Silver paused, and I could see by the faces of George and his late
comrades that these words had not been said in vain.

"That's for number one," cried the accused, wiping the sweat from his
brow, for he had been talking with a vehemence that shook the house.
"Why, I give you my word, I'm sick to speak to you. You've neither sense
nor memory, and I leave it to fancy where your mothers was that let you
come to sea. Sea! Gentlemen o' fortune! I reckon tailors is your trade."

"Go on, John," said Morgan. "Speak up to the others."

"Ah, the others!" returned John. "They're a nice lot, ain't they? You
say this cruise is bungled. Ah! By gum, if you could understand how bad
it's bungled, you would see! We're that near the gibbet that my neck's
stiff with thinking on it. You've seen 'em, maybe, hanged in chains,
birds about 'em, seamen p'inting 'em out as they go down with the tide.
'Who's that?' says one. 'That! Why, that's John Silver. I knowed him
well,' says another. And you can hear the chains a-jangle as you go
about and reach for the other buoy. Now, that's about where we are,
every mother's son of us, thanks to him, and Hands, and Anderson, and
other ruination fools of you. And if you want to know about number four,
and that boy, why, shiver my timbers, isn't he a hostage? Are we a-going
to waste a hostage? No, not us; he might be our last chance, and I
shouldn't wonder. Kill that boy? Not me, mates! And number three? Ah,
well, there's a deal to say to number three. Maybe you don't count it
nothing to have a real college doctor to see you every day--you, John,
with your head broke--or you, George Merry, that had the ague shakes
upon you not six hours agone, and has your eyes the colour of lemon peel
to this same moment on the clock? And maybe, perhaps, you didn't know
there was a consort coming either? But there is, and not so long till
then; and we'll see who'll be glad to have a hostage when it comes to
that. And as for number two, and why I made a bargain--well, you came
crawling on your knees to me to make it--on your knees you came, you was
that downhearted--and you'd have starved too if I hadn't--but that's a
trifle! You look there--that's why!"

And he cast down upon the floor a paper that I instantly
recognized--none other than the chart on yellow paper, with the three
red crosses, that I had found in the oilcloth at the bottom of the
captain's chest. Why the doctor had given it to him was more than I
could fancy.

But if it were inexplicable to me, the appearance of the chart was
incredible to the surviving mutineers. They leaped upon it like cats
upon a mouse. It went from hand to hand, one tearing it from another;
and by the oaths and the cries and the childish laughter with which they
accompanied their examination, you would have thought, not only they
were fingering the very gold, but were at sea with it, besides, in
safety.

"Yes," said one, "that's Flint, sure enough. J. F., and a score below,
with a clove hitch to it; so he done ever."

"Mighty pretty," said George. "But how are we to get away with it, and
us no ship."

Silver suddenly sprang up, and supporting himself with a hand against
the wall: "Now I give you warning, George," he cried. "One more word
of your sauce, and I'll call you down and fight you. How? Why, how do I
know? You had ought to tell me that--you and the rest, that lost me my
schooner, with your interference, burn you! But not you, you can't; you
hain't got the invention of a cockroach. But civil you can speak, and
shall, George Merry, you may lay to that."

"That's fair enow," said the old man Morgan.

"Fair! I reckon so," said the sea-cook. "You lost the ship; I found the
treasure. Who's the better man at that? And now I resign, by thunder!
Elect whom you please to be your cap'n now; I'm done with it."

"Silver!" they cried. "Barbecue forever! Barbecue for cap'n!"

"So that's the toon, is it?" cried the cook. "George, I reckon you'll
have to wait another turn, friend; and lucky for you as I'm not a
revengeful man. But that was never my way. And now, shipmates, this
black spot? 'Tain't much good now, is it? Dick's crossed his luck and
spoiled his Bible, and that's about all."

"It'll do to kiss the book on still, won't it?" growled Dick, who was
evidently uneasy at the curse he had brought upon himself.

"A Bible with a bit cut out!" returned Silver derisively. "Not it. It
don't bind no more'n a ballad-book."

"Don't it, though?" cried Dick with a sort of joy. "Well, I reckon
that's worth having too."

"Here, Jim--here's a cur'osity for you," said Silver, and he tossed me
the paper.

It was around about the size of a crown piece. One side was blank,
for it had been the last leaf; the other contained a verse or two of
Revelation--these words among the rest, which struck sharply home upon
my mind: "Without are dogs and murderers." The printed side had been
blackened with wood ash, which already began to come off and soil my
fingers; on the blank side had been written with the same material the
one word "Depposed." I have that curiosity beside me at this moment, but
not a trace of writing now remains beyond a single scratch, such as a
man might make with his thumb-nail.

That was the end of the night's business. Soon after, with a drink all
round, we lay down to sleep, and the outside of Silver's vengeance was
to put George Merry up for sentinel and threaten him with death if he
should prove unfaithful.

It was long ere I could close an eye, and heaven knows I had matter
enough for thought in the man whom I had slain that afternoon, in my own
most perilous position, and above all, in the remarkable game that I saw
Silver now engaged upon--keeping the mutineers together with one hand
and grasping with the other after every means, possible and impossible,
to make his peace and save his miserable life. He himself slept
peacefully and snored aloud, yet my heart was sore for him, wicked as he
was, to think on the dark perils that environed and the shameful gibbet
that awaited him.




30

On Parole

I WAS wakened--indeed, we were all wakened, for I could see even the
sentinel shake himself together from where he had fallen against the
door-post--by a clear, hearty voice hailing us from the margin of the
wood:

"Block house, ahoy!" it cried. "Here's the doctor."

