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

But this time every one was entirely in Merry's favor. 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 headforemost 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 equaled; 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 Mizzen-mast 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 pickaxes 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 pickax 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 northeast 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 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 was 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 Doctor Livesey, cheerily.

And by this time we had reached the gigs. The doctor, with the pickax,
demolished one of them, and then we all got aboard the other, and set
out to go round by the 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 southeast 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 mainsail. 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.

"John Silver," he said, "you're a prodigious villain and impostor--a
monstrous impostor, sir. I am told I am not to prosecute you. Well,
then, I will not. But the dead men, sir, hang about your neck like
millstones."

"Thank you kindly, sir," replied Long John, again saluting.

"I dare you to thank me!" cried the squire. "It is a gross dereliction
of my duty. Stand back!"

And thereupon we all entered the cave. It was a large, airy place, with
a little spring and a pool of clear water, overhung with ferns. The
floor was sand. Before a big fire lay Captain Smollett; and in a far
corner, only duskily flickered over by the blaze, I beheld great heaps
of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of gold. That was Flint's
treasure that we had come so far to seek, and that had cost already the
lives of seventeen men from the _Hispaniola_. How many it had cost in
the amassing, what blood and sorrow, what good ships scuttled on the
deep, what brave men walking the plank blindfold, what shot of cannon,
what shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell. Yet
there were still three upon that island--Silver, and old Morgan, and Ben
Gunn--who had each taken his share in these crimes, as each had hoped in
vain to share in the reward.

"Come in, Jim," said the captain. "You're a good boy in your line, Jim;
but I don't think you and me'll go to sea again. You're too much of the
born favorite for me. Is that you, John Silver? What brings you here,
man?"

"Come back to my dooty, sir," returned Silver.

"Ah!" said the captain, and that was all he said.

What a supper I had of it that night, with all my friends around me; and
what a meal it was, with Ben Gunn's salted goat, and some delicacies and
a bottle of old wine from the _Hispaniola_. Never, I am sure, were
people gayer or happier. And there was Silver, sitting back almost out
of the firelight, but eating heartily, prompt to spring forward when
anything was wanted, even joining quietly in our laughter--the same
bland, polite, obsequious seaman of the voyage out.




CHAPTER XXXIV

AND LAST


The next morning we fell early to work, for the transportation of this
great mass of gold near a mile by land to the beach, and thence three
miles by boat to the _Hispaniola_, was a considerable task for so small
a number of workmen. The three fellows still abroad upon the island did
not greatly trouble us; a single sentry on the shoulder of the hill was
sufficient to insure us against any sudden onslaught, and we thought,
besides, they had had more than enough of fighting.

Therefore the work was pushed on briskly. Gray and Ben Gunn came and
went with the boat, while the rest during their absences piled treasure
on the beach. Two of the bars, slung in a rope's end, made a good load
for a grown man--one that he was glad to walk slowly with. For my part,
as I was not much use at carrying, I was kept busy all day in the cave,
packing the minted money into bread-bags.

It was a strange collection, like Billy Bones's hoard for the diversity
of coinage, but so much larger and so much more varied that I think I
never had more pleasure than in sorting them. English, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and
moidores and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the
last hundred years, strange oriental pieces stamped with what looked
like wisps of string or bits of spider's web, round pieces and square
pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to wear them round
your neck--nearly every variety of money in the world must, I think,
have found a place in that collection; and for number, I am sure they
were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping and my
fingers with sorting them out.

[Illustration: _Nearly every variety of money in the world must have
found a place in that collection_ (Page 253)]

Day after day this work went on; by every evening a fortune had been
stowed aboard, but there was another fortune waiting for the morrow; and
all this time we heard nothing of the three surviving mutineers.

At last--I think it was on the third night--the doctor and I were
strolling on the shoulder of the hill where it overlooks the lowlands of
the isle, when, from out the thick darkness below, the wind brought us a
noise between shrieking and singing. It was only a snatch that reached
our ears, followed by the former silence.

"Heaven forgive them," said the doctor; "'tis the mutineers!"

"All drunk, sir," struck in the voice of Silver from behind us.

Silver, I should say, was allowed his entire liberty, and, in spite of
daily rebuffs, seemed to regard himself once more as quite a privileged
and friendly dependent. Indeed, it was remarkable how well he bore these
slights, and with what unwearying politeness he kept at trying to
ingratiate himself with all. Yet, I think, none treated him better than
a dog, unless it was Ben Gunn, who was still terribly afraid of his old
quartermaster, or myself, who had really something to thank him for;
although for that matter, I suppose, I had reason to think even worse of
him than anybody else, for I had seen him meditating a fresh treachery
upon the plateau. Accordingly, it was pretty gruffly that the doctor
answered him.

"Drunk or raving," said he.

"Right you were, sir," replied Silver; "and precious little odds which,
to you and me."

"I suppose you would hardly ask me to call you a humane man," returned
the doctor, with a sneer, "and so my feelings may surprise you, Master
Silver. But if I were sure they were raving--as I am morally certain
one, at least, of them is down with fever--I should leave this camp,
and, at whatever risk to my own carcass, take them the assistance of my
skill."

