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16 - Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson · Adventure Books Collection

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Chapter thirty one, The Treasure Hunt, Flint's pointer, Jim said silver when
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we were alone, if I saved your life, you've saved mine, and
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I'll not forget it. I seen the doctor waving you to run for it
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with the tail of my eye. I did, and I seen you say
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no as plain as hearing. Jim, that's one to you. This is
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the first clint of hope I had since the tack failed, and I owe
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it to you. And now, Jim, we're to go in for this
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treasure hunting. We'd sealed orders too, and I don't like it. And
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you and me must stick close back to back like and we'll save our necks
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in spite of fat and fortune. Just then a man hailed us from the
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fire that breakfast was ready, and we were soon seated here and there about
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the sand over biscuit and fried junk. They had lighted a fire fit to
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roast an ox, and it was now grown so hot that they could only
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approach it from the windward, and even there not without precaution. In the
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same wasteful spirit they had cooked I suppose three times more than we could eat.
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And one of them, with an empty laugh, threw what was left
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into the fire, which blazed and roared again over this unusual fuel. I
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never in my life saw men so careless of the morrow. Hand to mouth
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is the only word that can describe their way of doing, and what with
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wasted food and sleeping sentries. Though they were bold enough for a brush and
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be done with it, I could see their entire unfitness for anything like a
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prolonged campaign. Even Silver, eating away with Captain flint upon his shoulder,
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had not a word of blame for their recklessness. And this the more surprised
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me, for I thought he had never showed himself so cunning as he did.
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Then, oh, mates, said he, it's luck you have barbecue
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to think for you with this here head, I got, Why what did
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I did? Sure enough? They have the ship where they have it?
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I don't know yet, but once we hit the treasurer we'll have to jump
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about and find and then, Mates, it's that as the boats, I
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reckon as the upper And that's he kept running on with his mouth full of
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the hot bacon. Last he restored their hope and confidence, and I,
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more than suspect, repaired his own. At the same time. As for
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hostage, he continued that's my last talk. I guess with them. He
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loves so dear. We've got my piece of news, and thank you to
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him for that. But it's over and done. I'll take him in a
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line when we go treasure hunting, for we'll keep them like so much old
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in case of accident. You mark in the meantime, whence we got the
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ship and treasure both and off to sea like jolly companions. Wh then we'll
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talk mister Orkins over we will. It will give him his share, to
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be sure, for all his kindness, it was no wonder the men were
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in good humor. Now for my part, I was horribly cast down.
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Should the scheme he now sketched prove feasible, silver already doubly a traitor would
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not hesitate to adopt it. He had still a foot in either camp,
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and there was no doubt he would prefer wealth and freedom with the pirates to
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a bear escape from hanging, which was the best he had to hope on
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our side. Nay, and even if things fell out that he was forced
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to keep his faith with doctor Livesey, even then, what danger lay before
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us? What a moment that would be when the suspicions of his followers turned
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to certainty, and he and I should have to fight for dear life,
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he a cripple and I a boy, against five strong and active seamen.
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Add to this double apprehension the mystery that still hung over the behavior of my
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friends, their unexplained desertion of the stockade, their inexplicable session of the chart,
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or harder still to understand the doctor's last warning to Silver, look out
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for squalls when you find it, and you will readily believe how little taste
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I found in my breakfast, and with how uneasy a heart I set forth
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behind my captors on the quest for treasure. We made a curious figure had
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any one been there to see us, all in soiled sailor clothes, and
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all but me armed to the teeth. Silver had two guns slung about him,
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one before and one behind, besides the great cutlass at his waist,
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and a pistol in each pocket of his square tailed coat. To complete his
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strange appearance, Captain Flint sat perched upon his shoulder and gabbled odds and ends
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of purposeless sea talk. I had a line about my waist, and followed
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obediently after the sea cook, who held the loose end of the rope,
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now in his free hand, now between his powerful teeth. For all the
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world I was led like a dancing bear. The other men were variously burdened,
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some carrying picks and shovels, for that had been the very first necessary
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They brought ashore from the Hispaniola, others laden with pork, bread and brandy
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for the midday meal. All the stores I observed came from our stock.
