'll answer 'em. I made a hash o' this cruise,
did I? Well now, you all
know what I wanted, and you all know if that
had been done that we'd
'a been aboard the HISPANIOLA this night as
ever was, every man of us
alive, and fit, and full of good plum-duff,
and the treasure in the hold
of her, by thunder! Well, who crossed me?
Who forced my hand, as was the
lawful cap'n? Who tipped me the black spot
the day we landed and began
this dance? Ah, it's a fine dance--I'm with
you there--and looks mighty
like a hornpipe in a rope's end at Execution
Dock by London town, it
does. But who done it? Why, it was Anderson,
and Hands, and you, George
Merry! And you're the last above board of
that same meddling crew;
and you have the Davy Jones's insolence to
up and stand for cap'n over
me--you, that sank the lot of us! By the powers!
But this tops the
stiffest yarn to nothing."
Silver paused, and I could see by the faces
of George and his late
comrades that these words had not been said
in vain.
"That's for number one," cried the accused,
wiping the sweat from his
brow, for he had been talking with a vehemence
that shook the house.
"Why, I give you my word, I'm sick to speak
to you. You've neither sense
nor memory, and I leave it to fancy where
your mothers was that let you
come to sea. Sea! Gentlemen o' fortune! I
reckon tailors is your trade."
"Go on, John," said Morgan. "Speak up to the
others."
"Ah, the others!" returned John. "They're
a nice lot, ain't they? You
say this cruise is bungled. Ah! By gum, if
you could understand how bad
it's bungled, you would see! We're that near
the gibbet that my neck's
stiff with thinking on it. You've seen 'em,
maybe, hanged in chains,
birds about 'em, seamen p'inting 'em out as
they go down with the tide.
'Who's that?' says one. 'That! Why, that's
John Silver. I knowed him
well,' says another. And you can hear the
chains a-jangle as you go
about and reach for the other buoy. Now, that's
about where we are,
every mother's son of us, thanks to him, and
Hands, and Anderson, and
other ruination fools of you. And if you want
to know about number four,
and that boy, why, shiver my timbers, isn't
he a hostage? Are we a-going
to waste a hostage? No, not us; he might be
our last chance, and I
shouldn't wonder. Kill that boy? Not me, mates!
And number three? Ah,
well, there's a deal to say to number three.
Maybe you don't count it
nothing to have a real college doctor to see
you every day--you, John,
with your head broke--or you, George Merry,
that had the ague shakes
upon you not six hours agone, and has your
eyes the colour of lemon peel
to this same moment on the clock? And maybe,
perhaps, you didn't know
there was a consort coming either? But there
is, and not so long till
then; and we'll see who'll be glad to have
a hostage when it comes to
that. And as for number two, and why I made
a bargain--well, you came
crawling on your knees to me to make it--on
your knees you came, you was
that downhearted--and you'd have starved too
if I hadn't--but that's a
trifle! You look there--that's why!"
And he cast down upon the floor a paper that
I instantly
recognized--none other than the chart on yellow
paper, with the three
red crosses, that I had found in the oilcloth
at the bottom of the
captain's chest. Why the doctor had given
it to him was more than I
could fancy.
But if it were inexplicable to me, the appearance
of the chart was
incredible to the surviving mutineers. They
leaped upon it like cats
upon a mouse. It went from hand to hand, one
tearing it from another;
and by the oaths and the cries and the childish
laughter with which they
accompanied their examination, you would have
thought, not only they
were fingering the very gold, but were at
sea with it, besides, in
safety.
"Yes," said one, "that's Flint, sure enough.
J. F., and a score below,
with a clove hitch to it; so he done ever."
"Mighty pretty," said George. "But how are
we to get away with it, and
us no ship."
Silver suddenly sprang up, and supporting
himself with a hand against
the wall: "Now I give you warning, George,"
he cried. "One more word
of your sauce, and I'll call you down and
fight you. How? Why, how do I
know? You had ought to tell me that--you and
the rest, that lost me my
schooner, with your interference, burn you!
But not you, you can't; you
hain't got the invention of a cockroach. But
civil you can speak, and
shall, George Merry, you may lay to that."
"That's fair enow," said the old man Morgan.
"Fair! I reckon so," said the sea-cook. "You
lost the ship; I found the
treasure. Who's the better man at that? And
now I resign, by thunder!
Elect whom you please to be your cap'n now;
I'm done with it."
"Silver!" they cried. "Barbecue forever! Barbecue
for cap'n!"
"So that's the toon, is it?" cried the cook.
"George, I reckon you'll
have to wait another turn, friend; and lucky
for you as I'm not a
revengeful man. But that was never my way.
And now, shipmates, this
black spot? 'Tain't much good now, is it?
Dick's crossed his luck and
spoiled his Bible, and that's about all."
"It'll do to kiss the book on still, won't
it?" growled Dick, who was
evidently uneasy at the curse he had brought
upon himself.
"A Bible with a bit cut out!" returned Silver
derisively. "Not it. It
don't bind no more'n a ballad-book."
"Don't it, though?" cried Dick with a sort
of joy. "Well, I reckon
that's worth having too."
"Here, Jim--here's a cur'osity for you," said
Silver, and he tossed me
the paper.
It was around about the size of a crown piece.
One side was blank,
for it had been the last leaf; the other contained
a verse or two of
Revelation--these words among the rest, which
struck sharply home upon
my mind: "Without are dogs and murderers."
The printed side had been
blackened with wood ash, which already began
to come off and soil my
fingers; on the blank side had been written
with the same material the
one word "Depposed." I have that curiosity
beside me at this moment, but
not a trace of writing now remains beyond
a single scratch, such as a
man might make with his thumb-nail.
That was the end of the night's business.
Soon after, with a drink all
round, we lay down to sleep, and the outside
of Silver's vengeance was
to put George Merry up for sentinel and threaten
him with death if he
should prove unfaithful.
It was long ere I could close an eye, and
heaven knows I had matter
enough for thought in the man whom I had slain
that afternoon, in my own
most perilous position, and above all, in
the remarkable game that I saw
Silver now engaged upon--keeping the mutineers
together with one hand
and grasping with the other after every means,
possible and impossible,
to make his peace and save his miserable life.
He himself slept
peacefully and snored aloud, yet my heart
was sore for him, wicked as he
was, to think on the dark perils that environed
and the shameful gibbet
that awaited him.
30
On Parole
I WAS wakened--indeed, we were all wakened,
for I could see even the
sentinel shake himself together from where
he had fallen against the
door-post--by a clear, hearty voice hailing
us from the margin of the
wood:
"Block house, ahoy!" it cried. "Here's the
doctor."
And the doctor it was. Although I was glad
to hear the sound, yet my
gladness was not without admixture. I remembered
with confusion my
insubordinate and stealthy conduct, and when
I saw where it had brought
me--among what companions and surrounded by
what dangers--I felt ashamed
to look him in the face.
He must have risen in the dark, for the day
had hardly come; and when I
ran to a loophole and looked out, I saw him
standing, like Silver once
before, up to the mid-leg in creeping vapour.
