Chapter XXIII The Ebb-Tide Runs
Chapter XXIV The Cruise of the Coracle
Chapter XXV I Strike the Jolly Roger
Chapter XXVI Israel Hands
Chapter XXVII 'Pieces of Eight'
PART VI. Captain Silver
Chapter XXVIII In the Enemy's Camp
Chapter XXIX The Black Spot Again
Chapter XXX On Parole
Chapter XXXI The Treasure Hunt—Flint's
Pointer
Chapter XXXII The Treasure Hunt—The
Voice Among the Trees
Chapter XXXIII The Fall of a Chieftain
Chapter XXXIV And Last

PART I. The Old Buccaneer

Chapter I The Old Sea-Dog at the 'Admiral
Benbow'

SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr Livesey, and the
rest of these gentlemen having asked me to
write down the whole particulars about
Treasure island, from the beginning to the
end, keeping nothing back but the bearings
of the island, and that only because there is
still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in
the year of grace 17—, and go back to the time
when my father kept the 'Admiral Benbow'
inn, and the brown old seaman, with the
sabre cut, first took up his lodging under our
roof.

I remember him as if it were yesterday, as

-1-

worked through that,' says he, looking as
fierce as a commander.

And, indeed, bad as his clothes were, and
coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the
appearance of a man who sailed before the
mast; but seemed like a mate or skipper
accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The
man who came with the barrow told us the
mail had set him down this morning before
at the 'Royal George;' that he had inquired
what inns there were along the coast, and
hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and
described as lonely, had chosen it from the
others for his place of residence. And that
was all we could learn of our guest.

He was a very silent man by custom. All day
he hung round the cove, or upon the cliffs,
with a brass telescope; all evening he sat in
a corner of the parlour next the fire, and
drank run and water very strong. Mostly he
would not speak when spoken to; only look
up sudden and fierce, and blow through his
nose like a fog-horn; and we and the
people who came about our house soon
learned to let him be. Every day, when he
came back from his stroll, he would ask if
any seafaring men had gone by along the
road. At first we thought it was the want of
company of his own kind that made him ask
this question; but at last we began to see he
was desirous to avoid them. When a
seaman put up at the 'Admiral Benbow' (as
now and then some did, making by the
coast road for Bristol) he would look in at
him through the curtained door before he
entered the parlour; and he was always
sure to be as silent as a mouse when any
such was present. For me, at least, there
was no secret about the matter; for I was, in
a way, a sharer in his alarms. He had taken
me aside one day, and promised me a
silver fourpenny on the first of every month if
I would only keep my 'weather-eye open for
a seafaring man with one leg,' and let him

-2-

all round; he would fly up in a passion of
anger at a question, or sometimes because
none was put, and so he judged the
company was not following his story. Nor
would he allow anyone to leave the inn till he
had drunk himself sleepy and reeled off to
bed.

His stories were what frightened people
worst of all. Dreadful stories they were;
about hanging, and walking the plank, and
storms at sea, and the Dry Tortugas, and
wild deeds and places on the Spanish
Main. By his own account he must have
lived his life among some of the wickedest
men that God ever allowed upon the sea;
and the language in which he told these
stories shocked our plain country people
almost as much as the crimes that he
described. My father was always saying the
inn would be ruined, for people would soon
cease coming there to be tyrannised over
and put down, and sent shivering to their
beds; but I really believe his presence did us
good. People were frightened at the time,
but on looking back they rather liked it; it
was a fine excitement in a quiet country life;
and there was even a party of the younger
me who pretended to admire him, calling
him a 'true sea-dog,' and a 'real old salt,'
and suchlike names, and saying there was
the sort of man that made England terrible
at sea.

In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us;
for he kept on staying week after week, and
at last month after month so that all the
money had been long exhausted, and still
my father never plucked up the heart to
insist on having more If ever he mentioned
it, the captain blew through his nos so
loudly, that you might say he roared, and
stared my poor father out of the room. I have
seen him wringing his hand after such a
rebuff, and I am sure the annoyance and the
terror he lived in must have greatly hastened

-3-

chest' to be that identical big box of his
upstairs in the front room, and the thought
had been mingled in my nightmares with
that of the one-legged seafaring man. But
by this time we had all long ceased to pay
any particular notice to the song; it was
new, that night, to nobody but Dr Livesey,
and on him I observed it did not produce an
agreeable effect, for he looked up for a
moment quite angrily before he went on with
his talk to old Taylor, the gardener, on a new
cure for the rheumatics. In the meantime,
the captain gradually brightened up at his
own music, and at last flapped his hand
upon the table before him in a way we all
knew to mean—silence. The voices stopped
at once, all but Dr Livesey's; he went on as
before, speaking clear and kind, and
drawing briskly at his pipe between every
word or two. The captain glared at him for a
while, flapped his hand again, glared still
harder, and at last broke out with a
villainous, low oath: 'Silence, there,
between decks!'