And the doctor it was. Although I was glad to hear the sound, yet my
gladness was not without admixture. I remembered with confusion my
insubordinate and stealthy conduct, and when I saw where it had brought
me--among what companions and surrounded by what dangers--I felt ashamed
to look him in the face.

He must have risen in the dark, for the day had hardly come; and when I
ran to a loophole and looked out, I saw him standing, like Silver once
before, up to the mid-leg in creeping vapour.

"You, doctor! Top o' the morning to you, sir!" cried Silver, broad awake
and beaming with good nature in a moment. "Bright and early, to be sure;
and it's the early bird, as the saying goes, that gets the rations.
George, shake up your timbers, son, and help Dr. Livesey over the ship's
side. All a-doin' well, your patients was--all well and merry."

So he pattered on, standing on the hilltop with his crutch under his
elbow and one hand upon the side of the log-house--quite the old John in
voice, manner, and expression.

"We've quite a surprise for you too, sir," he continued. "We've a little
stranger here--he! he! A noo boarder and lodger, sir, and looking fit
and taut as a fiddle; slep' like a supercargo, he did, right alongside
of John--stem to stem we was, all night."

Dr. Livesey was by this time across the stockade and pretty near the
cook, and I could hear the alteration in his voice as he said, "Not
Jim?"

"The very same Jim as ever was," says Silver.

The doctor stopped outright, although he did not speak, and it was some
seconds before he seemed able to move on.

"Well, well," he said at last, "duty first and pleasure afterwards, as
you might have said yourself, Silver. Let us overhaul these patients of
yours."

A moment afterwards he had entered the block house and with one grim
nod to me proceeded with his work among the sick. He seemed under no
apprehension, though he must have known that his life, among these
treacherous demons, depended on a hair; and he rattled on to his
patients as if he were paying an ordinary professional visit in a quiet
English family. His manner, I suppose, reacted on the men, for they
behaved to him as if nothing had occurred, as if he were still ship's
doctor and they still faithful hands before the mast.

"You're doing well, my friend," he said to the fellow with the bandaged
head, "and if ever any person had a close shave, it was you; your head
must be as hard as iron. Well, George, how goes it? You're a pretty
colour, certainly; why, your liver, man, is upside down. Did you take
that medicine? Did he take that medicine, men?"

"Aye, aye, sir, he took it, sure enough," returned Morgan.

"Because, you see, since I am mutineers' doctor, or prison doctor as I
prefer to call it," says Doctor Livesey in his pleasantest way, "I make
it a point of honour not to lose a man for King George (God bless him!)
and the gallows."

The rogues looked at each other but swallowed the home-thrust in
silence.

"Dick don't feel well, sir," said one.

"Don't he?" replied the doctor. "Well, step up here, Dick, and let me
see your tongue. No, I should be surprised if he did! The man's tongue
is fit to frighten the French. Another fever."

"Ah, there," said Morgan, "that comed of sp'iling Bibles."

"That comes--as you call it--of being arrant asses," retorted the
doctor, "and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison,
and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most
probable--though of course it's only an opinion--that you'll all have
the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out of your systems. Camp
in a bog, would you? Silver, I'm surprised at you. You're less of a fool
than many, take you all round; but you don't appear to me to have the
rudiments of a notion of the rules of health.

"Well," he added after he had dosed them round and they had taken
his prescriptions, with really laughable humility, more like charity
schoolchildren than blood-guilty mutineers and pirates--"well, that's
done for today. And now I should wish to have a talk with that boy,
please."

And he nodded his head in my direction carelessly.

George Merry was at the door, spitting and spluttering over some
bad-tasted medicine; but at the first word of the doctor's proposal he
swung round with a deep flush and cried "No!" and swore.

Silver struck the barrel with his open hand.

"Si-lence!" he roared and looked about him positively like a lion.
"Doctor," he went on in his usual tones, "I was a-thinking of that,
knowing as how you had a fancy for the boy. We're all humbly grateful
for your kindness, and as you see, puts faith in you and takes the drugs
down like that much grog. And I take it I've found a way as'll suit all.
Hawkins, will you give me your word of honour as a young gentleman--for
a young gentleman you are, although poor born--your word of honour not
to slip your cable?"

I readily gave the pledge required.

"Then, doctor," said Silver, "you just step outside o' that stockade,
and once you're there I'll bring the boy down on the inside, and I
reckon you can yarn through the spars. Good day to you, sir, and all our
dooties to the squire and Cap'n Smollett."

The explosion of disapproval, which nothing but Silver's black looks had
restrained, broke out immediately the doctor had left the house. Silver
was roundly accused of playing double--of trying to make a separate
peace for himself, of sacrificing the interests of his accomplices and
victims, and, in one word, of the identical, exact thing that he was
doing. It seemed to me so obvious, in this case, that I could not
imagine how he was to turn their anger. But he was twice the man
the rest were, and his last night's victory had given him a huge
preponderance on their minds. He called them all the fools and dolts
you can imagine, said it was necessary I should talk to the doctor,
fluttered the chart in their faces, asked them if they could afford to
break the treaty the very day they were bound a-treasure-hunting.

"No, by thunder!" he cried. "It's us must break the treaty when the time
comes; and till then I'll gammon that doctor, if I have to ile his boots
with brandy."