"You, doctor! Top o' the morning to you, sir!"
cried Silver, broad awake
and beaming with good nature in a moment.
"Bright and early, to be sure;
and it's the early bird, as the saying goes,
that gets the rations.
George, shake up your timbers, son, and help
Dr. Livesey over the ship's
side. All a-doin' well, your patients was--all
well and merry."
So he pattered on, standing on the hilltop
with his crutch under his
elbow and one hand upon the side of the log-house--quite
the old John in
voice, manner, and expression.
"We've quite a surprise for you too, sir,"
he continued. "We've a little
stranger here--he! he! A noo boarder and lodger,
sir, and looking fit
and taut as a fiddle; slep' like a supercargo,
he did, right alongside
of John--stem to stem we was, all night."
Dr. Livesey was by this time across the stockade
and pretty near the
cook, and I could hear the alteration in his
voice as he said, "Not
Jim?"
"The very same Jim as ever was," says Silver.
The doctor stopped outright, although he did
not speak, and it was some
seconds before he seemed able to move on.
"Well, well," he said at last, "duty first
and pleasure afterwards, as
you might have said yourself, Silver. Let
us overhaul these patients of
yours."
A moment afterwards he had entered the block
house and with one grim
nod to me proceeded with his work among the
sick. He seemed under no
apprehension, though he must have known that
his life, among these
treacherous demons, depended on a hair; and
he rattled on to his
patients as if he were paying an ordinary
professional visit in a quiet
English family. His manner, I suppose, reacted
on the men, for they
behaved to him as if nothing had occurred,
as if he were still ship's
doctor and they still faithful hands before
the mast.
"You're doing well, my friend," he said to
the fellow with the bandaged
head, "and if ever any person had a close
shave, it was you; your head
must be as hard as iron. Well, George, how
goes it? You're a pretty
colour, certainly; why, your liver, man, is
upside down. Did you take
that medicine? Did he take that medicine,
men?"
"Aye, aye, sir, he took it, sure enough,"
returned Morgan.
"Because, you see, since I am mutineers' doctor,
or prison doctor as I
prefer to call it," says Doctor Livesey in
his pleasantest way, "I make
it a point of honour not to lose a man for
King George (God bless him!)
and the gallows."
The rogues looked at each other but swallowed
the home-thrust in
silence.
"Dick don't feel well, sir," said one.
"Don't he?" replied the doctor. "Well, step
up here, Dick, and let me
see your tongue. No, I should be surprised
if he did! The man's tongue
is fit to frighten the French. Another fever."
"Ah, there," said Morgan, "that comed of sp'iling
Bibles."
"That comes--as you call it--of being arrant
asses," retorted the
doctor, "and not having sense enough to know
honest air from poison,
and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous
slough. I think it most
probable--though of course it's only an opinion--that
you'll all have
the deuce to pay before you get that malaria
out of your systems. Camp
in a bog, would you? Silver, I'm surprised
at you. You're less of a fool
than many, take you all round; but you don't
appear to me to have the
rudiments of a notion of the rules of health.
"Well," he added after he had dosed them round
and they had taken
his prescriptions, with really laughable humility,
more like charity
schoolchildren than blood-guilty mutineers
and pirates--"well, that's
done for today. And now I should wish to have
a talk with that boy,
please."
And he nodded his head in my direction carelessly.
George Merry was at the door, spitting and
spluttering over some
bad-tasted medicine; but at the first word
of the doctor's proposal he
swung round with a deep flush and cried "No!"
and swore.
Silver struck the barrel with his open hand.
"Si-lence!" he roared and looked about him
positively like a lion.
"Doctor," he went on in his usual tones, "I
was a-thinking of that,
knowing as how you had a fancy for the boy.
We're all humbly grateful
for your kindness, and as you see, puts faith
in you and takes the drugs
down like that much grog. And I take it I've
found a way as'll suit all.
Hawkins, will you give me your word of honour
as a young gentleman--for
a young gentleman you are, although poor born--your
word of honour not
to slip your cable?"
I readily gave the pledge required.
"Then, doctor," said Silver, "you just step
outside o' that stockade,
and once you're there I'll bring the boy down
on the inside, and I
reckon you can yarn through the spars. Good
day to you, sir, and all our
dooties to the squire and Cap'n Smollett."
The explosion of disapproval, which nothing
but Silver's black looks had
restrained, broke out immediately the doctor
had left the house. Silver
was roundly accused of playing double--of
trying to make a separate
peace for himself, of sacrificing the interests
of his accomplices and
victims, and, in one word, of the identical,
exact thing that he was
doing. It seemed to me so obvious, in this
case, that I could not
imagine how he was to turn their anger. But
he was twice the man
the rest were, and his last night's victory
had given him a huge
preponderance on their minds. He called them
all the fools and dolts
you can imagine, said it was necessary I should
talk to the doctor,
fluttered the chart in their faces, asked
them if they could afford to
break the treaty the very day they were bound
a-treasure-hunting.
"No, by thunder!" he cried. "It's us must
break the treaty when the time
comes; and till then I'll gammon that doctor,
if I have to ile his boots
with brandy."
And then he bade them get the fire lit, and
stalked out upon his crutch,
with his hand on my shoulder, leaving them
in a disarray, and silenced
by his volubility rather than convinced.
"Slow, lad, slow," he said. "They might round
upon us in a twinkle of an
eye if we was seen to hurry."
Very deliberately, then, did we advance across
the sand to where the
doctor awaited us on the other side of the
stockade, and as soon as we
were within easy speaking distance Silver
stopped.
"You'll make a note of this here also, doctor,"
says he, "and the boy'll
tell you how I saved his life, and were deposed
for it too, and you
may lay to that. Doctor, when a man's steering
as near the wind as
me--playing chuck-farthing with the last breath
in his body, like--you
wouldn't think it too much, mayhap, to give
him one good word? You'll
please bear in mind it's not my life only
now--it's that boy's into the
bargain; and you'll speak me fair, doctor,
and give me a bit o' hope to
go on, for the sake of mercy."
Silver was a changed man once he was out there
and had his back to his
friends and the block house; his cheeks seemed
to have fallen in, his
voice trembled; never was a soul more dead
in earnest.
"Why, John, you're not afraid?" asked Dr.
Livesey.
"Doctor, I'm no coward; no, not I--not SO
much!" and he snapped his
fingers. "If I was I wouldn't say it. But
I'll own up fairly, I've the
shakes upon me for the gallows. You're a good
man and a true; I never
seen a better man! And you'll not forget what
I done good, not any more
than you'll forget the bad, I know. And I
step aside--see here--and
leave you and Jim alone. And you'll put that
down for me too, for it's a
long stretch, is that!"
So saying, he stepped back a little way, till
he was out of earshot, and
there sat down upon a tree-stump and began
to whistle, spinning round
now and again upon his seat so as to command
a sight, sometimes of me
and the doctor and sometimes of his unruly
ruffians as they went to and
fro in the sand between the fire--which they
were busy rekindling--and
the house, from which they brought forth pork
and bread to make the
breakfast.