'Were you addressing me, sir?' says the
doctor; and when the ruffian had told him,
with another oath, that this was so 'I have
only one thing to say to you, sir,' replies the
doctor that if you keep on drinking rum, the
world will soon be quit of a very dirty
scoundrel!'

The old fellow's fury was awful. He sprang
to his feet, drew and opened a sailor's
clasp-knife, and, balancing it open on the
palm of his hand, threatened to pin the
doctor to the wall.

The doctor never so much as moved. He
spoke to him, as before, over his shoulder,
and in the same tone of voice; rather high,
so that all the room might hear, but perfectly
calm ant steady:—

'If you do not put that knife this instant in your

-4-

the old blue coat, his brass telescope under
his arm, his hat tilted back upon his head. I
remember his breath hanging like smoke in
his wake as he strode off, and the last
sound I heard of him, as he turned the big
rock, was a loud snort of indignation, as
though his mind was still running upon Dr
Livesey.

Well, mother was upstairs with father; and I
was laying the breakfast table against the
captain's return, when the parlour door
opened, and a man stepped in on whom I
had never set my eyes before. He was a
pale, tallowy creature, wanting two fingers
of the left hand; and, though he wore a
cutlass, he did not look much like a fighter. I
had always my eye open for seafaring men,
with one leg or two, and I remember this one
puzzled me. He was not sailorly, and yet he
had a smack of the sea about him too.

I asked him what was for his service, and he
said he would take rum; but as I was going
out of the room to fetch it he sat down upon
a table, and motioned me to draw near. I
paused where I was with my napkin in my
hand.

'Come here, sonny,' says he. 'Come
nearer here.'

I took a step nearer.

'Is this here table for my mate, Bill?' he
asked, with a kit of leer.

I told him I did not know his mate Bill; and
this was for a person who stayed in our
house, whom we called the captain.

'Well,' said he, 'my mate Bill would be
called the captain as like as not. He has a
cut on one cheek, and a mighty pleasant
way with him, particularly in drink, has my
mate, Bill. We'll put it, for argument like, that

-5-

little surprise—bless his 'art, I say again.'

So saying, the stranger backed along with
me into the parlour, and put me behind him
in the corner, so that we were both hidden
by the open door. I was very uneasy and
alarmed, as you may fancy, and it rather
added to my fears to observe that the
stranger was certainly frightened himself.
He cleared the hilt of his cutlass and
loosened the blade in the sheath; and all the
time we were waiting there he kept
swallowing as if he felt what we used to call
a lump in the throat.

At last in strode the captain, slammed the
door behind him, without looking to the right
or left, and marched straight across the
room to where his breakfast awaited him.

'Bill,' said the stranger, in a voice that I
thought he had tried to make bold and big.

The captain spun round on his heel and
fronted us; all the brown had gone out of his
face, and even his nose was blue; he had
the look of a man who sees a ghost, or the
evil one, or something worse, if anything
can be; and, upon my word, I felt sorry to
see him, all in a moment, turn so old and
sick.

'Come, Bill, you know me; you know an old
shipmate, Bill, surely,' said the stranger.

The captain made a sort of gasp.

'Black Dog.' said he.

'And who else?' returned the other, getting
more at his ease. 'Black Dog as ever was,
come for to see his old shipmate Billy, at the
'Admiral Benbow'' inn. Ah, Bill, Bill, we
have seen a sight of times, us two, since I
lost them two talons,' holding up his
mutilated hand.

-6-

see the notch on the lower side of the frame
to this day.

That blow was the last of the battle. Once
out upon that road, Black Dog, in spite of
his wound, showed a wonderful clean pair
of heels, and disappeared over the edge of
the hill in half a minute. The captain, for his
part, stood staring at the signboard like a
bewildered man. Then he passed his hand
over his eyes several times, and at last
turned back into the house.