And then he bade them get the fire lit, and stalked out upon his crutch,
with his hand on my shoulder, leaving them in a disarray, and silenced
by his volubility rather than convinced.

"Slow, lad, slow," he said. "They might round upon us in a twinkle of an
eye if we was seen to hurry."

Very deliberately, then, did we advance across the sand to where the
doctor awaited us on the other side of the stockade, and as soon as we
were within easy speaking distance Silver stopped.

"You'll make a note of this here also, doctor," says he, "and the boy'll
tell you how I saved his life, and were deposed for it too, and you
may lay to that. Doctor, when a man's steering as near the wind as
me--playing chuck-farthing with the last breath in his body, like--you
wouldn't think it too much, mayhap, to give him one good word? You'll
please bear in mind it's not my life only now--it's that boy's into the
bargain; and you'll speak me fair, doctor, and give me a bit o' hope to
go on, for the sake of mercy."

Silver was a changed man once he was out there and had his back to his
friends and the block house; his cheeks seemed to have fallen in, his
voice trembled; never was a soul more dead in earnest.

"Why, John, you're not afraid?" asked Dr. Livesey.

"Doctor, I'm no coward; no, not I--not SO much!" and he snapped his
fingers. "If I was I wouldn't say it. But I'll own up fairly, I've the
shakes upon me for the gallows. You're a good man and a true; I never
seen a better man! And you'll not forget what I done good, not any more
than you'll forget the bad, I know. And I step aside--see here--and
leave you and Jim alone. And you'll put that down for me too, for it's a
long stretch, is that!"

So saying, he stepped back a little way, till he was out of earshot, and
there sat down upon a tree-stump and began to whistle, spinning round
now and again upon his seat so as to command a sight, sometimes of me
and the doctor and sometimes of his unruly ruffians as they went to and
fro in the sand between the fire--which they were busy rekindling--and
the house, from which they brought forth pork and bread to make the
breakfast.

"So, Jim," said the doctor sadly, "here you are. As you have brewed, so
shall you drink, my boy. Heaven knows, I cannot find it in my heart to
blame you, but this much I will say, be it kind or unkind: when Captain
Smollett was well, you dared not have gone off; and when he was ill and
couldn't help it, by George, it was downright cowardly!"

I will own that I here began to weep. "Doctor," I said, "you might spare
me. I have blamed myself enough; my life's forfeit anyway, and I should
have been dead by now if Silver hadn't stood for me; and doctor,
believe this, I can die--and I dare say I deserve it--but what I fear is
torture. If they come to torture me--"

"Jim," the doctor interrupted, and his voice was quite changed, "Jim, I
can't have this. Whip over, and we'll run for it."

"Doctor," said I, "I passed my word."

"I know, I know," he cried. "We can't help that, Jim, now. I'll take it
on my shoulders, holus bolus, blame and shame, my boy; but stay here,
I cannot let you. Jump! One jump, and you're out, and we'll run for it
like antelopes."

"No," I replied; "you know right well you wouldn't do the thing
yourself--neither you nor squire nor captain; and no more will I. Silver
trusted me; I passed my word, and back I go. But, doctor, you did not
let me finish. If they come to torture me, I might let slip a word of
where the ship is, for I got the ship, part by luck and part by risking,
and she lies in North Inlet, on the southern beach, and just below high
water. At half tide she must be high and dry."

"The ship!" exclaimed the doctor.

Rapidly I described to him my adventures, and he heard me out in
silence.

"There is a kind of fate in this," he observed when I had done. "Every
step, it's you that saves our lives; and do you suppose by any chance
that we are going to let you lose yours? That would be a poor return, my
boy. You found out the plot; you found Ben Gunn--the best deed that
ever you did, or will do, though you live to ninety. Oh, by Jupiter, and
talking of Ben Gunn! Why, this is the mischief in person. Silver!" he
cried. "Silver! I'll give you a piece of advice," he continued as
the cook drew near again; "don't you be in any great hurry after that
treasure."

"Why, sir, I do my possible, which that ain't," said Silver. "I can
only, asking your pardon, save my life and the boy's by seeking for that
treasure; and you may lay to that."

"Well, Silver," replied the doctor, "if that is so, I'll go one step
further: look out for squalls when you find it."

"Sir," said Silver, "as between man and man, that's too much and too
little. What you're after, why you left the block house, why you given
me that there chart, I don't know, now, do I? And yet I done your
bidding with my eyes shut and never a word of hope! But no, this here's
too much. If you won't tell me what you mean plain out, just say so and
I'll leave the helm."

"No," said the doctor musingly; "I've no right to say more; it's not my
secret, you see, Silver, or, I give you my word, I'd tell it you. But
I'll go as far with you as I dare go, and a step beyond, for I'll have
my wig sorted by the captain or I'm mistaken! And first, I'll give you a
bit of hope; Silver, if we both get alive out of this wolf-trap, I'll do
my best to save you, short of perjury."

Silver's face was radiant. "You couldn't say more, I'm sure, sir, not if
you was my mother," he cried.

"Well, that's my first concession," added the doctor. "My second is a
piece of advice: keep the boy close beside you, and when you need help,
halloo. I'm off to seek it for you, and that itself will show you if I
speak at random. Good-bye, Jim."

And Dr. Livesey shook hands with me through the stockade, nodded to
Silver, and set off at a brisk pace into the wood.