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I could see the truth of Silver's words the night before. Had he not
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struck a bargain with the doctor, he and his mutineers, deserted by the
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ship must have been driven to subsist on clear water, and the proceeds of
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their hunting water would have been little to their taste. A sailor is not
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usually a good shot, and besides all that, when they were so short
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of eatables, it was not likely they would be very flush of powder.
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Well. Thus equipped, we all set out, even the fellow with the
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broken head, who should certainly have kept in shadow, and straggled one after
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another to the beach where the two gigs awaited us. Even these bore trace
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of the drunken folly of the pirates. One in a broken thwart, and
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both in their muddied and unbailed condition, both were to be carried along with
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us for the sake of safety. And so, with our numbers divided between
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them, we set forth upon the bosom of the anchorage. As we pulled
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across, there was some discussion on the chart. The red cross was of
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course far too large to be a guide, and the terms of the note
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on the back, as you will hear, admitted of some ambiguity they ran.
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The reader may remember thus tall true spyglass shoulder bearing a point to the
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n of nne skeleton island e s e and by e ten feet a tall
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tree was thus the principal mark. Now right before us. The anchorage was
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bounded by a plateau from two to three hundred feet high, adjoining on the
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north and sloping southern shoulder of the Spyglass, and rising again toward the south
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into the rough cliffy eminence called the Mizzenmast Hill. The top of the plateau
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was dotted thickly with pine trees of varying height. Here and there one of
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a different species rose forty or fifty feet clear above its neighbours. And which
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of these was the particular tall tree of Captain Flint could only be decided on
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the spot and by the readings of the compass. Yet although that was the
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case, every man on board the boats had picked a favorite of his own.
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Air we were half way over long John alone, shrugging his shoulders and
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bidding them weaight till they were there. We pulled easily, by Silver's directions
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not to weary the hands prematurely, and after quite a long passage, landed
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at the mouth of the second river, that which runs down a woody cleft
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of the spyglass. Thence bending to our left, we began to ascend the
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slope towards the plateau. At the very outset, heavy miry ground and a
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matted marsh vegetation greatly delayed our progress. But by little and little the hill
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began to steepen and become stony underfoot, and the wood to change its character
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and to grow in a more open order. It was indeed a most pleasant
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portion of the island that we were now approaching. A heavy scented broom,
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and many flowering shrubs had almost taken the place of grass. Thickets of green
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nutmeg trees were dotted here and there with the red columns and the broad shadow
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of the pines, and the first mingled their spice with the aroma of the
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others. The air, besides, was fresh and stirring, and this under
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the sheer sunbeams, was a wonderful refreshment to our senses. The party spread
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itself abroad in a fan shape, shouting and leaping to and fro about the
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center, and a good way behind the rest Silver and I followed, I
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tethered by my rope, he plowing with deep pants among the sliding gravel.
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From time to time, indeed, I had to lend him a hand,
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or he must have missed his footing and fallen backward down the hill. We
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had thus proceeded for about half a mile and were approaching the brow of the
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plateau when the man upon the farthest left began to cry aloud, as if
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in terror. Shout after shout came from him, and the others began to
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run in his direction. He can't have found the treasure, said old Morgan,
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hurrying past us from the right, for that's cleaner top. Indeed,
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as we found when we also reached the spot, it was something very different
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at the foot of a pretty big pine and involved in deep creeper, which
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had even partly lifted some of the smaller bones. A human skeleton lay with
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a few shreds of clothing on the ground. I believe a chill struck for
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a moment to every heart. He was a seaman, said George Merry,
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who bolder than the rest, had gone up close and was examining the rags
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of clothing. Leastways, this is good sea cloth, Aye, aye,
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said silver, like enough, you wouldn't look to find a bishop here,
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I reckon, But what sort of a way is that for bones? Tolly
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tain't in nature. Indeed, on a second glance, it seemed impossible to
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fancy that the body was in a natural position but for some disarray, the
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work perhaps of the birds that had fed upon him, or the slow growing
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creeper that had gradually enveloped his remains. The man lay perfectly straight, his
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feet pointing in one direction, his hands raised above his head like a diver's,
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pointing directly in the opposite. I've taken a notion into my old numbskull,
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observed silver. Here's the compass. There's the tip top point of skeleton,
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an island sticking out like a tooth. Just take a bearing will yer
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along the line of them bones. It was done. The body pointed straight
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in the direction of the island, and the compass read duly east southeast by
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east. I thought, so, cried the cook. This here is a
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pointer right up there is our loin for the pole star and the jolly dollars.