"So, Jim," said the doctor sadly, "here you
are. As you have brewed, so
shall you drink, my boy. Heaven knows, I cannot
find it in my heart to
blame you, but this much I will say, be it
kind or unkind: when Captain
Smollett was well, you dared not have gone
off; and when he was ill and
couldn't help it, by George, it was downright
cowardly!"
I will own that I here began to weep. "Doctor,"
I said, "you might spare
me. I have blamed myself enough; my life's
forfeit anyway, and I should
have been dead by now if Silver hadn't stood
for me; and doctor,
believe this, I can die--and I dare say I
deserve it--but what I fear is
torture. If they come to torture me--"
"Jim," the doctor interrupted, and his voice
was quite changed, "Jim, I
can't have this. Whip over, and we'll run
for it."
"Doctor," said I, "I passed my word."
"I know, I know," he cried. "We can't help
that, Jim, now. I'll take it
on my shoulders, holus bolus, blame and shame,
my boy; but stay here,
I cannot let you. Jump! One jump, and you're
out, and we'll run for it
like antelopes."
"No," I replied; "you know right well you
wouldn't do the thing
yourself--neither you nor squire nor captain;
and no more will I. Silver
trusted me; I passed my word, and back I go.
But, doctor, you did not
let me finish. If they come to torture me,
I might let slip a word of
where the ship is, for I got the ship, part
by luck and part by risking,
and she lies in North Inlet, on the southern
beach, and just below high
water. At half tide she must be high and dry."
"The ship!" exclaimed the doctor.
Rapidly I described to him my adventures,
and he heard me out in
silence.
"There is a kind of fate in this," he observed
when I had done. "Every
step, it's you that saves our lives; and do
you suppose by any chance
that we are going to let you lose yours? That
would be a poor return, my
boy. You found out the plot; you found Ben
Gunn--the best deed that
ever you did, or will do, though you live
to ninety. Oh, by Jupiter, and
talking of Ben Gunn! Why, this is the mischief
in person. Silver!" he
cried. "Silver! I'll give you a piece of advice,"
he continued as
the cook drew near again; "don't you be in
any great hurry after that
treasure."
"Why, sir, I do my possible, which that ain't,"
said Silver. "I can
only, asking your pardon, save my life and
the boy's by seeking for that
treasure; and you may lay to that."
"Well, Silver," replied the doctor, "if that
is so, I'll go one step
further: look out for squalls when you find
it."
"Sir," said Silver, "as between man and man,
that's too much and too
little. What you're after, why you left the
block house, why you given
me that there chart, I don't know, now, do
I? And yet I done your
bidding with my eyes shut and never a word
of hope! But no, this here's
too much. If you won't tell me what you mean
plain out, just say so and
I'll leave the helm."
"No," said the doctor musingly; "I've no right
to say more; it's not my
secret, you see, Silver, or, I give you my
word, I'd tell it you. But
I'll go as far with you as I dare go, and
a step beyond, for I'll have
my wig sorted by the captain or I'm mistaken!
And first, I'll give you a
bit of hope; Silver, if we both get alive
out of this wolf-trap, I'll do
my best to save you, short of perjury."
Silver's face was radiant. "You couldn't say
more, I'm sure, sir, not if
you was my mother," he cried.
"Well, that's my first concession," added
the doctor. "My second is a
piece of advice: keep the boy close beside
you, and when you need help,
halloo. I'm off to seek it for you, and that
itself will show you if I
speak at random. Good-bye, Jim."
And Dr. Livesey shook hands with me through
the stockade, nodded to
Silver, and set off at a brisk pace into
the wood.
31
The Treasure-hunt--Flint's Pointer
"JIM," said Silver when we were alone, "if
I saved your life, you saved
mine; and I'll not forget it. I seen the doctor
waving you to run for
it--with the tail of my eye, I did; and I
seen you say no, as plain as
hearing. Jim, that's one to you. This is the
first glint of hope I had
since the attack failed, and I owe it you.
And now, Jim, we're to go in
for this here treasure-hunting, with sealed
orders too, and I don't like
it; and you and me must stick close, back
to back like, and we'll save
our necks in spite o' fate and fortune."
Just then a man hailed us from the fire that
breakfast was ready, and
we were soon seated here and there about the
sand over biscuit and fried
junk. They had lit a fire fit to roast an
ox, and it was now grown so
hot that they could only approach it from
the windward, and even there
not without precaution. In the same wasteful
spirit, they had cooked,
I suppose, three times more than we could
eat; and one of them, with an
empty laugh, threw what was left into the
fire, which blazed and roared
again over this unusual fuel. I never in my
life saw men so careless of
the morrow; hand to mouth is the only word
that can describe their way
of doing; and what with wasted food and sleeping
sentries, though they
were bold enough for a brush and be done with
it, I could see their
entire unfitness for anything like a prolonged
campaign.
Even Silver, eating away, with Captain Flint
upon his shoulder, had not
a word of blame for their recklessness. And
this the more surprised me,
for I thought he had never shown himself so
cunning as he did then.
"Aye, mates," said he, "it's lucky you have
Barbecue to think for you
with this here head. I got what I wanted,
I did. Sure enough, they have
the ship. Where they have it, I don't know
yet; but once we hit the
treasure, we'll have to jump about and find
out. And then, mates, us
that has the boats, I reckon, has the upper
hand."
Thus he kept running on, with his mouth full
of the hot bacon; thus he
restored their hope and confidence, and, I
more than suspect, repaired
his own at the same time.
"As for hostage," he continued, "that's his
last talk, I guess, with
them he loves so dear. I've got my piece o'
news, and thanky to him
for that; but it's over and done. I'll take
him in a line when we go
treasure-hunting, for we'll keep him like
so much gold, in case of
accidents, you mark, and in the meantime.
Once we got the ship and
treasure both and off to sea like jolly companions,
why then we'll talk
Mr. Hawkins over, we will, and we'll give
him his share, to be sure, for
all his kindness."
It was no wonder the men were in a good humour
now. For my part, I
was horribly cast down. Should the scheme
he had now sketched prove
feasible, Silver, already doubly a traitor,
would not hesitate to adopt
it. He had still a foot in either camp, and
there was no doubt he
would prefer wealth and freedom with the pirates
to a bare escape from
hanging, which was the best he had to hope
on our side.
Nay, and even if things so fell out that he
was forced to keep his faith
with Dr. Livesey, even then what danger lay
before us! What a moment
that would be when the suspicions of his followers
turned to certainty
and he and I should have to fight for dear
life--he a cripple and I a
boy--against five strong and active seamen!
Add to this double apprehension the mystery
that still hung over the
behaviour of my friends, their unexplained
desertion of the stockade,
their inexplicable cession of the chart, or
harder still to understand,
the doctor's last warning to Silver, "Look
out for squalls when you
find it," and you will readily believe how
little taste I found in my
breakfast and with how uneasy a heart I set
forth behind my captors on
the quest for treasure.