31

The Treasure-hunt--Flint's Pointer

"JIM," said Silver when we were alone, "if I saved your life, you saved
mine; and I'll not forget it. I seen the doctor waving you to run for
it--with the tail of my eye, I did; and I seen you say no, as plain as
hearing. Jim, that's one to you. This is the first glint of hope I had
since the attack failed, and I owe it you. And now, Jim, we're to go in
for this here treasure-hunting, with sealed orders too, and I don't like
it; and you and me must stick close, back to back like, and we'll save
our necks in spite o' fate and fortune."

Just then a man hailed us from the fire that breakfast was ready, and
we were soon seated here and there about the sand over biscuit and fried
junk. They had lit a fire fit to roast an ox, and it was now grown so
hot that they could only approach it from the windward, and even there
not without precaution. In the same wasteful spirit, they had cooked,
I suppose, three times more than we could eat; and one of them, with an
empty laugh, threw what was left into the fire, which blazed and roared
again over this unusual fuel. I never in my life saw men so careless of
the morrow; hand to mouth is the only word that can describe their way
of doing; and what with wasted food and sleeping sentries, though they
were bold enough for a brush and be done with it, I could see their
entire unfitness for anything like a prolonged campaign.

Even Silver, eating away, with Captain Flint upon his shoulder, had not
a word of blame for their recklessness. And this the more surprised me,
for I thought he had never shown himself so cunning as he did then.

"Aye, mates," said he, "it's lucky you have Barbecue to think for you
with this here head. I got what I wanted, I did. Sure enough, they have
the ship. Where they have it, I don't know yet; but once we hit the
treasure, we'll have to jump about and find out. And then, mates, us
that has the boats, I reckon, has the upper hand."

Thus he kept running on, with his mouth full of the hot bacon; thus he
restored their hope and confidence, and, I more than suspect, repaired
his own at the same time.

"As for hostage," he continued, "that's his last talk, I guess, with
them he loves so dear. I've got my piece o' news, and thanky to him
for that; but it's over and done. I'll take him in a line when we go
treasure-hunting, for we'll keep him like so much gold, in case of
accidents, you mark, and in the meantime. Once we got the ship and
treasure both and off to sea like jolly companions, why then we'll talk
Mr. Hawkins over, we will, and we'll give him his share, to be sure, for
all his kindness."

It was no wonder the men were in a good humour now. For my part, I
was horribly cast down. Should the scheme he had now sketched prove
feasible, Silver, already doubly a traitor, would not hesitate to adopt
it. He had still a foot in either camp, and there was no doubt he
would prefer wealth and freedom with the pirates to a bare escape from
hanging, which was the best he had to hope on our side.

Nay, and even if things so fell out that he was forced to keep his faith
with Dr. Livesey, even then what danger lay before us! What a moment
that would be when the suspicions of his followers turned to certainty
and he and I should have to fight for dear life--he a cripple and I a
boy--against five strong and active seamen!

Add to this double apprehension the mystery that still hung over the
behaviour of my friends, their unexplained desertion of the stockade,
their inexplicable cession of the chart, or harder still to understand,
the doctor's last warning to Silver, "Look out for squalls when you
find it," and you will readily believe how little taste I found in my
breakfast and with how uneasy a heart I set forth behind my captors on
the quest for treasure.

We made a curious figure, had anyone been there to see us--all in soiled
sailor clothes and all but me armed to the teeth. Silver had two guns
slung about him--one before and one behind--besides the great cutlass
at his waist and a pistol in each pocket of his square-tailed coat.
To complete his strange appearance, Captain Flint sat perched upon his
shoulder and gabbling odds and ends of purposeless sea-talk. I had a
line about my waist and followed obediently after the sea-cook, who
held the loose end of the rope, now in his free hand, now between his
powerful teeth. For all the world, I was led like a dancing bear.

The other men were variously burthened, some carrying picks and
shovels--for that had been the very first necessary they brought ashore
from the HISPANIOLA--others laden with pork, bread, and brandy for the
midday meal. All the stores, I observed, came from our stock, and I
could see the truth of Silver's words the night before. Had he not
struck a bargain with the doctor, he and his mutineers, deserted by the
ship, must have been driven to subsist on clear water and the proceeds
of their hunting. Water would have been little to their taste; a sailor
is not usually a good shot; and besides all that, when they were so
short of eatables, it was not likely they would be very flush of powder.

Well, thus equipped, we all set out--even the fellow with the broken
head, who should certainly have kept in shadow--and straggled, one after
another, to the beach, where the two gigs awaited us. Even these bore
trace of the drunken folly of the pirates, one in a broken thwart, and
both in their muddy and unbailed condition. Both were to be carried
along with us for the sake of safety; and so, with our numbers divided
between them, we set forth upon the bosom of the anchorage.

As we pulled over, there was some discussion on the chart. The red cross
was, of course, far too large to be a guide; and the terms of the note
on the back, as you will hear, admitted of some ambiguity. They ran, the
reader may remember, thus:

     Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to
     the N. of N.N.E.
     Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E.
     Ten feet.

A tall tree was thus the principal mark. Now, right before us the
anchorage was bounded by a plateau from two to three hundred feet high,
adjoining on the north the sloping southern shoulder of the Spy-glass
and rising again towards the south into the rough, cliffy eminence
called the Mizzen-mast Hill. The top of the plateau was dotted thickly
with pine-trees of varying height. Every here and there, one of a
different species rose forty or fifty feet clear above its neighbours,
and which of these was the particular "tall tree" of Captain Flint could
only be decided on the spot, and by the readings of the compass.