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But boy, thunder, if it don't make me cold inside to think
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of flint. This is one of his jokes. And no mistake him in
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these six was alone here. He killed them, every man, and this
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one he all here and laid down by the compass, shivering. My timbers
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their long bones, and the air has been yellow. Aye, that would
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be allered. Dice you mind, aler, dice Tom Morgan Aye, Aye,
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returned Morgan. I mind him. He owed me money, he did,
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and he took my knife ashore with him. Speaking of knives, said
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another, Why don't we find isn't lying around? Flint worked the man to
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pick a seaman's pocket, and the birds, I guess would leave it be
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bye the poor. And that's true, cried Silver. There ain't a thing
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left here, said Mary, still feeling round among the bones. Not a
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copper, do it, nor a backy box. It don't look natural to
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me, No, boy, gomet don't agreed. Silver, not natural nor
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not nice, says you, great guns mess meats. But if Flint was
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living, this would be a hot spot for you and me. Six they
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were, and six are a wee and bones is what they are. Now.
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I saw him dead with these here deadlights, said Morgan. Billy took
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me in there he laid with penny pieces on his eyes. Dead. Aye,
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sure enough he's dead and gone below, said the fellow with the bandage.
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But if ever spirit walked, it would be Flint's dear Harby. He
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died bad, did Flint? Aye? That he did observed another. Now
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we raged, and now he hollered for the rum, and now we sang.
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Fifteen men were his only song mates. And I tell you true,
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I never rightly liked to hear it, since it was may not and the
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windy was open. And I hear that old song are coming out as clear
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as clear, and the death haul on the man already come come, said
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Silver, stole this tark. He's dead and he don't walk that I know,
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least the ways he won't walk. By day you made later that care
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killed a cat fetch a head for the doubloons. We started, certainly,
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but in spite of the hot sun and the staring daylight, the pirates no
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longer ran separate and shouting through the wood, but kept side by side and
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spoke with bated breath. The terror of the dead buccaneer had fallen their spirits.
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End of chapter thirty one, Chapter thirty two, The treasure Hunt the
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voice among the trees. Partly from the damping influence of this alarm, partly
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to rest Silver and the sick folk. The whole party sat down as soon
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as they had gained the brow of the ascent, the plateau being somewhat tilted
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toward the west. This spot on which we had paused, commanded a wide
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prospect on either hand before us, over the tree tops, we held the
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cape of the woods, fringed with surf. Behind. We not only looked
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down upon the anchorage and Skeleton Island, but saw clear across the spit and
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the eastern lowlands, a great field of open sea upon the east sheer.
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Above us rose the spyglass, here dotted with single pines, there black with
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precipices. There was no but that of the distant breakers mounting from all around,
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and the chirp of countless insects in the brush. Not a man,
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not a sail on the sea. The very largeness of the view increased the
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sense of solitude. Silver, as he sat, took certain bearings with his
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compass. There are three tall trees, said he, about in the right
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lome from Skelleton Neyland, spy glass shoulder. I take it means that lure
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point there. It's child's plate, a foind the stuff. Now if half
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a mint to dine first. I don't feel sharp, growled Morgan, thinking
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a flint. I think it were as done me. Well, MYI,
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sir, you praise your stars. He's dead, said Silver. He was
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an ugly devil, cried a third pirate with a shudder. That blew in
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the face too. That was how the rum took him, added Merry Blue.
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Woa, I reckon, he was blue. That's a true word.