We made a curious figure, had anyone been
there to see us--all in soiled
sailor clothes and all but me armed to the
teeth. Silver had two guns
slung about him--one before and one behind--besides
the great cutlass
at his waist and a pistol in each pocket of
his square-tailed coat.
To complete his strange appearance, Captain
Flint sat perched upon his
shoulder and gabbling odds and ends of purposeless
sea-talk. I had a
line about my waist and followed obediently
after the sea-cook, who
held the loose end of the rope, now in his
free hand, now between his
powerful teeth. For all the world, I was led
like a dancing bear.
The other men were variously burthened, some
carrying picks and
shovels--for that had been the very first
necessary they brought ashore
from the HISPANIOLA--others laden with pork,
bread, and brandy for the
midday meal. All the stores, I observed, came
from our stock, and I
could see the truth of Silver's words the
night before. Had he not
struck a bargain with the doctor, he and his
mutineers, deserted by the
ship, must have been driven to subsist on
clear water and the proceeds
of their hunting. Water would have been little
to their taste; a sailor
is not usually a good shot; and besides all
that, when they were so
short of eatables, it was not likely they
would be very flush of powder.
Well, thus equipped, we all set out--even
the fellow with the broken
head, who should certainly have kept in shadow--and
straggled, one after
another, to the beach, where the two gigs
awaited us. Even these bore
trace of the drunken folly of the pirates,
one in a broken thwart, and
both in their muddy and unbailed condition.
Both were to be carried
along with us for the sake of safety; and
so, with our numbers divided
between them, we set forth upon the bosom
of the anchorage.
As we pulled over, there was some discussion
on the chart. The red cross
was, of course, far too large to be a guide;
and the terms of the note
on the back, as you will hear, admitted of
some ambiguity. They ran, the
reader may remember, thus:
Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point
to
the N. of N.N.E.
Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E.
Ten feet.
A tall tree was thus the principal mark. Now,
right before us the
anchorage was bounded by a plateau from two
to three hundred feet high,
adjoining on the north the sloping southern
shoulder of the Spy-glass
and rising again towards the south into the
rough, cliffy eminence
called the Mizzen-mast Hill. The top of the
plateau was dotted thickly
with pine-trees of varying height. Every here
and there, one of a
different species rose forty or fifty feet
clear above its neighbours,
and which of these was the particular "tall
tree" of Captain Flint could
only be decided on the spot, and by the readings
of the compass.
Yet, although that was the case, every man
on board the boats had
picked a favourite of his own ere we were
half-way over, Long John alone
shrugging his shoulders and bidding them wait
till they were there.
We pulled easily, by Silver's directions,
not to weary the hands
prematurely, and after quite a long passage,
landed at the mouth of
the second river--that which runs down a woody
cleft of the Spy-glass.
Thence, bending to our left, we began to ascend
the slope towards the
plateau.
At the first outset, heavy, miry ground and
a matted, marish vegetation
greatly delayed our progress; but by little
and little the hill began
to steepen and become stony under foot, and
the wood to change its
character and to grow in a more open order.
It was, indeed, a most
pleasant portion of the island that we were
now approaching. A
heavy-scented broom and many flowering shrubs
had almost taken the place
of grass. Thickets of green nutmeg-trees were
dotted here and there with
the red columns and the broad shadow of the
pines; and the first mingled
their spice with the aroma of the others.
The air, besides, was fresh
and stirring, and this, under the sheer sunbeams,
was a wonderful
refreshment to our senses.
The party spread itself abroad, in a fan shape,
shouting and leaping to
and fro. About the centre, and a good way
behind the rest, Silver and
I followed--I tethered by my rope, he ploughing,
with deep pants, among
the sliding gravel. From time to time, indeed,
I had to lend him a hand,
or he must have missed his footing and fallen
backward down the hill.
We had thus proceeded for about half a mile
and were approaching the
brow of the plateau when the man upon the
farthest left began to cry
aloud, as if in terror. Shout after shout
came from him, and the others
began to run in his direction.
"He can't 'a found the treasure," said old
Morgan, hurrying past us from
the right, "for that's clean a-top."
Indeed, as we found when we also reached the
spot, it was something
very different. At the foot of a pretty big
pine and involved in a green
creeper, which had even partly lifted some
of the smaller bones, a human
skeleton lay, with a few shreds of clothing,
on the ground. I believe a
chill struck for a moment to every heart.
"He was a seaman," said George Merry, who,
bolder than the rest, had
gone up close and was examining the rags of
clothing. "Leastways, this
is good sea-cloth."
"Aye, aye," said Silver; "like enough; you
wouldn't look to find a
bishop here, I reckon. But what sort of a
way is that for bones to lie?
'Tain't in natur'."
Indeed, on a second glance, it seemed impossible
to fancy that the body
was in a natural position. But for some disarray
(the work, perhaps, of
the birds that had fed upon him or of the
slow-growing creeper that had
gradually enveloped his remains) the man lay
perfectly straight--his
feet pointing in one direction, his hands,
raised above his head like a
diver's, pointing directly in the opposite.
"I've taken a notion into my old numbskull,"
observed Silver. "Here's
the compass; there's the tip-top p'int o'
Skeleton Island, stickin'
out like a tooth. Just take a bearing, will
you, along the line of them
bones."
It was done. The body pointed straight in
the direction of the island,
and the compass read duly E.S.E. and by E.
"I thought so," cried the cook; "this here
is a p'inter. Right up there
is our line for the Pole Star and the jolly
dollars. But, by thunder!
If it don't make me cold inside to think of
Flint. This is one of HIS
jokes, and no mistake. Him and these six was
alone here; he killed 'em,
every man; and this one he hauled here and
laid down by compass, shiver
my timbers! They're long bones, and the hair's
been yellow. Aye, that
would be Allardyce. You mind Allardyce, Tom
Morgan?"
"Aye, aye," returned Morgan; "I mind him;
he owed me money, he did, and
took my knife ashore with him."
"Speaking of knives," said another, "why don't
we find his'n lying
round? Flint warn't the man to pick a seaman's
pocket; and the birds, I
guess, would leave it be."
"By the powers, and that's true!" cried Silver.
"There ain't a thing left here," said Merry,
still feeling round among
the bones; "not a copper doit nor a baccy
box. It don't look nat'ral to
me."
"No, by gum, it don't," agreed Silver; "not
nat'ral, nor not nice, says
you. Great guns! Messmates, but if Flint was
living, this would be a hot
spot for you and me. Six they were, and six
are we; and bones is what
they are now."
"I saw him dead with these here deadlights,"
said Morgan. "Billy took me
in. There he laid, with penny-pieces on his
eyes."
"Dead--aye, sure enough he's dead and gone
below," said the fellow with
the bandage; "but if ever sperrit walked,
it would be Flint's. Dear
heart, but he died bad, did Flint!"