Yet, although that was the case, every man on board the boats had
picked a favourite of his own ere we were half-way over, Long John alone
shrugging his shoulders and bidding them wait till they were there.

We pulled easily, by Silver's directions, not to weary the hands
prematurely, and after quite a long passage, landed at the mouth of
the second river--that which runs down a woody cleft of the Spy-glass.
Thence, bending to our left, we began to ascend the slope towards the
plateau.

At the first outset, heavy, miry ground and a matted, marish vegetation
greatly delayed our progress; but by little and little the hill began
to steepen and become stony under foot, and the wood to change its
character and to grow in a more open order. It was, indeed, a most
pleasant portion of the island that we were now approaching. A
heavy-scented broom and many flowering shrubs had almost taken the place
of grass. Thickets of green nutmeg-trees were dotted here and there with
the red columns and the broad shadow of the pines; and the first mingled
their spice with the aroma of the others. The air, besides, was fresh
and stirring, and this, under the sheer sunbeams, was a wonderful
refreshment to our senses.

The party spread itself abroad, in a fan shape, shouting and leaping to
and fro. About the centre, and a good way behind the rest, Silver and
I followed--I tethered by my rope, he ploughing, with deep pants, among
the sliding gravel. From time to time, indeed, I had to lend him a hand,
or he must have missed his footing and fallen backward down the hill.

We had thus proceeded for about half a mile and were approaching the
brow of the plateau when the man upon the farthest left began to cry
aloud, as if in terror. Shout after shout came from him, and the others
began to run in his direction.

"He can't 'a found the treasure," said old Morgan, hurrying past us from
the right, "for that's clean a-top."

Indeed, as we found when we also reached the spot, it was something
very different. At the foot of a pretty big pine and involved in a green
creeper, which had even partly lifted some of the smaller bones, a human
skeleton lay, with a few shreds of clothing, on the ground. I believe a
chill struck for a moment to every heart.

"He was a seaman," said George Merry, who, bolder than the rest, had
gone up close and was examining the rags of clothing. "Leastways, this
is good sea-cloth."

"Aye, aye," said Silver; "like enough; you wouldn't look to find a
bishop here, I reckon. But what sort of a way is that for bones to lie?
'Tain't in natur'."

Indeed, on a second glance, it seemed impossible to fancy that the body
was in a natural position. But for some disarray (the work, perhaps, of
the birds that had fed upon him or of the slow-growing creeper that had
gradually enveloped his remains) the man lay perfectly straight--his
feet pointing in one direction, his hands, raised above his head like a
diver's, pointing directly in the opposite.

"I've taken a notion into my old numbskull," observed Silver. "Here's
the compass; there's the tip-top p'int o' Skeleton Island, stickin'
out like a tooth. Just take a bearing, will you, along the line of them
bones."

It was done. The body pointed straight in the direction of the island,
and the compass read duly E.S.E. and by E.

"I thought so," cried the cook; "this here is a p'inter. Right up there
is our line for the Pole Star and the jolly dollars. But, by thunder!
If it don't make me cold inside to think of Flint. This is one of HIS
jokes, and no mistake. Him and these six was alone here; he killed 'em,
every man; and this one he hauled here and laid down by compass, shiver
my timbers! They're long bones, and the hair's been yellow. Aye, that
would be Allardyce. You mind Allardyce, Tom Morgan?"

"Aye, aye," returned Morgan; "I mind him; he owed me money, he did, and
took my knife ashore with him."

"Speaking of knives," said another, "why don't we find his'n lying
round? Flint warn't the man to pick a seaman's pocket; and the birds, I
guess, would leave it be."

"By the powers, and that's true!" cried Silver.

"There ain't a thing left here," said Merry, still feeling round among
the bones; "not a copper doit nor a baccy box. It don't look nat'ral to
me."

"No, by gum, it don't," agreed Silver; "not nat'ral, nor not nice, says
you. Great guns! Messmates, but if Flint was living, this would be a hot
spot for you and me. Six they were, and six are we; and bones is what
they are now."

"I saw him dead with these here deadlights," said Morgan. "Billy took me
in. There he laid, with penny-pieces on his eyes."

"Dead--aye, sure enough he's dead and gone below," said the fellow with
the bandage; "but if ever sperrit walked, it would be Flint's. Dear
heart, but he died bad, did Flint!"

"Aye, that he did," observed another; "now he raged, and now he hollered
for the rum, and now he sang. 'Fifteen Men' were his only song, mates;
and I tell you true, I never rightly liked to hear it since. It was
main hot, and the windy was open, and I hear that old song comin' out as
clear as clear--and the death-haul on the man already."

"Come, come," said Silver; "stow this talk. He's dead, and he don't
walk, that I know; leastways, he won't walk by day, and you may lay to
that. Care killed a cat. Fetch ahead for the doubloons."

We started, certainly; but in spite of the hot sun and the staring
daylight, the pirates no longer ran separate and shouting through the
wood, but kept side by side and spoke with bated breath. The terror of
the dead buccaneer had fallen on their spirits.




32

The Treasure-hunt--The Voice Among the Trees

PARTLY from the damping influence of this alarm, partly to rest Silver
and the sick folk, the whole party sat down as soon as they had gained
the brow of the ascent.

The plateau being somewhat tilted towards the west, this spot on which
we had paused commanded a wide prospect on either hand. Before us,
over the tree-tops, we beheld the Cape of the Woods fringed with surf;
behind, we not only looked down upon the anchorage and Skeleton Island,
but saw--clear across the spit and the eastern lowlands--a great field
of open sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the Spyglass, here dotted
with single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound but
that of the distant breakers, mounting from all round, and the chirp of
countless insects in the brush. Not a man, not a sail, upon the sea; the
very largeness of the view increased the sense of solitude.

