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.

XIV
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.

XV
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--_re_markable 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

XVI
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.

XXVII
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.

XVIII
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.

XIX
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.

XX
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.

XXI
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

XXII
How I Began My Sea Adventure

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.

XXIII
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.

XXIV
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 Mizzenmast 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.

XXV
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.

XXVI
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.