"Ask your pardon, sir, you would be very wrong," quoth Silver. "You
would lose your precious life, and you may lay to that. I'm on your side
now, hand and glove; and I shouldn't wish for to see the party weakened,
let alone yourself, seeing as I know what I owes you. But these men down
there, they couldn't keep their word--no, not supposing they wished
to--and what's more, they couldn't believe as you could."

"No," said the doctor. "You're the man to keep your word, we know that."

Well, that was about the last news we had of the three pirates. Only
once we heard a gunshot a great way off, and supposed them to be
hunting. A council was held and it was decided that we must desert them
on the island--to the huge glee, I must say, of Ben Gunn, and with the
strong approval of Gray. We left a good stock of powder and shot, the
bulk of the salt goat, a few medicines and some other necessaries,
tools, clothing, a spare sail, a fathom or two of rope, and, by the
particular desire of the doctor, a handsome present of tobacco.

That was about our last doing on the island. Before that we had got the
treasure stowed and had shipped enough water and the remainder of the
goat meat, in case of any distress; and at last, one fine morning, we
weighed anchor, which was about all that we could manage, and stood out
of North Inlet, the same colors flying that the captain had flown and
fought under at the palisade.

The three fellows must have been watching us closer than we thought for,
as we soon had proved. For, coming through the narrows we had to lie
very near the southern point, and there we saw all three of them
kneeling together on a spit of sand with their arms raised in
supplication. It went to all our hearts, I think, to leave them in that
wretched state, but we could not risk another mutiny, and to take them
home for the gibbet would have been a cruel sort of kindness. The doctor
hailed them and told them of the stores we had left, and where they were
to find them, but they continued to call us by name and appeal to us for
God's sake to be merciful and not leave them to die in such a place.

At last, seeing the ship still bore on her course, and was now swiftly
drawing out of earshot, one of them--I know not which it was--leaped to
his feet with a hoarse cry, whipped his musket to his shoulder, and sent
a shot whistling over Silver's head and through the mainsail.

After that we kept under cover of the bulwarks, and when next I looked
out they had disappeared from the spit, and the spit itself had almost
melted out of sight in the growing distance. That was, at least, the end
of that; and before noon, to my inexpressible joy, the highest rock of
Treasure Island had sunk into the blue round of sea.

We were so short of men that everyone on board had to bear a hand--only
the captain lying on a mattress in the stern and giving his orders, for
though greatly recovered he was still in want of quiet. We laid her head
for the nearest port in Spanish America, for we could not risk the
voyage home without fresh hands; and as it was, what with baffling winds
and a couple of fresh gales, we were all worn out before we reached it.

It was just at sundown when we cast anchor in a most beautiful
landlocked gulf, and were immediately surrounded by shore boats full of
negroes and Mexican Indians and half-bloods, selling fruits and
vegetables, and offering to dive for bits of money. The sight of so many
good-humored faces (especially the blacks), the taste of the tropical
fruits, and above all, the lights that began to shine in the town, made
a most charming contrast to our dark and bloody sojourn on the island;
and the doctor and the squire, taking me along with them, went ashore to
pass the early part of the night. Here they met the captain of an
English man-of-war, fell in talk with him, went on board his ship, and
in short, had so agreeable a time that day was breaking when we came
alongside the _Hispaniola_.

Ben Gunn was on deck alone, and as soon as we came on board he began,
with wonderful contortions, to make us a confession. Silver was gone.
The maroon had connived at his escape in a shore boat some hours ago,
and he now assured us he had only done so to preserve our lives, which
would certainly have been forfeited if "that man with the one leg had
stayed aboard." But this was not all. The sea-cook had not gone
empty-handed. He had cut through a bulkhead unobserved, and had removed
one of the sacks of coin, worth, perhaps, three or four hundred
guineas, to help him on his further wanderings.

I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him.

Well, to make a long story short, we got a few hands on board, made a
good cruise home, and the _Hispaniola_ reached Bristol just as Mr.
Blandly was beginning to think of fitting out her consort. Five men only
of those who had sailed returned with her. "Drink and the devil had done
for the rest" with a vengeance, although, to be sure, we were not quite
in so bad a case as that other ship they sang about:

    "With one man of the crew alive,
    What put to sea with seventy-five."

All of us had an ample share of the treasure, and used it wisely or
foolishly, according to our natures. Captain Smollett is now retired
from the sea. Gray not only saved his money, but, being suddenly smit
with the desire to rise, also studied his profession, and he is now mate
and part owner of a fine full-rigged ship; married besides, and the
father of a family. As for Ben Gunn, he got a thousand pounds, which he
spent or lost in three weeks, or, to be more exact, in nineteen days,
for he was back begging on the twentieth. Then he was given a lodge to
keep, exactly as he had feared upon the island; and he still lives, a
great favorite, though something of a butt with the country boys, and a
notable singer in church on Sundays and saints' days.

Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable seafaring man with one
leg has at last gone clean out of my life, but I dare say he met his old
negress, and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint.
It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another
world are very small.

The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint
buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and
wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island, and
the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about
its coasts, or start upright in bed, with the sharp voice of Captain
Flint still ringing in my ears: "Pieces of eight! pieces of eight!"

[Illustration]