Latest / Classic Adventure Books Library / 14 - Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
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- Chapter twenty seven pieces of eight. Owing to the cant of the vessel, the masts hung far out over the water, and from my perch on the cross trees, I had nothing below me but the surface of the bay. Hands, who was not so far up, was, in consequence, nearer to the ship, and fell between me and the bulwarks. He rose once to the surface in a lather of foam and blood, and then sank again for good. As the water settled, I could see him lying huddled together on the clean, bright sand in the shadow of the vessel's sides. A fish or two whipped past his body, sometimes by the quivering of the water. He appeared to move a little, as if he were trying to rise, But he was dead enough for all that, being both shot and drowned, and was food for fish in the very place where he had designed my slaughter. I was no sooner certain of this than I began to feel sick, faint, and terrified. The hot blood was running over my back and chest. The dirk where it had pinned my shoulder to the mast seemed to burn like a hot iron. Yet it was not so much these real sufferings that distressed me, For these it seemed to me I could bear without a murmur. It was the horror that I had upon my mind of falling from the cross tree into that still green water beside the body of the cocksin. I clung with both hands till my nails ached, and I shut my eyes as if to cover up the peril. Gradually my mind came back again, my pulses quieted down to a more natural time, and I was once more in possession of myself. It was my first thought to pluck forth the dirk, but either it struck too hard or my nerve failed me, and I desisted with a violent shudder. Oddly enough that very shudder did the business. The knife, in fact, had come the nearest in the world to missing me altogether. It held me by a mere pinch of skin, and this the shudder tore away. The blood ran down the faster, to be sure, but I was my own master again, and only tacked to the mast by my coat and shirt. These last I broke through with a sudden jerk, and then regained the deck by the starboard shrouds. For nothing in the world would I have again ventured, shaken as I was upon the overhanging port shrouds from which Israel had so lately fallen. I went below and did what I could for my wound. It pained me a good deal, and still bled freely, but it was neither deep nor dangerous, nor did it greatly gall me when I used my arm. Then I looked around me, and as the ship was now in a sense my own, I began to think of clearing it from its last passenger, the dead man O'Brien. He had pitched, as I have said, against the bulwarks, where he lay like some horrid, ungainly sort of puppet. Life size indeed, but how different from life's color or life's comeliness. In that position I could easily have my way with him, and as the habit of tragical adventures had worn off almost all my terror for the dead, I took him by the waist as if he'd been a sack of bran, and with one good heave tumbled him overboard. He went in with a sounding plunge. The red cap came off and remained floating on the surface, and as soon as the splash subsided, I could see him in Israel, lying side by side, both wavering with the tremulous movement of the water. Iron, though still quite a young man, was very bald. There he lay, with that bald head across the knees of the man who had killed him, and the quick fishes steering to and fro over both. I was now alone within the ship. The tide had just turned. The sun was within so few degrees of setting that already the shadows of the pines upon the western shore began to reach right across the anchorage and fall in patterns on the deck. The evening breeze had sprung up, and though it was well warded off by the hill with the two peaks upon the east, the cordage had begun to sing a little softly to itself, and the idle sails to rattle to and fro. I began to see a danger to the ship. The jibs I speedily doused and brought tumbling to the deck. But the mainsail was a harder matter of course, When the schooner canted over, the boom had swung outward, and the a cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water. I thought this made it still more dangerous. Yet the strain was so heavy that I half feared to meddle. At last I got my knife and cut the halyards. The peak dropped instantly. The great belly of loose canvas floated broad upon the water, and since pull as I liked, I could not budge the down hall. That was the extent of what I could accomplish. For the rest the Hispaniola must trust to luck, like myself. By this time, the whole anchorage had fallen into shadow. The last rays I remember falling through a glade of the wood and shining bright as jewels on the flowery mantle of the wreck. It began to be chill. The tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner settling more and more on her beam ends. I scrambled forehead and looked over. It seemed shallow enough. Fan holding the cut hawser in both hands for a last security, I let myself drop softly overboard. The water scarcely reached my waist. The sand was firm and covered with ripple marks, and I waded ashore in great spirits, leaving the Hispaniola on her side, with her mainsail trailing wide upon the surface of the bay. About the same time, the sun went fairly down, and the breeze whistled low in the dusk among the tossing pines. At least and at last, I was off the sea. Nor had I returned thence empty handed. There lay the schooner, clear at last from buccaneers, and ready for our own men to board and get to sea again. I had nothing nearer my fancy than to get home to the stockade and boast of my achievements. Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truanty, but the recapture of the Hispaniola was a claching answer, and I hoped that even Captain Smollett would confess I had not lost my time. So, thinking and in famous spirits, I began to set my face homeward for the block house and my companions. I remembered that the most easterly of the rivers which drain into Captain Kidd's anchorage, ran from the two peaked hill upon my left, and I bent my course in that direction that I might pass the stream. While it was small, the wood was pretty open, and keeping along the lower spurs, I had soon turned the corner of that hill, and not long after waded to the mid calf across the water course. This brought me near to where I had encountered ben Gunn the maroon, and I walked more circumspectully, keeping an eye on every side. The dusk had come nigh hand completely, and as I opened out of the cleft between the two peaks, I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky, where as I judged the man of the island was cooking his supper before a roaring fire. And yet I wondered in my heart that he should show himself so careless, For if I could see this radiance, might it not reach the eye of silver himself where he camped upon the shore among the marshes. Gradually the night fell blacker. It was all I could do to guide myself, even roughly toward my destination. The double hill behind me, and the spyglass on my right hand loomed fainter and fainter. The stars were few and pale, and in the low ground where I wandered, I kept tripping among bushes and rolling into sandy pits. Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me. I looked up. A pale glimmer of moonbeams had alighted on the summit of the spyglass, And soon after I saw something broad and silvery, moving low down behind the trees, and knew the moon had risen. With this to help me, I passed rapidly over what remained to me of my journey, and sometimes walking, sometimes running, impatiently drew near to the stockade. Yet as I began to thread the grove that lies before it, I was not so thoughtless but that I slacked my pace and went a trifle warily. It would have been a poor end of my adventures to get shot down by my own party in mistake. The moon was climbing higher and higher. Its light began to fall here and there in masses through the more open districts of the wood, and right in front of me a glow of a different color appeared among the trees. It was red and hot, and now and again it was a little darkened, as it were the embers of a bonfire smoldering. For the life of me, I could not think what it might be. At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing. The western end was all ready steeped in moonshine. The rest and the block house itself still lay in a black shadow, checkered with long, silvery streaks of light. On the other side of the house, an immense fire had burned itself into clear embers and shared a steadily red reverberation, contrasting strongly with the mellow paleness of the moon. There was not a soul stirring, nor a sound beside the noises of that breeze. I stopped with much wonder in my heart, and perhaps a little terror also. It had not been our way to build great fires. We were, indeed, by the Captain's orders, somewhat niggardly of firewood, and I began to fear that something had gone wrong. While I was absent, I stole round by the eastern end, keeping close in shadow, and at a convenient place where the darkness was thickest, crossed the palisade. To make assurance surer, I got upon my hands and knees and crawled without a sound, toward the corner of the house. As I drew nearer, my heart was suddenly and greatly lightened. It was not a pleasant noise in itself, and I have often complained of it in other times, but just then it was like music to hear my friends snoring together, so loud and peaceful in their sleep. The sea cry of the watch, that beautiful All's well, never fell more reassuringly on my ear. In the meantime. There was no doubt of one thing. They kept, an infamous bad watch. If it had been Silver and his lads that were now creeping in on them, not a soul would have seen daybreak. That was what it was, thought I to have the captain wounded, And again I blamed myself sharply for leaving them in that danger, with so fut to mount guard. By this time I had got to the door and stood up. All was dark within, so that I could distinguish nothing by the eye. As for sounds, there was the steady drone of