"It's a bargain!" cried Long John. "You speak up plucky, and by thunder,
I've a chance."

He hobbled to the torch, where it stood propped among the firewood, and
took a fresh light to his pipe.

"Understand me, Jim," he said, returning. "I've a head on my shoulders,
I have. I'm on squire's side now. I know you've got that ship safe
somewheres. How you done it I don't know, but safe it is. I guess Hands
and O'Brien turned soft. I never much believed in neither of _them_. Now
you mark me. I ask no questions, nor I won't let others. I know when a
game's up, I do; and I know a lad that's stanch. Ah, you that's
young--you and me might have done a power of good together!"

He drew some cognac from the cask into a tin cannikin.

"Will you taste, messmate?" he asked, and when I had refused, "Well,
I'll take a drain myself, Jim," said he. "I need a caulker, for there's
trouble on hand. And, talking o' trouble, why did that doctor give me
the chart, Jim?"

My face expressed a wonder so unaffected that he saw the needlessness of
further questions.

"Ah, well, he did, though," said he. "And there's something under that,
no doubt--something, surely, under that, Jim--bad or good."

And he took another swallow of the brandy, shaking his great fair head
like a man who looks forward to the worst.




CHAPTER XXIX

THE BLACK SPOT AGAIN


The council of the buccaneers had lasted some time, when one of them
re-entered the house, and with a repetition of the same salute, which
had in my eyes an ironical air, begged for a moment's loan of the torch.
Silver briefly agreed, and this emissary retired again, leaving us
together in the dark.

"There's a breeze coming, Jim," said Silver, who had by this time
adopted quite a friendly and familiar tone.

I turned to the loophole nearest me and looked out. The embers of the
great fire had so far burned themselves out, and now glowed so low and
duskily, that I understood why these conspirators desired a torch. About
halfway down the slope to the stockade they were collected in a group;
one held the light; another was on his knees in their midst, and I saw
the blade of an open knife shine in his hand with varying colors, in the
moon and torchlight. The rest were all somewhat stooping, as though
watching the maneuvers of this last. I could just make out that he had a
book as well as a knife in his hand; and was still wondering how
anything so incongruous had come in their possession, when the kneeling
figure rose once more to his feet, and the whole party began to move
together toward the house.

"Here they come," said I; and I returned to my former position, for it
seemed beneath my dignity that they should find me watching them.

"Well, let 'em come, lad--let 'em come," said Silver, cheerily. "I've
still a shot in my locker."

The door opened, and the five men, standing huddled together just
inside, pushed one of their number forward. In any other circumstances
it would have been comical to see his slow advance, hesitating as he set
down each foot, but holding his closed right hand in front of him.

"Step up, lad," cried Silver. "I won't eat you. Hand it over, lubber. I
know the rules, I do; I won't hurt a depytation."

Thus encouraged the buccaneer stepped forth more briskly, and having
passed something to Silver, from hand to hand, slipped yet more smartly
back again to his companions.

The sea-cook looked at what had been given him.

"The black spot! I thought so," he observed. "Where might you have got
the paper? Why, hello! look here, now; this ain't lucky! You've gone and
cut this out of a Bible. What fool's cut a Bible?"

"Ah, there," said Morgan, "there! Wot did I say? No good'll come o'
that, I said."

"Well, you've about fixed it now, among you," continued Silver. "You'll
all swing now, I reckon. What soft-headed lubber had a Bible?"

"It was Dick," said one.

"Dick, was it? Then Dick can get to prayers," said Silver. "He's seen
his slice of luck, has Dick, and you may lay to that."

But here the long man with the yellow eyes struck in.

"Belay that talk, John Silver," he said. "This crew has tipped you the
black spot in full council, as in dooty bound; just you turn it over, as
in dooty bound, and see what's wrote there. Then you can talk."

"Thanky, George," replied the sea-cook. "You always was brisk for
business, and has the rules by heart, George, as I'm pleased to see.
Well, what is it, anyway? Ah! 'Deposed'--that's it, is it? Very pretty
wrote, to be sure; like print, I swear. Your hand o' write, George? Why,
you was gettin' quite a leadin' man in this here crew. You'll be cap'n
next, I shouldn't wonder. Just oblige me with that torch again, will
you? this pipe don't draw."

"Come, now," said George, "you don't fool this crew no more. You're a
funny man, by your account; but you're over now, and you'll maybe step
down off that barrel, and help vote."

"I thought you said you knowed the rules," returned Silver,
contemptuously. "Leastways, if you don't, I do; and I wait here--and I'm
still your cap'n, mind--till you outs with your grievances, and I reply;
in the meantime, your black spot ain't worth a biscuit. After that we'll
see."

"Oh," replied George, "you don't be under no kind of apprehension;
_we're_ all square, we are. First, you've made a hash of this
cruise--you'll be a bold man to say no to that. Second, you let the
enemy out o' this here trap for nothing. Why did they want out? I dunno,
but it's pretty plain they wanted it. Third, you wouldn't let us go at
them upon the march. Oh, we see through you, John Silver; you want to
play booty, that's what's wrong with you. And then, fourth, there's this
here boy."