'Jim,' says he, 'rum;' and as he spoke, he
reeled a little and caught himself with one
hand against the wall.

'Are you hurt?' cried I.

'Rum,' he repeated. 'I must get away from
here. Rum! rum!'

I ran to fetch it; but I was quite unsteadied by
all that had fallen out, and I broke one glass
and fouled the tap, and while I was still
getting in my own way, I heard a loud fall in
that parlour, and, running in, beheld the
captain lying full length upon the floor. At the
same instant my mother, alarmed by the
cries and fighting, came running downstairs
to help me. Between us we raised his head.
He was breathing very loud and hard; but
his eyes were closed, and his face a
horrible colour.

'Dear, deary me,' cried my mother, 'what a
disgrace upon the house! And your poor
father sick!'

In the meantime, we had no idea what to do
to help the captain, nor any other thought but
that he had got his death—hurt in the scuffle
with the stranger. I got the rum, to be sure,
and tried to put it down his throat; but his
teeth were tightly shut, and his jaws as
strong as iron. It was a happy relief for us

-7-

'Where's Black Dog?'

'There is no Black Dog here,' said the
doctor, 'except what you have on your own
back. You have been drinking rum; you have
had a stroke, precisely as I told you; and I
have just, very much against my own will,
dragged you head-foremost out of the
grave. Now, Mr Bones—'

'That's not my name,' he interrupted.

'Much I care,' returned the doctor. 'It's the
name of a buccaneer of my acquaintance;
and I call you by it for the sake of shortness,
and what I have to say to you is this: one
glass of rum won't kill you, but if you take
one you'll take another and another, and I
stake my wig if you don't break off short,
you'll die—do you understand that?—die, and
go to your own place, like the man in the
Bible. Come, now, make an effort. I'll help
you to your bed for once.'

Between us, with much trouble, we
managed to hoist him upstairs, and laid him
on his bed, where his head fell back on the
pillow, as if he were almost fainting.

'Now, mind you,' said the doctor, 'I clear my
conscience—the name of rum for you is
death.'

And with that he went off to see my father,
taking me with him by the arm.

'This is nothing,' he said, as soon as he had
closed the door. 'I have drawn blood
enough to keep him quiet a while; he should
lie for a week where he is—that is the best
thing for him and you; but another stroke
would settle him.'

Chapter III The Black Spot

ABOUT noon I stopped at the captain's

-8-

and rather offended by the offer of a
bribe.'s words, now quoted to

'I want none of your money,' said I, 'but
what you owe my father. I'll get you one
glass, and no more.'

When I brought it to him, he seized it
greedily, and drank it out.

'Ay, ay,' said he, 'that's some better, sure
enough. And now, matey, did that doctor
say how long I was to lie here in this old
berth?'

'A week at least,' said I.

'Thunder!' he cried. 'A week! I can't do that:
they'd have the black spot on me by then.
The lubbers is going about get the wind of
me this blessed moment; lubbers as
couldn't keep what they got, and want to nail
what is another's. Is that seamanly
behaviour, now, I want to know? But I'm
saving soul. I never wasted good money of
mine, nor lost neither; and I'll trick 'em
again. I'm not afraid on 'em. I'll shake out
another reef, matey, and daddle 'em
again.'

As he was thus speaking, he had risen from
bed with great difficulty, holding to my
shoulder with a grip that almost made me
cry out, and moving his legs like so much
dead weight. His words, spirited as they
were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the
weakness of the voice in which they were
uttered. He paused when he had got into a
sitting position on the edge.

'That doctor's done me,' he murmured. 'My
ears is singing. Lay me back.'

Before I could do much to help him he had
fallen back again to his former place, where
he lay for a while silent.

-9-

matters on one side. Cur natural distress,
the visits of the neighbours, the arranging of
the funeral, and all the work of the inn to be
carried on in the meanwhile, kept me so
busy that I had scarcely time to think of the
captain, far less to be afraid of him.