the snorers, and a small occasional noise, a flickering or pecking, that I could in no way account for With my arms before me, I walked steadily in. I should lie down in my own place, I thought, with a silent chuckle, and enjoy their faces when they found me in the morning. My foot struck something yielding. It was a sleeper's leg, and he turned and groaned, but without awaking, And then all of a sudden a shrill voice broke forth out of the darkness, paces of eight, paces of eight pieces of eight, pieces of eight pieces of eight, and so forth, without paws or change, like the clacking of a tiny mill. Silver's green parrot, Captain Flint, It was she whom I had heard pecking at a piece of bark. It was she, keeping better watch than any human being, who thus announced my arrival with her wearisome refrain. I had no time left me to recover. At the sharp clicking tone of the parrot, the sleepers awoke and sprang up, and with a mighty oath, the voice of Silver cried, who goes? I turned to run, struck violently against one person, recoiled and ran full into the arms of a second, who, for his part, closed upon and held me tight. Bring a torch, dick, said Silver, when my capture was thus assured, and one of the men left the log house and presently returned with a lighted brand. End of Chapter twenty seven, Part six, Captain Silver, Chapter twenty eight. In the enemy's camp, the bright glare of the torch lighting up the interior of the block house showed me the worst of my apprehensions. Realized the pirates were in possession of the house, toss and stores. There was the cask of cognac. There were the pork and bread as before, and what tenfold increased my horror. Not a sign of any prisoner. I could only judge that all had perished, and my heart smote me sorely that I had not been there to perish with them. There were six of the buccaneers, all told, not another man was left alive. Five of them were on their feet, flushed and swollen, suddenly called out of the first sleep of drunkenness. The sixth had only risen upon his elbow. He was deadly pale, and the blood stained bandage round his head told that he had recently been wounded, and was still more recently dressed. I remembered the man who had been shot and ran back among the woods in the great attack, and doubted not that this was he. The parrot sat preening her plumage on long John's shoulder. He himself, I thought, he looked somewhat paler and more stern than I was used to. He still wore his fine broadcloth suit in which he had fulfilled his mission, but it was bitterly, the worse for wear, daubed with clay and torn with sharp briers of the wood, So said he, here's Jim Hawkins shiver. My timbers dropped in like eh, where come I take that? Friendly? And thereupon he sat down across the brandy cask and began to fill a pipe. Give me the loan of a link, dick, said he. And then when he had a good light, I'll do my lad, he added, Stick the gleam in the wood heap. And you gentlemen bring yourselves to You needn't stand up for mister Hawkins. He'll excuse you. You may later that and sew Jim stopping the tobacco. Here you are, and quite a pleasant surprise for old John. I see you were smart when first I set my eyes on you. But this ear gets away from me clean it do to all this, as may be well supposed, I made no answer. They had set me with my back against the wall, and I stood there, looking silver in the face. Pluckily enough, I hoped to all outward appearance, but with black despair in my heart. Silver took a whiff or two of his pipe with great composure, and then ran on again. Now you see, Jim, so be as you are here, said he. I'll give you a piece of my mind. I've always liked you. I have for a lad of spirit and the picture of my own self when I was young and handsome, I always wanted to join and take your share and dire gentleman. And now my cock, you've got, cap'n smile it to find seeming as oil own up to any day. Bit stiff on discipline. Duty is duty, says he, and right he is. Just you keep clear of the cap'n. The doctor himself is gone dead again, you ungrateful scamp, was what he said. And the short and the log of the old story is about here. You can't go back to your own lot, for they won't have you. And without you start a third ship's company all by yourself, which might be lonely. You'll have to join with cap'n Silver. So far, so good. My friends then were still alive. And though I partly believed the truth of Silver's statement that the cabin party were incensed at me for my desertion, I was more relieved than distressed by what I heard. I don't say nothing as to your being in our hands, continued Silver, though there you are, and you may lay do it. Oh more for argument, I never seen good come out of threatening. If you like the service, well you're join. And if you don't, Jim why you're free to answer? No, free and welcome, shipmate. And if fairer can be said by mortal seamen, shiver my sides. Am I to answer? Then, I asked, with a very tremulous voice. Through all this sneering talk, I was made to feel the threat of death that overhung me, and my cheeks burned, and my heart beat