"Aye, that he did," observed another; "now
he raged, and now he hollered
for the rum, and now he sang. 'Fifteen Men'
were his only song, mates;
and I tell you true, I never rightly liked
to hear it since. It was
main hot, and the windy was open, and I hear
that old song comin' out as
clear as clear--and the death-haul on the
man already."
"Come, come," said Silver; "stow this talk.
He's dead, and he don't
walk, that I know; leastways, he won't walk
by day, and you may lay to
that. Care killed a cat. Fetch ahead for the
doubloons."
We started, certainly; but in spite of the
hot sun and the staring
daylight, the pirates no longer ran separate
and shouting through the
wood, but kept side by side and spoke with
bated breath. The terror of
the dead buccaneer had fallen on their spirits.
32
The Treasure-hunt--The Voice Among the Trees
PARTLY from the damping influence of this
alarm, partly to rest Silver
and the sick folk, the whole party sat down
as soon as they had gained
the brow of the ascent.
The plateau being somewhat tilted towards
the west, this spot on which
we had paused commanded a wide prospect on
either hand. Before us,
over the tree-tops, we beheld the Cape of
the Woods fringed with surf;
behind, we not only looked down upon the anchorage
and Skeleton Island,
but saw--clear across the spit and the eastern
lowlands--a great field
of open sea upon the east. Sheer above us
rose the Spyglass, here dotted
with single pines, there black with precipices.
There was no sound but
that of the distant breakers, mounting from
all round, and the chirp of
countless insects in the brush. Not a man,
not a sail, upon the sea; the
very largeness of the view increased the sense
of solitude.
Silver, as he sat, took certain bearings with
his compass.
"There are three 'tall trees'" said he, "about
in the right line from
Skeleton Island. 'Spy-glass shoulder,' I take
it, means that lower p'int
there. It's child's play to find the stuff
now. I've half a mind to dine
first."
"I don't feel sharp," growled Morgan. "Thinkin'
o' Flint--I think it
were--as done me."
"Ah, well, my son, you praise your stars he's
dead," said Silver.
"He were an ugly devil," cried a third pirate
with a shudder; "that blue
in the face too!"
"That was how the rum took him," added Merry.
"Blue! Well, I reckon he
was blue. That's a true word."
Ever since they had found the skeleton and
got upon this train of
thought, they had spoken lower and lower,
and they had almost got to
whispering by now, so that the sound of their
talk hardly interrupted
the silence of the wood. All of a sudden,
out of the middle of the trees
in front of us, a thin, high, trembling voice
struck up the well-known
air and words:
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
I never have seen men more dreadfully affected
than the pirates. The
colour went from their six faces like enchantment;
some leaped to their
feet, some clawed hold of others; Morgan grovelled
on the ground.
"It's Flint, by ----!" cried Merry.
The song had stopped as suddenly as it began--broken
off, you would have
said, in the middle of a note, as though someone
had laid his hand upon
the singer's mouth. Coming through the clear,
sunny atmosphere among the
green tree-tops, I thought it had sounded
airily and sweetly; and the
effect on my companions was the stranger.
"Come," said Silver, struggling with his ashen
lips to get the word out;
"this won't do. Stand by to go about. This
is a rum start, and I can't
name the voice, but it's someone skylarking--someone
that's flesh and
blood, and you may lay to that."
His courage had come back as he spoke, and
some of the colour to his
face along with it. Already the others had
begun to lend an ear to this
encouragement and were coming a little to
themselves, when the same
voice broke out again--not this time singing,
but in a faint distant
hail that echoed yet fainter among the clefts
of the Spy-glass.
"Darby M'Graw," it wailed--for that is the
word that best describes the
sound--"Darby M'Graw! Darby M'Graw!" again
and again and again; and then
rising a little higher, and with an oath that
I leave out: "Fetch aft
the rum, Darby!"
The buccaneers remained rooted to the ground,
their eyes starting from
their heads. Long after the voice had died
away they still stared in
silence, dreadfully, before them.
"That fixes it!" gasped one. "Let's go."
"They was his last words," moaned Morgan,
"his last words above board."
Dick had his Bible out and was praying volubly.
He had been well brought
up, had Dick, before he came to sea and fell
among bad companions.
Still Silver was unconquered. I could hear
his teeth rattle in his head,
but he had not yet surrendered.
"Nobody in this here island ever heard of
Darby," he muttered; "not one
but us that's here." And then, making a great
effort: "Shipmates,"
he cried, "I'm here to get that stuff, and
I'll not be beat by man or
devil. I never was feared of Flint in his
life, and, by the powers, I'll
face him dead. There's seven hundred thousand
pound not a quarter of a
mile from here. When did ever a gentleman
o' fortune show his stern to
that much dollars for a boozy old seaman with
a blue mug--and him dead
too?"
But there was no sign of reawakening courage
in his followers, rather,
indeed, of growing terror at the irreverence
of his words.
"Belay there, John!" said Merry. "Don't you
cross a sperrit."
And the rest were all too terrified to reply.
They would have run away
severally had they dared; but fear kept them
together, and kept them
close by John, as if his daring helped them.
He, on his part, had pretty
well fought his weakness down.
"Sperrit? Well, maybe," he said. "But there's
one thing not clear to me.
There was an echo. Now, no man ever seen a
sperrit with a shadow; well
then, what's he doing with an echo to him,
I should like to know? That
ain't in natur', surely?"
This argument seemed weak enough to me. But
you can never tell what will
affect the superstitious, and to my wonder,
George Merry was greatly
relieved.
"Well, that's so," he said. "You've a head
upon your shoulders, John,
and no mistake. 'Bout ship, mates! This here
crew is on a wrong tack, I
do believe. And come to think on it, it was
like Flint's voice, I
grant you, but not just so clear-away like
it, after all. It was liker
somebody else's voice now--it was liker--"
"By the powers, Ben Gunn!" roared Silver.
"Aye, and so it were," cried Morgan, springing
on his knees. "Ben Gunn
it were!"
"It don't make much odds, do it, now?" asked
Dick. "Ben Gunn's not here
in the body any more'n Flint."
But the older hands greeted this remark with
scorn.
"Why, nobody minds Ben Gunn," cried Merry;
"dead or alive, nobody minds
him."
It was extraordinary how their spirits had
returned and how the natural
colour had revived in their faces. Soon they
were chatting together,
with intervals of listening; and not long
after, hearing no further
sound, they shouldered the tools and set forth
again, Merry walking
first with Silver's compass to keep them on
the right line with Skeleton
Island. He had said the truth: dead or alive,
nobody minded Ben Gunn.
Dick alone still held his Bible, and looked
around him as he went, with
fearful glances; but he found no sympathy,
and Silver even joked him on
his precautions.
"I told you," said he--"I told you you had
sp'iled your Bible. If it
ain't no good to swear by, what do you suppose
a sperrit would give for
it? Not that!" and he snapped his big fingers,
halting a moment on his
crutch.
But Dick was not to be comforted; indeed,
it was soon plain to me that
the lad was falling sick; hastened by heat,
exhaustion, and the shock
of his alarm, the fever, predicted by Dr.