He got downstairs next morning, to be sure,
and had his meals as usual, though he ate
little, and had more, I am afraid, than his
usual supply of rum, for he helped himself
out of the bar, scowling and blowing through
his nose, and no one dared to cross him. On
the night before the funeral he was as drunk
as ever; and it was shocking, in that house
of mourning, to hear him singing away at his
ugly old sea-song; but, weak as he was,
we were all in the fear of death for him, and
the doctor was suddenly taken up with a
case many miles away, and was never near
the house after my father's death. I have
said the captain was weak; and indeed he
seemed rather to grow weaker than regain
his strength. He clambered up and
downstairs, and went from the parlour to the
bar and back again, and sometimes put his
nose out of doors to smell the sea, holding
on to the walls as he went for support, and
breathing hard and fast like a man on a
steep mountain. He never particularly
addressed me, and it is my belief he had as
good as forgotten his confidences; but his
temper was more flighty, and, allowing for
his bodily weakness, more violent than
ever. He had an alarming way now when he
was drunk of drawing his cutlass and laying
it bare before him on the table. But, with all
that, he minded people less, and seemed
shut up in his own thoughts and rather
wandering. Once, for instance, to our
extreme wonder, he piped up to a different
air, a kind of country love-song, that he
must have learned in his youth before he
had begun to follow the sea.

So things passed until, the day after the

-10-

made me cry out.

'Sir,' said I, 'it is for yourself I mean. The
captain is not what he used to be. He sits
with a drawn cutlass. Another gentleman——'

'Come, now, march,' interrupted he; and I
never heard a voice so cruel, and cold, and
ugly as that blind man's. It cowed me more
than the pain; and I began to obey him at
once, walking straight in at the door and
towards the parlour, where our sick old
buccaneer was sitting, dazed with rum. The
blind man clung close to me, holding me in
one iron fist, and leaning almost more of his
weight on me than I could carry. 'Lead me
straight up to him, and when I'm in view, cry
out, "Here's a friend for you, Bill." If you
don't, I'll do this;' and with that he gave me a
twitch that I thought would have made me
faint. Between this and that, I was so utterly
terrified of the blind beggar that I forgot my
terror of the captain, and as I opened the
parlour door, cried out the words he had
ordered in a trembling voice.

The poor captain raised his eyes, and at
one look the rum went out of him, and left
him staring sober. The expression of his
face was not so much of terror as of mortal
sickness. He made a movement to rise, but
I do not believe he had enough force left in
his body.

'Now, Bill, sit where you are,' said the
beggar. 'If I can't see, I can hear a finger
stirring. Business is business. Hold out your
left hand. Boy, take his left hand by the
wrist, and bring it near to my right.'

We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw
him pass something from the hollow of the
hand that held his stick into the palm of the
captain's, which closed upon it instantly.

'And now that's done,' said the blind man;

-11-

ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my
mother alone and unprotected, which was
not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed
impossible for either of us to remain much
longer in the house: the fall of coals in the
kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock,
filled us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to
our ears, seemed haunted by approaching
footsteps; and what between the dead
body of the captain on the parlour floor, and
the thought of that detestable blind beggar
hovering near at hand, and ready to return,
there were moments when, as the saying
goes, I jumped in my skin for terror.
Something must speedily be resolved upon;
and it occurred to us at last to go forth
together and seek help in the neighbouring
hamlet. No sooner said than done. Bare-
headed as we were, we ran out at once in
the gathering evening and the frosty fog.

The hamlet lay not many hundred yards
away though out of view, on the other side
of the next cove; and what greatly
encouraged me, it was in an opposite
direction from that whence the blind man
had made his appearance, and whither he
had presumably returned. We were not
many minutes on the road, though we
sometimes stopped to lay hold of each
other and hearken. But there was no
unusual sound—nothing but the low wash of
the ripple and the croaking of the inmates of
the wood.

It was already candle-light when we
reached the hamlet, and I shall never forget
how much I was cheered to see the yellow
shine in doors and windows; but that, was
the best of the help we were likely to get in
that quarter for—you would have thought men
would have been ashamed of
themselves—no soul would consent to return
with us to the 'Admiral Benbow.' The more
we told of our troubles, the more—man,
woman, and child—they clung to the shelter

-12-

beginning to rise and peered redly through
the upper edges of the fog, and this
increased our haste, for it was plain, before
we came forth again, that all would be as
bright as day, and our departure exposed to
the eyes of any watchers. We slipped along
the hedges, noiseless and swift, nor did we
see or hear anything to increase our terrors,
till, to our relief, the door of the 'Admiral
Benbow' had closed behind us.