painfully in my breast. Lad said Silver, No one a press, and of you take your bearings, none of us won't hurry you, mate, Time goes so pleasant in your company, you see, well, says I, growing a bit bolder. If I'm to choose, I declare I have a right to know what's what and why you're here and where my friends are. What's what? Repeated one of the buccaneers, in a deep growl. I'd be a lucky one as know that you're perhaps betting down your hatches till you are spoken to, my friend, cried Silver truculently to the speaker, and then, in his first gracious tones, he replied to me. Yesterday morning, mister Hawkins said he in the dog watch. Down came doctor Livesey with a flag of truce, says he, cap'n silver, you're sold out. Ship's gone. Well maybe we'd been taking a glass and a song to help it round. I won't say no. Leastways. None of us had looked out. We looked out, and boy thunder, the old ship was gone. I never seen a pack of fools look fishy, and you made late that. If I tells you that I look the fishiest, Well, says the doctor, let's boggin. We boggined him and I and here we are stores brandy blockhouse. The firewood you was thoughtful enough to cut, and, in a manner of speaking, the whole blessed boat from Crosstrees to Kielsen. As for them, they've tramped. I don't know where they are. He drew again quietly at his pipe. Unlest you should take it into that head of yours. He went on that you was included in the treaty. Here's the last word that was said. How many are you? Says I? To leave? Four says e four, and one of us wounded. As for the boy, I don't know where he is. Confound him, says he, nor I don't much care. We're about sick of him. There was his words. Is that all? I asked, Well, it's all you're to hear. My son returned Silver, and now I am to choose. And no, you are to choose, and you may laid of that, said Silver. Well said I I am not such a fool, but I know pretty well what I have to look for. Let the worst come to the worst. It's little I care. I've seen too many die since I fell in with you. But there's a thing or two I have to tell you, I said, And by this time I was quite excited. And the first is this. Here you are in a bad way, ship lost, treasure, lost, men, lost, your whole business, gone to wreck. And if you want to know who did it, it was I. I was in the apple barrel that night we sighted land and heard you John and you Dick Johnson and Hans who is now at the bottom of the sea, and told every word you said before the hour was out. And as for the schooner, it was I who cut her cable, and it was I who killed the men you had aboard her. And it was I who brought her where you'll never see her more, not one of you. The laughs on my side. I've had the top of this business from the first. I no more fear you than I fear a fly. Kill me if you please, or spare me, but one thing I'll say, and no more. If you spare me, bygones are bygones. And when you, fellows are in court for piracy, I'll save you all I can. It is for you to choose kill another and do yourselves no good, or spare me and keep a witness to save you from the gallows. I stopped now, for I tell you I was out of breath, and to my wonder, not a man of them moved, but all sat staring at me like as many sheep. And while they were ill staring, I broke out again. And now, mister Silver, I said, I believe you're the best man here, and if things go to the worst, I'll take it kind of you to let the doctor know the way I took it. I'll bear it in mind, said Silver, with an accent so curious that I could not, for the life of me decide whether he was laughing at my request or had been favorably affected by my courage. Oh put one to that, cried the old mahogany faced seaman Morgan, by name, whom I had seen in long John's public house upon the keys of Bristol. It was him that no black dog. Well, and see, he added the sea cook. I'll put another to that boy thunder. It was this same boy that faked the chart from Billy Bones. First and last we've split upon Jim Harkins. Then here goes, said Morgan, with an oath, and he sprang up, drawing his knife as if he had been twenty A vast there cried silver. Were you, Tom Morgan? Maybe you thought you were captain here? Perhaps boy the power as by. I'll teach you better cross me and you'll go where many a good man's gone before you. First and last he's thirty years back, some to the yard arms shiver moist side, and some by the board and ought to feed the fishes. There's never man luck me between the eyes and seen a good day afterwards, Tom Morgh, And you may late that. Morgan paused, but a hoarse murmur rose from the others. Tom's right, said one, I stood hizing loin af from one added another, I'll be hanged if I'll be hazed by you, John Silver, Did any of you gentlemen want to have it out with me? Roared Silver, bending far forward from his position on the keg, with his pipe still glowing in his right hand, put a name on what you're at. You ain't dumb? I wreck him that once shall get it? Have I lived this many years to have a son of a rum punch and cockies at thwart my org or at the latter end of it? You know the way you're