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Ever since they had found the skeleton and got upon this train of thought,
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they had spoken lower and lower, and they had almost got to whispering by
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now, so that the sound of their talk hardly interrupted the silence of the
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wood. All of a sudden, out of the middle of the trees in
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front of us. A thin, high trembling voice struck up the well known
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air and words fifty men on the dead man's chest, Yo, ho ho,
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and about twelve rum. I never have seen men more dreadfully affected than
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the pirates. The color went from their six faces like enchantment. Some leaped
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to their feet, some clawed hold of others. Morgan groveled on the ground.
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It flint py, cried Mary. The song had stopped as suddenly as
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it began broken off, you would have said, in the middle of a
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note, as though someone had laid his hand upon the singer's mouth. Coming
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so far through the clear and sunny atmosphere among the green tree tops, I
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thought it had sounded airily and sweetly. And the effect on my companions was
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the stranger come, said Silver, struggling with his ashen lips to get the
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word out. That won't do stand by to go a belt. This is
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a room star. And I can't name the voice, but it's someone's Skylarkin,
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someone that's flesh and blurred. And you may laid that his courage had
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come back as he spoke, and some of the color to his face along
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with it. Already the others had began to lend an ear to this encouragement,
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and were coming a little to themselves when the same voice broke out again,
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not this time singing, but in a faint, distant hail that echoed
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yet fainter among the clefts of the spyglass. Darby McGraw, it wailed,
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for that is the word that best describes the sound, Darby McGraw, Darby
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McGraw, again and again and again, and then rising a little higher,
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and with an oath that I leave out fetch half the rum Darby. The
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buccaneers remained rooted to the ground, their eyes starting from their heads. Long
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after the voice had died away, they still stared in silence, dreadfully before
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them. That fixes it gasped one. Let's go They was his last words,
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moaned Morgan, his last words. Above board, Dick had his bible
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out and was praying volubly. He had been well brought up, had Dick.
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Before he had come to sea and fell among bad companions. Still silver
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was unconquered. I could hear his teeth rattle in his head, but he
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had not surrendered. Nobody in this ere island ever heard of Daby. He
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muttered not one but us that's here, and then making a great effort shipmates,
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he cried, O mere to get that stuff, and I'll not be
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beat by man nor devil. I never was feared of flint in his life,
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and by their powers, I'll face him dead. There's seven hundred thousand
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pounds, not a quarter of a mile from here. When did ever a
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gentleman of fortune show his stirr into that much dollars for a boozy old seaman
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with a blue mug, and him dead too? But there was no sign
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of reawakening courage in his followers, rather indeed of growing terror at the irreverence
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of his words. Belay there, John said, Mary, don't you cross
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a spirit? And the rest were all too terrified to reply. They would
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have run away severally had they dared, but fear kept them together and kept
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them close to John, as if his daring helped them. He, on
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his part, had pretty well fought his weakness down. Spirit waw may be,
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he said, But there's one thing not clearer than me. There was
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an echo, No no mine ever seen a spirit wear shadow? Well?
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Then was he doing with an echo? To whom I should like to know?
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That a't inneature, Sharlie. This argument seemed weak enough to me,
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but you can never tell what will affect the superstitious. And to my worry,
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George Merry was greatly relieved. Well that's so, he said, you've
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had upon your shoulders, John, And no mistake, boutship mates, This
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here crew is on a wrong tack. I do believe, and you come
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to think on it. It was like Flint's voice, I grant you,
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but not just so clear away like it. After all, it was like
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somebody else's voice. Now it was like a boy the porors. Ben Gunn
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roared, silver ah, and so it were, cried Morgan, springing on
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his knees. Ben Gunn, it were it don't make much odds, do
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it, now, asked Dick. Ben Gunn's not hearing the body any more
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of Flint. But the older hands greeted this remark with scorn. Why nobody
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minds ben Gunn cried, Mary dead or alive? Nobody minds him. It
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was extraordinary how their spirits had returned, and how the natural color had revived
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in their faces. Soon they were chatting together with intervals of listening, and
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not long after, hearing no further sound, they shouldered the tools and set
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forth again, Mary walking first with Silver's compass to keep them on the right
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line with Skeleton Island. He had said the truth, dead or alive.