I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood and
panted for a moment in the dark, alone in
the house with the dead captain's body.
Then my mother got a candle in the bar,
and, holding each other's hands, we
advanced into the parlour. He lay as we had
left him, on his back, with his eyes open,
and one arm stretched out.

'Draw down the blind, Jim,' whispered my
mother; 'they might come and watch
outside. And now,' said she, when I had
done so, 'we have to get the key off that;
and who's to touch it, I should like to know!'
and she gave a kind of sob as she said the
words.

I went down on my knees at once. On the
floor close to his hand there was a little
round of paper, blackened on the one side. I
could not doubt that this was the black spot;
and taking it up, I found written on the other
side, in a very good, clear hand, this short
message: 'You have till ten to-night.'

'He had till ten, mother,' said I; and just as I
said it, our old clock began striking. This
sudden noise startled us shockingly; but the
news was good, for it was only six.

'Now, Jim,' she said, 'that key.'

I felt in his pockets, one after another. A few
small coins, a thimble, and some thread
and big needles, a piece of pigtail tobacco

-13-

In the meantime, we had found nothing of
any value but the silver and the trinkets, and
neither of these were in our way.
Underneath there was an old boat-cloak,
whitened with sea-salt on many a harbour-
bar. My mother pulled it up with impatience,
and there lay before us, the last things in the
chest, a bundle tied up in oilcloth, and
looking like papers, and a canvas bag, that
gave forth, at a touch, the jingle of gold.

'I'll show these rogues that I'm an honest
woman,' said my mother. 'I'll have my dues,
and not a farthing over. Hold Mrs Crossley's
bag.' And she began to count over the
amount of the captain's score from the
sailor's bag into the one that I was holding.

It was a long, difficult business, for the coins
were of all countries and sizes—doubloons,
and louis-d'ors, and guineas, and pieces
of eight, and I know not what besides, all
shaken together at random. The guineas,
too, were about the scarcest, and it was
with these only that my mother knew how to
make her count.

When we were about half-way through, I
suddenly put my hand upon her arm; for I
had heard in the silent, frosty air, a sound
that brought my heart into my mouth—the tap-
tapping of the blind man's stick upon the
frozen road. It drew nearer and nearer,
while we sat holding our breath. Then it
struck sharp on the inn door, and then we
could hear the handle being turned, and the
bolt rattling as the wretched being tried to
enter; and then there was a long time of
silence both within and without. At last the
tapping recommenced, and, to our
indescribable joy and gratitude, died slowly
away again until it ceased to be heard.

'Mother,' said I, 'take the whole and let's be
going;' for I was sure the bolted door must
have seemed suspicious, and would bring

-14-

neighbours; how I blamed my poor mother
for her honesty and her greed, for her past
foolhardiness and present weakness! We
were just at the little bridge, by good
fortune; and I helped her, tottering as she
was, to the edge of the bank, where, sure
enough, she gave a sigh and fell on my
shoulder. I do not know how I found the
strength to do it at all, and I am afraid it was
roughly done; but I managed to drag her
down the bank and a little way under the
arch. Farther I could not move her, for the
bridge was too low to let me do more than
crawl below it so there we had to stay—my
mother almost entirely exposed and both of
us within earshot of the inn.

Chapter V The Last of the Blind Man

My curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than
my fear; for I could not remain where I was,
but crept back to the bank again, whence,
sheltering my head behind a bush of broom,
I might command the road before our door. I
was scarcely in position ere my enemies
began to arrive, seven or eight of them,
running hard, their feet beating out of time
along the road, and the man with the lantern
some paces in front. Three men ran
together, hand in hand; and I made out,
even through the mist, that the middle man
of this trio was the blind beggar. The next
moment his voice showed me that I was
right.

'Down with the door!' he cried.

'Ay, ay, sir!' answered two or three; and a
rush was made upon the 'Admiral
Benbow,' the lantern-bearer following; and
then I could see them pause, and hear
speeches passed in a lower key, as if they
were surprised to find the door open. But
the pause was brief, for the blind man again
issued his commands. His voice sounded
louder and higher, as if he were afire with

-15-

At that, another fellow, probably him who
had remained below to search the captain's
body, came to the door of the inn. 'Bill's
been overhauled a'ready,' said he, 'nothin'
left.'