Livesey, was evidently growing
swiftly higher.
It was fine open walking here, upon the summit;
our way lay a little
downhill, for, as I have said, the plateau
tilted towards the west. The
pines, great and small, grew wide apart; and
even between the clumps of
nutmeg and azalea, wide open spaces baked
in the hot sunshine. Striking,
as we did, pretty near north-west across the
island, we drew, on the
one hand, ever nearer under the shoulders
of the Spy-glass, and on the
other, looked ever wider over that western
bay where I had once tossed
and trembled in the coracle.
The first of the tall trees was reached, and
by the bearings proved the
wrong one. So with the second. The third rose
nearly two hundred feet
into the air above a clump of underwood--a
giant of a vegetable, with
a red column as big as a cottage, and a wide
shadow around in which a
company could have manoeuvred. It was conspicuous
far to sea both on
the east and west and might have been entered
as a sailing mark upon the
chart.
But it was not its size that now impressed
my companions; it was the
knowledge that seven hundred thousand pounds
in gold lay somewhere
buried below its spreading shadow. The thought
of the money, as they
drew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors.
Their eyes burned in
their heads; their feet grew speedier and
lighter; their whole soul
was bound up in that fortune, that whole lifetime
of extravagance and
pleasure, that lay waiting there for each
of them.
Silver hobbled, grunting, on his crutch; his
nostrils stood out and
quivered; he cursed like a madman when the
flies settled on his hot and
shiny countenance; he plucked furiously at
the line that held me to
him and from time to time turned his eyes
upon me with a deadly look.
Certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts,
and certainly I read
them like print. In the immediate nearness
of the gold, all else had
been forgotten: his promise and the doctor's
warning were both things
of the past, and I could not doubt that he
hoped to seize upon the
treasure, find and board the HISPANIOLA under
cover of night, cut
every honest throat about that island, and
sail away as he had at first
intended, laden with crimes and riches.
Shaken as I was with these alarms, it was
hard for me to keep up with
the rapid pace of the treasure-hunters. Now
and again I stumbled, and it
was then that Silver plucked so roughly at
the rope and launched at me
his murderous glances. Dick, who had dropped
behind us and now brought
up the rear, was babbling to himself both
prayers and curses as his
fever kept rising. This also added to my wretchedness,
and to crown all,
I was haunted by the thought of the tragedy
that had once been acted
on that plateau, when that ungodly buccaneer
with the blue face--he who
died at Savannah, singing and shouting for
drink--had there, with his
own hand, cut down his six accomplices. This
grove that was now so
peaceful must then have rung with cries, I
thought; and even with the
thought I could believe I heard it ringing
still.
We were now at the margin of the thicket.
"Huzza, mates, all together!" shouted Merry;
and the foremost broke into
a run.
And suddenly, not ten yards further, we beheld
them stop. A low cry
arose. Silver doubled his pace, digging away
with the foot of his crutch
like one possessed; and next moment he and
I had come also to a dead
halt.
Before us was a great excavation, not very
recent, for the sides had
fallen in and grass had sprouted on the bottom.
In this were the shaft
of a pick broken in two and the boards of
several packing-cases strewn
around. On one of these boards I saw, branded
with a hot iron, the name
WALRUS--the name of Flint's ship.
All was clear to probation. The CACHE had
been found and rifled; the
seven hundred thousand pounds were gone!
33
The Fall of a Chieftain
THERE 
never was such an overturn in this world.
Each of these six men
was as though he had been struck. But with
Silver the blow passed almost
instantly. Every thought of his soul had been
set full-stretch, like a
racer, on that money; well, he was brought
up, in a single second, dead;
and he kept his head, found his temper, and
changed his plan before the
others had had time to realize the disappointment.
"Jim," he whispered, "take that, and stand
by for trouble."
And he passed me a double-barrelled pistol.
At the same time, he began quietly moving
northward, and in a few steps
had put the hollow between us two and the
other five. Then he looked at
me and nodded, as much as to say, "Here is
a narrow corner," as, indeed,
I thought it was. His looks were not quite
friendly, and I was so
revolted at these constant changes that I
could not forbear whispering,
"So you've changed sides again."
There was no time left for him to answer in.
The buccaneers, with oaths
and cries, began to leap, one after another,
into the pit and to dig
with their fingers, throwing the boards aside
as they did so. Morgan
found a piece of gold. He held it up with
a perfect spout of oaths. It
was a two-guinea piece, and it went from hand
to hand among them for a
quarter of a minute.
"Two guineas!" roared Merry, shaking it at
Silver. "That's your seven
hundred thousand pounds, is it? You're the
man for bargains, ain't you?
You're him that never bungled nothing, you
wooden-headed lubber!"
"Dig away, boys," said Silver with the coolest
insolence; "you'll find
some pig-nuts and I shouldn't wonder."
"Pig-nuts!" repeated Merry, in a scream. "Mates,
do you hear that? I
tell you now, that man there knew it all along.
Look in the face of him
and you'll see it wrote there."
"Ah, Merry," remarked Silver, "standing for
cap'n again? You're a
pushing lad, to be sure."
But this time everyone was entirely in Merry's
favour. They began to
scramble out of the excavation, darting furious
glances behind them. One
thing I observed, which looked well for us:
they all got out upon the
opposite side from Silver.
Well, there we stood, two on one side, five
on the other, the pit
between us, and nobody screwed up high enough
to offer the first blow.
Silver never moved; he watched them, very
upright on his crutch, and
looked as cool as ever I saw him. He was brave,
and no mistake.
At last Merry seemed to think a speech might
help matters.
"Mates," says he, "there's two of them alone
there; one's the old
cripple that brought us all here and blundered
us down to this; the
other's that cub that I mean to have the heart
of. Now, mates--"
He was raising his arm and his voice, and
plainly meant to lead a
charge. But just then--crack! crack! crack!--three
musket-shots flashed
out of the thicket. Merry tumbled head foremost
into the excavation; the
man with the bandage spun round like a teetotum
and fell all his length
upon his side, where he lay dead, but still
twitching; and the other
three turned and ran for it with all their
might.
Before you could wink, Long John had fired
two barrels of a pistol into
the struggling Merry, and as the man rolled
up his eyes at him in the
last agony, "George," said he, "I reckon I
settled you."
At the same moment, the doctor, Gray, and
Ben Gunn joined us, with
smoking muskets, from among the nutmeg-trees.
"Forward!" cried the doctor. "Double quick,
my lads. We must head 'em
off the boats."
And we set off at a great pace, sometimes
plunging through the bushes to
the chest.
I tell you, but Silver was anxious to keep
up with us. The work that man
went through, leaping on his crutch till the
muscles of his chest were
fit to burst, was work no sound man ever equalled;
and so thinks the
doctor. As it was, he was already thirty yards
behind us and on the
verge of strangling when we reached the brow
of the slope.
"Doctor," he hailed, "see there! No hurry!"