"Is that all?" asked Silver, quietly.

"Enough, too," retorted George. "We'll all swing and sun-dry for your
bungling."

"Well, now, look here, I'll answer these four p'ints; one after another
I'll answer 'em. I made a hash o' this cruise, did I? Well, now, you all
know what I wanted; and you all know, if that had been done, that we'd
'a' been aboard the _Hispaniola_ this night as ever was, every man of us
alive, and fit, and full of good plum-duff, and the treasure in the hold
of her, by thunder! Well, who crossed me? Who forced my hand, as was the
lawful cap'n? Who tipped me the black spot the day we landed, and began
this dance? Ah, it's a fine dance--I'm with you there--and looks mighty
like a hornpipe in a rope's end at Execution Dock by London town, it
does. But who done it? Why, it was Anderson, and Hands, and you, George
Merry! And you're the last above board of that same meddling crew; and
you have the Davy Jones insolence to up and stand for cap'n over
me--you, that sunk the lot of us! By the powers! but this tops the
stiffest yarn to nothing."

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

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

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

"Ah, the others!" returned John. "They're a nice lot, ain't they? You
say this cruise is bungled. Ah! by gum, if you could understand how bad
it's bungled, you would see! We're that near the gibbet that my neck's
stiff with thinking on it. You've seen 'em, maybe, hanged in chains,
birds about 'em, seamen p'inting 'em out as they go down with the tide.
'Who's that?' says one. 'That! Why, that's John Silver. I knowed him
well,' says another. And you can hear the chains a-jangle as you go
about and reach for the other buoy. Now, that's about where we are,
every mother's son of us, thanks to him, and Hands, and Anderson, and
other ruination fools of you. And if you want to know about number four,
and that boy, why, shiver my timbers! isn't he a hostage? Are we a-going
to waste a hostage? No, not us; he might be our last chance, and I
shouldn't wonder. Kill that boy? not me, mates! And number three? Ah,
well, there's a deal to say to number three. Maybe you don't count it
nothing to have a real college doctor come 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 color 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 come 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 close 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
ain'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 a round 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 "Deposed." 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.




CHAPTER XXX

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
doorpost--by a clear, hearty voice hailing us from the margin of the
wood:

"Blockhouse, 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 vapor.

"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 Doctor 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."

Doctor 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 blockhouse, 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
color, certainly; why, your liver, man, is upside down. Did you take
that medicine? Did he take that medicine, men?"

"Ay, ay, 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 honor 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 comed--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
school-children than blood-guilty mutineers and pirates, "well, that's
done for to-day. 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 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 honor as a young
gentleman--for a young gentleman you are, although poor born--your word
of honor 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," said 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 to 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 blockhouse; 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 Doctor 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 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's a kind of fate in this," he observed, when I had done. "Every
step it's you that save 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
farther; 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 blockhouse, why you've 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 out 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 am 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-by, Jim."

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




CHAPTER XXXI

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 to 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 lighted 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 showed himself so cunning as he did then.

"Ay, 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 humor 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 Doctor 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
behavior 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 gabbled 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 burdened; 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 muddied 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 toward 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 neighbors, 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 favorite of his own ere we were halfway 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, marsh 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 center, and a good way behind the rest, Silver and I
followed--I tethered by my rope, he plowing, 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."

"Ay, ay," 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 numskull," observed Silver. "Here's the
compass; there's the tip-top p'int of 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. 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. Ay, that
would be Allardyce. You mind Allardyce, Tom Morgan?"

"Ay, ay," 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--ay, 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!"

"Ay, 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.




CHAPTER XXXII

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 toward 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 Spy-glass, here dotted
with single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound but
that of the distant breakers mounting from all around, 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 was 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
color went from their six faces like enchantment; some leaped to their
feet, some clawed hold of others; Morgan groveled 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 so far 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,
"that 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 color 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 nor
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.

"Ay, 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
color 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 Doctor 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 toward 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 northwest across the island, we drew, on the one
hand, ever nearer under the shoulders of the Spy-glass, and on the
other, looked ever wider over that western bay where I had once tossed
and trembled in the coracle.

The first of the tall trees was reached, and by the bearing, 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 maneuvered. It was conspicuous far to sea, both on
the east and west, and might have been entered as a sailing mark upon
the chart.

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

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

Shaken as I was with these alarms, it was hard for me to keep up with
the rapid pace of the treasure-hunters. Now and again I stumbled, and it
was then that Silver plucked so roughly at the rope and launched at me
his murderous glances. Dick, who had dropped behind us, and now brought
up the rear, was babbling to himself both prayers and curses, as his
fever kept rising. This also added to my wretchedness, and, to crown
all, I was haunted by the thought of the tragedy that had once been
acted on that plateau, when that ungodly buccaneer with the blue
face--he who had 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, altogether!" shouted Merry, and the foremost broke into a
run.

And suddenly, not ten yards farther, 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!




CHAPTER XXXIII

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-barreled 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 now 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."