'It's these people of the inn—it's that boy. I
wish I had put his eyes out!' cried the blind
man, Pew. 'They were here no time
ago—they had the door bolted when I tried it.
Scatter lads, and find 'em.'

'Sure enough, they left their glim here,' said
the fellow from the window.

'Scatter and find 'em! Rout the house out!'
reiterated Pew striking with his stick upon
the road.

Then there followed a great to-do through
all our old inn heavy feet pounding to and
fro, furniture thrown over, door: kicked in,
until the very rocks re-echoed, and the men
came out again, one after another, on the
road, and declared that we were nowhere
to be found. And just then the same whistle
that had alarmed my mother and myself
over the dead captain's money was once
more clearly audible through the night, but
this time twice repeated. I had thought it to
be the blind man's trumpet, so to speak,
summoning his crew to the assault; but I
now found that it was a signal from the
hillside towards the hamlet, and, from its
effect upon the buccaneers a signal to warn
them of approaching danger.

'There's Dirk again,' said one. 'Twice! We'll
have to budge, mates.'

'Budge, you skulk!' cried Pew. Dirk was a
fool and coward from the first—you wouldn't
mind him. They must be close by; they can't
be far; you have your hands on it Scatter
and look for them, dogs! Oh, shiver my
soul,' he cried 'if I had eyes!'

-16-

separating in every direction, one seaward
along the cove, one slant across the hill, and
so on, so that in half a minute not a sign of
them remained but Pew. Him they had
deserted, whether in sheer panic or out of
revenge for his ill words and blows, I know
not; but there he remained behind, tapping
up and down the road in a frenzy, and
groping and calling for his comrades.
Finally he took the wrong turn, and ran a few
steps past me, towards the hamlet, crying:—

'Johnny, Black Dog, Dirk,' and other
names, 'you won't leave old Pew, mates —
not old Pew!'

Just then the noise of horses topped the
rise, and four or five riders came in sight in
the moonlight, and swept at full gallop down
the slope.

At this Pew saw his error, turned with a
scream, and ran straight for the ditch, into
which he rolled. But he was on his feet
again in a second, and made another dash,
now utterly bewildered, right under the
nearest of the coming horses.

The rider tried to save him, but in vain.
Down went Pew with a cry that rang high
into the night; and the four hoofs trampled
and spurned him and passed by. He fell on
his side then gently collapsed upon his face,
andmoved no more.

I leaped to my feet and hailed the riders.
They were pulling up, at any rate, horrified
at the accident; and I soon saw what they
were. One, tailing out behind the rest, was a
lad this had gone from the hamlet to Dr
Livesey's; the rest were revenue officers,
whom he had met by the way, and with
whom he had had the intelligence to return
at once. Some news of the lugger in Kitt's
Hole had found its way to Supervisor
Dance, and set him forth that night in our

-17-

'No, sir; not money, I think,' replied I. 'In
fact, sir, I believe I have the thing in my
breast-pocket; and, to tell you the truth, I
should like to get it put in safety.'

'To be sure, boy; quite right,' said he. 'I'll
take it, if you like.'

'I thought, perhaps, Dr Livesey——' I began.

'Perfectly right,' he interrupted, very
cheerily, 'perfectly right—a gentleman and a
magistrate. And, now I come to think of it, I
might as well ride round there myself and
report to him or squire. Master Pew's dead,
when all's done; not that I regret it, but he's
dead, you see, and people will make it out
against an officer of his Majesty's revenue,
if make it out they can. Now, I'll tell you,
Hawkins: if you like, I'll take you along.'

I thanked him heartily for the offer, and we
walked back to the hamlet where the horses
were. By the time I had told mother of my
purpose they were all in the saddle.

'Dogger,' said Mr Dance, 'you have a good
horse; take up this lad behind you.'

As soon as I was mounted, holding on to
Dogger's belt, the supervisor gave the
word, and the party struck out at a bouncing
trot on the road to Dr Livesey's house.

Chapter VI The Captain's Papers

WE rode hard all the way, till we drew up
before Dr Livesey's door. The house was
all dark to the front.

Mr Dance told me to jump down and knock,
and Dogger gave me a stirrup to descend
by. The door was opened almost at once by
the maid.

'Is Dr Livesey in?' I asked.