Sure enough there was no hurry. In a more
open part of the plateau, we
could see the three survivors still running
in the same direction as
they had started, right for Mizzenmast Hill.
We were already between
them and the boats; and so we four sat down
to breathe, while Long John,
mopping his face, came slowly up with us.
"Thank ye kindly, doctor," says he. "You came
in in about the nick, I
guess, for me and Hawkins. And so it's you,
Ben Gunn!" he added. "Well,
you're a nice one, to be sure."
"I'm Ben Gunn, I am," replied the maroon,
wriggling like an eel in his
embarrassment. "And," he added, after a long
pause, "how do, Mr. Silver?
Pretty well, I thank ye, says you."
"Ben, Ben," murmured Silver, "to think as
you've done me!"
The doctor sent back Gray for one of the pick-axes
deserted, in their
flight, by the mutineers, and then as we proceeded
leisurely downhill to
where the boats were lying, related in a few
words what had taken place.
It was a story that profoundly interested
Silver; and Ben Gunn, the
half-idiot maroon, was the hero from beginning
to end.
Ben, in his long, lonely wanderings about
the island, had found the
skeleton--it was he that had rifled it; he
had found the treasure; he
had dug it up (it was the haft of his pick-axe
that lay broken in the
excavation); he had carried it on his back,
in many weary journeys, from
the foot of the tall pine to a cave he had
on the two-pointed hill at
the north-east angle of the island, and there
it had lain stored in
safety since two months before the arrival
of the HISPANIOLA.
When the doctor had wormed this secret from
him on the afternoon of the
attack, and when next morning he saw the anchorage
deserted, he had gone
to Silver, given him the chart, which was
now useless--given him the
stores, for Ben Gunn's cave was well supplied
with goats' meat salted
by himself--given anything and everything
to get a chance of moving in
safety from the stockade to the two-pointed
hill, there to be clear of
malaria and keep a guard upon the money.
"As for you, Jim," he said, "it went against
my heart, but I did what I
thought best for those who had stood by their
duty; and if you were not
one of these, whose fault was it?"
That morning, finding that I was to be involved
in the horrid
disappointment he had prepared for the mutineers,
he had run all the way
to the cave, and leaving the squire to guard
the captain, had taken Gray
and the maroon and started, making the diagonal
across the island to be
at hand beside the pine. Soon, however, he
saw that our party had the
start of him; and Ben Gunn, being fleet of
foot, had been dispatched in
front to do his best alone. Then it had occurred
to him to work upon the
superstitions of his former shipmates, and
he was so far successful that
Gray and the doctor had come up and were already
ambushed before the
arrival of the treasure-hunters.
"Ah," said Silver, "it were fortunate for
me that I had Hawkins here.
You would have let old John be cut to bits,
and never given it a
thought, doctor."
"Not a thought," replied Dr. Livesey cheerily.
And by this time we had reached the gigs.
The doctor, with the pick-axe,
demolished one of them, and then we all got
aboard the other and set out
to go round by sea for North Inlet.
This was a run of eight or nine miles. Silver,
though he was almost
killed already with fatigue, was set to an
oar, like the rest of us, and
we were soon skimming swiftly over a smooth
sea. Soon we passed out
of the straits and doubled the south-east
corner of the island, round
which, four days ago, we had towed the HISPANIOLA.
As we passed the two-pointed hill, we could
see the black mouth of Ben
Gunn's cave and a figure standing by it, leaning
on a musket. It was the
squire, and we waved a handkerchief and gave
him three cheers, in which
the voice of Silver joined as heartily as
any.
Three miles farther, just inside the mouth
of North Inlet, what should
we meet but the HISPANIOLA, cruising by herself?
The last flood had
lifted her, and had there been much wind or
a strong tide current, as
in the southern anchorage, we should never
have found her more, or found
her stranded beyond help. As it was, there
was little amiss beyond the
wreck of the main-sail. Another anchor was
got ready and dropped in a
fathom and a half of water. We all pulled
round again to Rum Cove,
the nearest point for Ben Gunn's treasure-house;
and then Gray,
single-handed, returned with the gig to the
HISPANIOLA, where he was to
pass the night on guard.
A gentle slope ran up from the beach to the
entrance of the cave. At the
top, the squire met us. To me he was cordial
and kind, saying nothing
of my escapade either in the way of blame
or praise. At Silver's polite
salute he somewhat flushed.
"John Silver," he said, "you're a prodigious
villain and imposter--a
monstrous imposter, sir. I am told I am not
to prosecute you. Well,
then, I will not. But the dead men, sir, hang
about your neck like
mill-stones."
"Thank you kindly, sir," replied Long John,
again saluting.
"I dare you to thank me!" cried the squire.
"It is a gross dereliction
of my duty. Stand back."
And thereupon we all entered the cave. It
was a large, airy place, with
a little spring and a pool of clear water,
overhung with ferns. The
floor was sand. Before a big fire lay Captain
Smollett; and in a far
corner, only duskily flickered over by the
blaze, I beheld great heaps
of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of
gold. That was Flint's
treasure that we had come so far to seek and
that had cost already the
lives of seventeen men from the HISPANIOLA.
How many it had cost in the
amassing, what blood and sorrow, what good
ships scuttled on the deep,
what brave men walking the plank blindfold,
what shot of cannon, what
shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man
alive could tell. Yet there
were still three upon that island--Silver,
and old Morgan, and Ben
Gunn--who had each taken his share in these
crimes, as each had hoped in
vain to share in the reward.
"Come in, Jim," said the captain. "You're
a good boy in your line, Jim,
but I don't think you and me'll go to sea
again. You're too much of the
born favourite for me. Is that you, John Silver?
What brings you here,
man?"
"Come back to my dooty, sir," returned Silver.
"Ah!" said the captain, and that was all he
said.
What a supper I had of it that night, with
all my friends around me; and
what a meal it was, with Ben Gunn's salted
goat and some delicacies and
a bottle of old wine from the HISPANIOLA.
Never, I am sure, were people
gayer or happier. And there was Silver, sitting
back almost out of the
firelight, but eating heartily, prompt to
spring forward when anything
was wanted, even joining quietly in our laughter--the
same bland,
polite, obsequious seaman of the voyage out.
34
And
Last
THE next morning we fell early to work, for
the transportation of this
great mass of gold near a mile by land to
the beach, and thence three
miles by boat to the HISPANIOLA, was a considerable
task for so small
a number of workmen. The three fellows still
abroad upon the island did
not greatly trouble us; a single sentry on
the shoulder of the hill was
sufficient to ensure us against any sudden
onslaught, and we thought,
besides, they had had more than enough of
fighting.
Therefore the work was pushed on briskly.
Gray and Ben Gunn came and
went with the boat, while the rest during
their absences piled treasure
on the beach. Two of the bars, slung in a
rope's end, made a good load
for a grown man--one that he was glad to walk
slowly with. For my part,
as I was not much use at carrying, I was kept
busy all day in the cave
packing the minted money into bread-bags.