Silver, as he sat, took certain bearings with his compass.

"There are three 'tall trees'" said he, "about in the right line from
Skeleton Island. 'Spy-glass shoulder,' I take it, means that lower p'int
there. It's child's play to find the stuff now. I've half a mind to dine
first."

"I don't feel sharp," growled Morgan. "Thinkin' o' Flint--I think it
were--as done me."

"Ah, well, my son, you praise your stars he's dead," said Silver.

"He were an ugly devil," cried a third pirate with a shudder; "that blue
in the face too!"

"That was how the rum took him," added Merry. "Blue! Well, I reckon he
was blue. That's a true word."

Ever since they had found the skeleton and got upon this train of
thought, they had spoken lower and lower, and they had almost got to
whispering by now, so that the sound of their talk hardly interrupted
the silence of the wood. All of a sudden, out of the middle of the trees
in front of us, a thin, high, trembling voice struck up the well-known
air and words:

     "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
     Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

I never have seen men more dreadfully affected than the pirates. The
colour went from their six faces like enchantment; some leaped to their
feet, some clawed hold of others; Morgan grovelled on the ground.

"It's Flint, by ----!" cried Merry.

The song had stopped as suddenly as it began--broken off, you would have
said, in the middle of a note, as though someone had laid his hand upon
the singer's mouth. Coming through the clear, sunny atmosphere among the
green tree-tops, I thought it had sounded airily and sweetly; and the
effect on my companions was the stranger.

"Come," said Silver, struggling with his ashen lips to get the word out;
"this won't do. Stand by to go about. This is a rum start, and I can't
name the voice, but it's someone skylarking--someone that's flesh and
blood, and you may lay to that."

His courage had come back as he spoke, and some of the colour to his
face along with it. Already the others had begun to lend an ear to this
encouragement and were coming a little to themselves, when the same
voice broke out again--not this time singing, but in a faint distant
hail that echoed yet fainter among the clefts of the Spy-glass.

"Darby M'Graw," it wailed--for that is the word that best describes the
sound--"Darby M'Graw! Darby M'Graw!" again and again and again; and then
rising a little higher, and with an oath that I leave out: "Fetch aft
the rum, Darby!"

The buccaneers remained rooted to the ground, their eyes starting from
their heads. Long after the voice had died away they still stared in
silence, dreadfully, before them.

"That fixes it!" gasped one. "Let's go."

"They was his last words," moaned Morgan, "his last words above board."

Dick had his Bible out and was praying volubly. He had been well brought
up, had Dick, before he came to sea and fell among bad companions.

Still Silver was unconquered. I could hear his teeth rattle in his head,
but he had not yet surrendered.

"Nobody in this here island ever heard of Darby," he muttered; "not one
but us that's here." And then, making a great effort: "Shipmates,"
he cried, "I'm here to get that stuff, and I'll not be beat by man or
devil. I never was feared of Flint in his life, and, by the powers, I'll
face him dead. There's seven hundred thousand pound not a quarter of a
mile from here. When did ever a gentleman o' fortune show his stern to
that much dollars for a boozy old seaman with a blue mug--and him dead
too?"

But there was no sign of reawakening courage in his followers, rather,
indeed, of growing terror at the irreverence of his words.

"Belay there, John!" said Merry. "Don't you cross a sperrit."

And the rest were all too terrified to reply. They would have run away
severally had they dared; but fear kept them together, and kept them
close by John, as if his daring helped them. He, on his part, had pretty
well fought his weakness down.

"Sperrit? Well, maybe," he said. "But there's one thing not clear to me.
There was an echo. Now, no man ever seen a sperrit with a shadow; well
then, what's he doing with an echo to him, I should like to know? That
ain't in natur', surely?"

This argument seemed weak enough to me. But you can never tell what will
affect the superstitious, and to my wonder, George Merry was greatly
relieved.

"Well, that's so," he said. "You've a head upon your shoulders, John,
and no mistake. 'Bout ship, mates! This here crew is on a wrong tack, I
do believe. And come to think on it, it was like Flint's voice, I
grant you, but not just so clear-away like it, after all. It was liker
somebody else's voice now--it was liker--"

"By the powers, Ben Gunn!" roared Silver.

"Aye, and so it were," cried Morgan, springing on his knees. "Ben Gunn
it were!"

"It don't make much odds, do it, now?" asked Dick. "Ben Gunn's not here
in the body any more'n Flint."

But the older hands greeted this remark with scorn.

"Why, nobody minds Ben Gunn," cried Merry; "dead or alive, nobody minds
him."

It was extraordinary how their spirits had returned and how the natural
colour had revived in their faces. Soon they were chatting together,
with intervals of listening; and not long after, hearing no further
sound, they shouldered the tools and set forth again, Merry walking
first with Silver's compass to keep them on the right line with Skeleton
Island. He had said the truth: dead or alive, nobody minded Ben Gunn.

Dick alone still held his Bible, and looked around him as he went, with
fearful glances; but he found no sympathy, and Silver even joked him on
his precautions.

"I told you," said he--"I told you you had sp'iled your Bible. If it
ain't no good to swear by, what do you suppose a sperrit would give for
it? Not that!" and he snapped his big fingers, halting a moment on his
crutch.