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Nobody minded ben Gunn. Dick alone still held his Bible and looked around him
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as he went with fearful glances. But he found no sympathy, and Silver
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even joked him on his precautions. Oh he told you, said he,
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Oh, he told you you had spoiled your boyble. If it ain't no
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good to swear, boy, what you suppose a spirit will give for it?
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Not that? And he snapped his big fingers, halting a moment on
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his crutch. But Dick was not to be comforted. Indeed, it was
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soon plain to me that the lad was falling sick, hastened by heat,
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exhaustion, and the shock of his alarm. The fever predicted by the doctor
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Livesey was evidently growing swiftly higher. It was fine open walking here upon the
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summit. Our way lay a little down hill, For as I have said,
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the plateau tilted toward the west. The pines great and small, grew
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wide apart, and even between the clumps of nutmeg and azalea wide open spaces,
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baked in the hot sunshine, Striking as we did, pretty near northwest
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across the island. We drew, on the one hand, even nearer under
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the shoulders of the spyglass, and on the other looked even wider over that
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western bay where I had once tossed and trembled in the coracle. The first
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of the tall trees was reached, and by the bearing proved the wrong one.
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So with the second and the third, rose nearly two hundred feet into
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the air above a clump of underwood, A giant of a vegetable, with
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a red column as big as a cottage, and a wide shadow, a
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red in which a company could have maneuvered. It was conspicuous far to sea,
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both on the east and west, and might have been entered as a
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sailing mark upon the chart. But it was not its size that now impressed
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my companions. It was the knowledge that seven hundred thousand pounds in gold lay
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somewhere buried below its spreading shadow. The thought of the money, as they
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drew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors. Their eyes burned in their heads,
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their feet grew speedier and lighter, their whole soul was bound up in
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that fortune, that whole lifetime of extravagance and pleasure that lay awaiting there for
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each of them. Silver hobbled, grunting on his crutch, His nostrils stood
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out and quivered. He cursed like a madman when the flies settled on his
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hot and shiny countenance. He plucked furiously at the lion that held me to
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him, and from time to time turned his eyes upon me with a deadly
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look. Certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts, and certainly I
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read them like print. In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else
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had been forgotten. His promise and the doctor's warning were both things of the
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past, and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure
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find and bored the hispaniola under cover of night, cut every honest throat about
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that island, and sail away as he had first intended. Laden with crimes
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and riches. Shaken as I was with these alarms, it was hard for
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me to keep up with the rapid race of the treasure hunters. Now and
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again I stumbled. And it was then that Silver plucked so roughly at the
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rope and launched at me his murderous glances. Dick, who had dropped behind
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us and now brought up the rear, was babbling to Hi himself, both
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prayers and curses, as his fever kept rising. This also added to my
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wretchedness and to crown all. I was haunted by the thought of the tragedy
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that had once been acted on that plateau, when that ungodly buccaneer with the
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blue face, he who had died at Savannah singing and shouting for drink,
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had there with his own hand cut down his six accomplices. This grove that
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was now so peaceful, must have rung with cries, I thought, And
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even with the thought, I could believe I heard it ringing. Still.
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We were now at the margin of the thicket. Huzzah. Mates altogether shouted
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Mary, and the foremost broke into a run, and suddenly, not ten
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yards farther we beheld them stop a low cry. Arose Silver doubled his pace,
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digging away with the foot of his crutch like one possessed, And the
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next moment he and I had come also to a dead halt. Before us
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was a great excavation, not very recent, for the sides had fallen in
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and grass had sprouted on the bottom. In this were the shaft of a
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pick broken in two, and the boards of several packing cases strewn around.
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On one of these boards I saw branded with a hot iron, the name
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Walrus, the name of Flint's ship. All was clear to probation. The
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cash had been found and rifled, the seven hundred thousand pounds were gone,
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and of chapter thirty two