It was a strange collection, like Billy Bones's
hoard for the diversity
of coinage, but so much larger and so much
more varied that I think I
never had more pleasure than in sorting them.
English, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons
and double guineas and
moidores and sequins, the pictures of all
the kings of Europe for the
last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces
stamped with what looked
like wisps of string or bits of spider's web,
round pieces and square
pieces, and pieces bored through the middle,
as if to wear them round
your neck--nearly every variety of money in
the world must, I think,
have found a place in that collection; and
for number, I am sure they
were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached
with stooping and my
fingers with sorting them out.
Day after day this work went on; by every
evening a fortune had been
stowed aboard, but there was another fortune
waiting for the morrow; and
all this time we heard nothing of the three
surviving mutineers.
At last--I think it was on the third night--the
doctor and I were
strolling on the shoulder of the hill where
it overlooks the lowlands of
the isle, when, from out the thick darkness
below, the wind brought us
a noise between shrieking and singing. It
was only a snatch that reached
our ears, followed by the former silence.
"Heaven forgive them," said the doctor; "'tis
the mutineers!"
"All drunk, sir," struck in the voice of Silver
from behind us.
Silver, I should say, was allowed his entire
liberty, and in spite of
daily rebuffs, seemed to regard himself once
more as quite a privileged
and friendly dependent. Indeed, it was remarkable
how well he bore
these slights and with what unwearying politeness
he kept on trying to
ingratiate himself with all. Yet, I think,
none treated him better than
a dog, unless it was Ben Gunn, who was still
terribly afraid of his old
quartermaster, or myself, who had really something
to thank him for;
although for that matter, I suppose, I had
reason to think even worse of
him than anybody else, for I had seen him
meditating a fresh treachery
upon the plateau. Accordingly, it was pretty
gruffly that the doctor
answered him.
"Drunk or raving," said he.
"Right you were, sir," replied Silver; "and
precious little odds which,
to you and me."
"I suppose you would hardly ask me to call
you a humane man," returned
the doctor with a sneer, "and so my feelings
may surprise you, Master
Silver. But if I were sure they were raving--as
I am morally certain
one, at least, of them is down with fever--I
should leave this camp,
and at whatever risk to my own carcass, take
them the assistance of my
skill."
"Ask your pardon, sir, you would be very wrong,"
quoth Silver. "You
would lose your precious life, and you may
lay to that. I'm on your side
now, hand and glove; and I shouldn't wish
for to see the party weakened,
let alone yourself, seeing as I know what
I owes you. But these men down
there, they couldn't keep their word--no,
not supposing they wished to;
and what's more, they couldn't believe as
you could."
"No," said the doctor. "You're the man to
keep your word, we know that."
Well, that was about the last news we had
of the three pirates. Only
once we heard a gunshot a great way off and
supposed them to be hunting.
A council was held, and it was decided that
we must desert them on the
island--to the huge glee, I must say, of Ben
Gunn, and with the strong
approval of Gray. We left a good stock of
powder and shot, the bulk
of the salt goat, a few medicines, and some
other necessaries, tools,
clothing, a spare sail, a fathom or two of
rope, and by the particular
desire of the doctor, a handsome present of
tobacco.
That was about our last doing on the island.
Before that, we had got the
treasure stowed and had shipped enough water
and the remainder of the
goat meat in case of any distress; and at
last, one fine morning, we
weighed anchor, which was about all that we
could manage, and stood out
of North Inlet, the same colours flying that
the captain had flown and
fought under at the palisade.
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--leapt 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 main-sail.
After that, we kept under cover of the bulwarks,
and when next I looked
out they had disappeared from the spit, and
the spit itself had almost
melted out of sight in the growing distance.
That was, at least, the end
of that; and before noon, to my inexpressible
joy, the highest rock of
Treasure Island had sunk into the blue round
of sea.
We were so short of men that everyone on board
had to bear a hand--only
the captain lying on a mattress in the stern
and giving his orders, for
though greatly recovered he was still in want
of quiet. We laid her
head for the nearest port in Spanish America,
for we could not risk the
voyage home without fresh hands; and as it
was, what with baffling winds
and a couple of fresh gales, we were all worn
out before we reached it.
It was just at sundown when we cast anchor
in a most beautiful
land-locked gulf, and were immediately surrounded
by shore boats full
of Negroes and Mexican Indians and half-bloods
selling fruits and
vegetables and offering to dive for bits of
money. The sight of so many
good-humoured faces (especially the blacks),
the taste of the tropical
fruits, and above all the lights that began
to shine in the town made a
most charming contrast to our dark and bloody
sojourn on the island;
and the doctor and the squire, taking me along
with them, went ashore
to pass the early part of the night. Here
they met the captain of an
English man-of-war, fell in talk with him,
went on board his ship, and,
in short, had so agreeable a time that day
was breaking when we came
alongside the HISPANIOLA.
Ben Gunn was on deck alone, and as soon as
we came on board he began,
with wonderful contortions, to make us a confession.
Silver was gone.
The maroon had connived at his escape in a
shore boat some hours ago,
and he now assured us he had only done so
to preserve our lives, which
would certainly have been forfeit if "that
man with the one leg
had stayed aboard." But this was not all.
The sea-cook had not gone
empty-handed. He had cut through a bulkhead
unobserved and had removed
one of the sacks of coin, worth perhaps three
or four hundred guineas,
to help him on his further wanderings.
I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply
quit of him.
Well, to make a long story short, we got a
few hands on board, made a
good cruise home, and the HISPANIOLA reached
Bristol just as Mr. Blandly
was beginning to think of fitting out her
consort. Five men only of
those who had sailed returned with her. "Drink
and the devil had done
for the rest," with a vengeance, although,
to be sure, we were not quite
in so bad a case as that other ship they sang
about:
With one man of her crew alive,
What put to sea with seventy-five.
All of us had an ample share of the treasure
and used it wisely or
foolishly, according to our natures. Captain
Smollett is now retired
from the sea. Gray not only saved his money,
but being suddenly smit
with the desire to rise, also studied his
profession, and he is now
mate and part owner of a fine full-rigged
ship, married besides, and the
father of a family. As for Ben Gunn, he got
a thousand pounds, which he
spent or lost in three weeks, or to be more
exact, in nineteen days, for
he was back begging on the twentieth. Then
he was given a lodge to keep,
exactly as he had feared upon the island;
and he still lives, a great
favourite, though something of a butt, with
the country boys, and a
notable singer in church on Sundays and saints'
days.
Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable
seafaring man with one
leg has at last gone clean out of my life;
but I dare say he met his old
Negress, and perhaps still lives in comfort
with her and Captain Flint.
It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances
of comfort in another
world are very small.
The bar silver and the arms still lie, for
all that I know, where
Flint buried them; and certainly they shall
lie there for me. Oxen and
wain-ropes would not bring me back again to
that accursed island; and
the worst dreams that ever I have are when
I hear the surf booming about
its coasts or start upright in bed with the
sharp voice of Captain Flint
still ringing in my ears: "Pieces of eight!
Pieces of eight!"