all, gentleman of fortune by your account. Well, I am ready take a cutlass in the dares and I'll see the color of his inside crutch and all before that pipe's empty. Not a man stirred. Not a man answered, that's your sword, is it? He added, returning his pipe to his mouth. Well you're a gay lot a look at anyway, not worth much in a foot You ain't. Perhaps you can understand King George's English. I am capten here by election. I'm catt here because I'm the best man. By alarm, sea oil. You won't fight as gentlemen of fortune should, then, by thunder yellow bay, and you made late to it. I like that boy. No I've never seen a better boy than that. He's more a man than any pair of rats of you in this here house. And what I say is this, let me see him. That'll lay a hand on him. That's what I say, and you may lay to it. There was a long pause after this. I stood straight up against the wall. My heart's still going like a sledgehammer, but with a ray of hope now shining in my bosom. Silver leant back against the wall, his arms crossed, his pipe in the corner of his mouth, as calm as though he had been in church. Yet his eye kept wandering furtively, and he kept the tail of it on his unruly follower. They, on their part, drew gradually together toward the far end of the blockhouse, and the low hiss of their whispering sounded in my ears continuously like a stream. One after another. They would look up, and the red light of the torch would fall for a second on their nervous faces. But it was not toward me. It was towards Silver that they turned their eyes. You seem to have a lot to say, remarked Silver, spitting far into the air pipe up and let me hear it, Holy too, Ax your pardon, sir, returned one of the men. You're pretty free with some of the rules. Maybe you kindly keep an eye upon the rest this cruise. Dissatisfied, this crew, don't valley bully in lamarlin spike. This crew has its rights like other crews. I'll make so free as that, and by your own rules are take it. We can talk together. I ax your pardon, sir, acknowledging you for the captain at this present, I claim my right and steps outside for a council, and with an elaborate sea salute, this fellow, a long, ill looking, yellow eyed man of five and thirty, stepped coolly toward the door and disappeared out of the house. One after another. The rest followed his example, each making a salute as he passed, each adding some apology. Called into rules, said one forlkas or counsel, said Morgan. And so with one remark or another, all marched out and left silver and meat alone with the torch. The sea cook instantly removed his pipe. Now look you here, Jim Harkins, he said, in a steady whisper that was no more than audible. You're within half a plank of death, and what's a long sight worse of torture. They've got to throw me off. But you, Mark, I stand by you through thick and thin. I didn't mean to no, not till you spoke up. I was about desperate to lose that much blunt and be hanged into the baggain. But I see you as the right sword, I says to myself. You stand by Hawkins John, and Hawkins will stand by you. You're his last card, and by the living thunder. Johnny's yours back to back, says I. You save your witness, and he'll save your neck. I began dimly to understand you mean all's lost? I asked, aye, by gom I do? He answered, ship gone, neck gone. That's the size of it. Once I looked into that BEI Jim Harkins, and see no schooner. Well, I'm tough, but I gave out. As for that lot and their counsel, mark me, they're outright fools and cowards. I'll save your life if so be as I can from them. See here, Jim did it for a tat you save long John from swinging. I was bewildered. It seemed a thing so hopeless. He was asking he the old buccaneer, the ringleader, threw out what I can do that I'll do. I said, it's a bargain, cried long John. You speak up, plucky and both thunder. I have a chance. He hobbled to the torch where it stood propped among the firewood, and took a fresh light to his pipe. Understand me, Jim, he said, returning, I've had on my shoulders. I have him on Squire's side. Now I know you've got that ship safe somewheres. Oh you've done it. I don't know, but safe it is, I guess. Hands and old Bryant turned soft. I never much believed in neither of them. No you mark me, Oh ask no questions, nor won't let others. I know when a game's up, I do. And I know a lad that's storch Ah. You that's young You might You and me might have done a power of good together. He drew some cognac from the cask into a tin cannikin. Will you taste mess met, he asked, And when I had refused, well, I'd take a drain myself. Jim said, he oh, I need a corker for this trouble on hand and then, and talking a trouble, Why did that doctor give me the chart? Jim My face expressed a wonder so unaffected that he saw the needlessness of further questions. Ah well he did, though, said he. And there was something under that, no doubt, something surely under that, Jim bad or good. And he took another swallow of the brandy, shaking his great fair head like a man who looks forward to the worst. End of Chapter twenty eight.