But Dick was not to be comforted; indeed, it was soon plain to me that
the lad was falling sick; hastened by heat, exhaustion, and the shock
of his alarm, the fever, predicted by Dr. Livesey, was evidently growing
swiftly higher.

It was fine open walking here, upon the summit; our way lay a little
downhill, for, as I have said, the plateau tilted towards the west. The
pines, great and small, grew wide apart; and even between the clumps of
nutmeg and azalea, wide open spaces baked in the hot sunshine. Striking,
as we did, pretty near north-west across the island, we drew, on the
one hand, ever nearer under the shoulders of the Spy-glass, and on the
other, looked ever wider over that western bay where I had once tossed
and trembled in the oracle.

The first of the tall trees was reached, and by the bearings proved the
wrong one. So with the second. The third rose nearly two hundred feet
into the air above a clump of underwood--a giant of a vegetable, with
a red column as big as a cottage, and a wide shadow around in which a
company could have manoeuvred. It was conspicuous far to sea both on
the east and west and might have been entered as a sailing mark upon the
chart.

But it was not its size that now impressed my companions; it was the
knowledge that seven hundred thousand pounds in gold lay somewhere
buried below its spreading shadow. The thought of the money, as they
drew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors. Their eyes burned in
their heads; their feet grew speedier and lighter; their whole soul
was found up in that fortune, that whole lifetime of extravagance and
pleasure, that lay waiting there for each of them.

Silver hobbled, grunting, on his crutch; his nostrils stood out and
quivered; he cursed like a madman when the flies settled on his hot and
shiny countenance; he plucked furiously at the line that held me to
him and from time to time turned his eyes upon me with a deadly look.
Certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts, and certainly I read
them like print. In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else had
been forgotten: his promise and the doctor's warning were both things
of the past, and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the
treasure, find and board the HISPANIOLA under cover of night, cut
every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at first
intended, laden with crimes and riches.

Shaken as I was with these alarms, it was hard for me to keep up with
the rapid pace of the treasure-hunters. Now and again I stumbled, and it
was then that Silver plucked so roughly at the rope and launched at me
his murderous glances. Dick, who had dropped behind us and now brought
up the rear, was babbling to himself both prayers and curses as his
fever kept rising. This also added to my wretchedness, and to crown all,
I was haunted by the thought of the tragedy that had once been acted
on that plateau, when that ungodly buccaneer with the blue face--he who
died at Savannah, singing and shouting for drink--had there, with his
own hand, cut down his six accomplices. This grove that was now so
peaceful must then have rung with cries, I thought; and even with the
thought I could believe I heard it ringing still.

We were now at the margin of the thicket.

"Huzza, mates, all together!" shouted Merry; and the foremost broke into
a run.

And suddenly, not ten yards further, we beheld them stop. A low cry
arose. Silver doubled his pace, digging away with the foot of his crutch
like one possessed; and next moment he and I had come also to a dead
halt.

Before us was a great excavation, not very recent, for the sides had
fallen in and grass had sprouted on the bottom. In this were the shaft
of a pick broken in two and the boards of several packing-cases strewn
around. On one of these boards I saw, branded with a hot iron, the name
WALRUS--the name of Flint's ship.

All was clear to probation. The CACHE had been found and rifled; the
seven hundred thousand pounds were gone!




33

The Fall of a Chieftain

THERE never was such an overturn in this world. Each of these six men
was as though he had been struck. But with Silver the blow passed almost
instantly. Every thought of his soul had been set full-stretch, like a
racer, on that money; well, he was brought up, in a single second, dead;
and he kept his head, found his temper, and changed his plan before the
others had had time to realize the disappointment.

"Jim," he whispered, "take that, and stand by for trouble."

And he passed me a double-barrelled pistol.

At the same time, he began quietly moving northward, and in a few steps
had put the hollow between us two and the other five. Then he looked at
me and nodded, as much as to say, "Here is a narrow corner," as, indeed,
I thought it was. His looks were not quite friendly, and I was so
revolted at these constant changes that I could not forbear whispering,
"So you've changed sides again."

There was no time left for him to answer in. The buccaneers, with oaths
and cries, began to leap, one after another, into the pit and to dig
with their fingers, throwing the boards aside as they did so. Morgan
found a piece of gold. He held it up with a perfect spout of oaths. It
was a two-guinea piece, and it went from hand to hand among them for a
quarter of a minute.

"Two guineas!" roared Merry, shaking it at Silver. "That's your seven
hundred thousand pounds, is it? You're the man for bargains, ain't you?
You're him that never bungled nothing, you wooden-headed lubber!"

"Dig away, boys," said Silver with the coolest insolence; "you'll find
some pig-nuts and I shouldn't wonder."

"Pig-nuts!" repeated Merry, in a scream. "Mates, do you hear that? I
tell you now, that man there knew it all along. Look in the face of him
and you'll see it wrote there."

"Ah, Merry," remarked Silver, "standing for cap'n again? You're a
pushing lad, to be sure."

But this time everyone was entirely in Merry's favour. They began to
scramble out of the excavation, darting furious glances behind them. One
thing I observed, which looked well for us: they all got out upon the
opposite side from Silver.

Well, there we stood, two on one side, five on the other, the pit
between us, and nobody screwed up high enough to offer the first blow.
Silver never moved; he watched them, very upright on his crutch, and
looked as cool as ever I saw him. He was brave, and no mistake.

At last Merry seemed to think a speech might help matters.

"Mates," says he, "there's two of them alone there; one's the old
cripple that brought us all here and blundered us down to this; the
other's that cub that I mean to have the heart of. Now, mates--"

He was raising his arm and his voice, and plainly meant to lead a
charge. But just then--crack! crack! crack!--three musket-shots flashed
out of the thicket. Merry tumbled head foremost into the excavation; the
man with the bandage spun round like a teetotum and fell all his length
upon his side, where he lay dead, but still twitching; and the other
three turned and ran for it with all their might.

Before you could wink, Long John had fired two barrels of a pistol into
the struggling Merry, and as the man rolled up his eyes at him in the
last agony, "George," said he, "I reckon I settled you."

At the same moment, the doctor, Gray, and Ben Gunn joined us, with
smoking muskets, from among the nutmeg-trees.

"Forward!" cried the doctor. "Double quick, my lads. We must head 'em
off the boats."

And we set off at a great pace, sometimes plunging through the bushes to
the chest.

I tell you, but Silver was anxious to keep up with us. The work that man
went through, leaping on his crutch till the muscles of his chest were
fit to burst, was work no sound man ever equalled; and so thinks the
doctor. As it was, he was already thirty yards behind us and on the
verge of strangling when we reached the brow of the slope.

"Doctor," he hailed, "see there! No hurry!"

Sure enough there was no hurry. In a more open part of the plateau, we
could see the three survivors still running in the same direction as
they had started, right for Mizzenmast Hill. We were already between
them and the boats; and so we four sat down to breathe, while Long John,
mopping his face, came slowly up with us.

"Thank ye kindly, doctor," says he. "You came in in about the nick, I
guess, for me and Hawkins. And so it's you, Ben Gunn!" he added. "Well,
you're a nice one, to be sure."

"I'm Ben Gunn, I am," replied the maroon, wriggling like an eel in his
embarrassment. "And," he added, after a long pause, "how do, Mr. Silver?
Pretty well, I thank ye, says you."

"Ben, Ben," murmured Silver, "to think as you've done me!"

The doctor sent back Gray for one of the pick-axes deserted, in their
flight, by the mutineers, and then as we proceeded leisurely downhill to
where the boats were lying, related in a few words what had taken place.
It was a story that profoundly interested Silver; and Ben Gunn, the
half-idiot maroon, was the hero from beginning to end.

Ben, in his long, lonely wanderings about the island, had found the
skeleton--it was he that had rifled it; he had found the treasure; he
had dug it up (it was the haft of his pick-axe that lay broken in the
excavation); he had carried it on his back, in many weary journeys, from
the foot of the tall pine to a cave he had on the two-pointed hill at
the north-east angle of the island, and there it had lain stored in
safety since two months before the arrival of the HISPANIOLA.

When the doctor had wormed this secret from him on the afternoon of the
attack, and when next morning he saw the anchorage deserted, he had gone
to Silver, given him the chart, which was now useless--given him the
stores, for Ben Gunn's cave was well supplied with goats' meat salted
by himself--given anything and everything to get a chance of moving in
safety from the stockade to the two-pointed hill, there to be clear of
malaria and keep a guard upon the money.

"As for you, Jim," he said, "it went against my heart, but I did what I
thought best for those who had stood by their duty; and if you were not
one of these, whose fault was it?"

That morning, finding that I was to be involved in the horrid
disappointment he had prepared for the mutineers, he had run all the way
to the cave, and leaving the squire to guard the captain, had taken Gray
and the maroon and started, making the diagonal across the island to be
at hand beside the pine. Soon, however, he saw that our party had the
start of him; and Ben Gunn, being fleet of foot, had been dispatched in
front to do his best alone. Then it had occurred to him to work upon the
superstitions of his former shipmates, and he was so far successful that
Gray and the doctor had come up and were already ambushed before the
arrival of the treasure-hunters.

"Ah," said Silver, "it were fortunate for me that I had Hawkins here.
You would have let old John be cut to bits, and never given it a
thought, doctor."

"Not a thought," replied Dr. Livesey cheerily.

And by this time we had reached the gigs. The doctor, with the pick-axe,
demolished one of them, and then we all got aboard the other and set out
to go round by sea for North Inlet.

This was a run of eight or nine miles. Silver, though he was almost
killed already with fatigue, was set to an oar, like the rest of us, and
we were soon skimming swiftly over a smooth sea. Soon we passed out
of the straits and doubled the south-east corner of the island, round
which, four days ago, we had towed the HISPANIOLA.

As we passed the two-pointed hill, we could see the black mouth of Ben
Gunn's cave and a figure standing by it, leaning on a musket. It was the
squire, and we waved a handkerchief and gave him three cheers, in which
the voice of Silver joined as heartily as any.

Three miles farther, just inside the mouth of North Inlet, what should
we meet but the HISPANIOLA, cruising by herself? The last flood had
lifted her, and had there been much wind or a strong tide current, as
in the southern anchorage, we should never have found her more, or found
her stranded beyond help. As it was, there was little amiss beyond the
wreck of the main-sail. Another anchor was got ready and dropped in a
fathom and a half of water. We all pulled round again to Rum Cove,
the nearest point for Ben Gunn's treasure-house; and then Gray,
single-handed, returned with the gig to the HISPANIOLA, where he was to
pass the night on guard.

A gentle slope ran up from the beach to the entrance of the cave. At the
top, the squire met us. To me he was cordial and kind, saying nothing
of my escapade either in the way of blame or praise. At Silver's polite
salute he somewhat flushed.