-18-

went back to the inn, Dr Livesey fairly
slapped his thigh, and the squire cried
'Bravo!' and broke his long pipe against the
grate. Long before it was done, Mr
Trelawney (that, you will remember, was the
squire's name) had got up from his seat,
and was striding about the room, and the
doctor, as if to hear the better, had taken off
his powdered wig, and sat there, looking
very strange indeed with his own close-
cropped, black poll.

At last Mr Dance finished the story.

'Mr Dance,' said the squire, 'you are a very
noble fellow. And as for riding down that
black, atrocious miscreant, I regard it as an
act of virtue, sir, like stamping on a
cockroach. This lad Hawkins is a trump, I
perceive. Hawkins, will you ring that bell?
Mr Dance must have some ale.'

'And so, Jim,' said the doctor, 'you have the
thing that they were after, have you?'

'Here it is, sir,' said I, and gave him the
oilskin packet. The doctor looked it all over,
as if his fingers were itching to open it; but,
instead of doing that, he put it quietly in the
pocket of his coat.

'Squire,' said he, 'when Dance has had his
ale he must, of course, be off on his
Majesty's service; but I mean to keep Jim
Hawkins here to sleep at try house, and,
with your permission, I propose we should
have up the cold pie, and let him sup.'

'As you will, Livesey,' said the squire;
'Hawkins has earned better than cold pie.'

So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put
on a side-table, and I made a hearty
supper, for I was as hungry as a hawk, while
Mr Dance was further complimented, and at
last dismissed.

-19-

The bundle was sewn together, and the
doctor had to get out his instrument-case,
and cut the stitches with his medical
scissors. It contained two things—a book and
a sealed paper.

'First of all we'll try the book,' observed the
doctor.

The squire and I were both peering over his
shoulder he opened it, for Dr Livesey had
kindly motioned me to come round from the
side-table, where I had been eating, to
enjoy the sport of the search. On the first
page there were only some scraps of
writing, such as a man with a pen in his
hand might make for idleness or practice.
One was the same as the tattoo mark, 'Billy
Bones his fancy;' then there was 'Mr W.
Bone mate.' 'No more rum.' 'Off Palm Key
he got itt;' and some other snatches, mostly
single words and unintelligible. I could not
help wondering who it was that had 'got itt,'
and what 'itt' was that he got. A knife in his
back as like as not.

'Not much instruction there,' said Dr
Livesey, as he passed on.

The next ten or twelve pages were filled with
a curious series of entries. There was a
date at one end of the line and at the other a
sum of money, as in common account-
books; but instead of explanatory writing,
only a varying number of crosses between
the two. On the 12th of June, 1745, for
instance, a sum of seventy pounds had
plainly become due to someone, and there
was nothing but six crosses to explain the
cause. In a few cases, to be sure, the name
of a place would be added, as 'Offe
Caraccas;' or a mere entry of latitude and
longitude, as '62° 17' 20", 19° 2' 40".'

The record lasted over nearly twenty years,
the amount of the separate entries growing

-20-

you might say, like a fat drag' standing up,
and had two fine land-locked harbours, and
hill in the centre part marked 'The Spy-
glass.' There we several additions of a later
date; but, above all, three cross of red
ink—two on the north part of the island, one in
the south-west, and, beside this last, in the
same red ink, and a small, neat hand, very
different from the captain's tottery
characters, these words:—'Bulk of treasure
here.'

Over on the back the same hand had written
this further information:—

'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.

'The bar silver is in the north cache; you can
find it by the trend of the east hummock, ten
fathoms south of the black crag with the
face on it.

'The arms are easy found, in the sand hill,
N. point of nor inlet cape, bearing E. and a
quarter N.

'J.F.'

That was all; but brief as it was, and, to me,
incomprehensible, it filled the squire and Dr
Livesey with delight.

'Livesey,' said the squire, 'you will give up
this wretched practice at once. To-morrow I
start for Bristol. In three weeks' time—three
weeks!—two weeks—ten days—we'll have the
best ship, sir, and the choicest crew in
England. Hawkins shall come as cabin-
boy. You'll make a famous cabin-boy
Hawkins. You, Livesey, are ship's doctor; I
am admiral. We'll take Redruth, Joyce, and

-21-

charge of old Redruth, the gamekeeper,
almost a prisoner, but full of sea dreams
and the most charming anticipations of
strange island and adventures. I brooded by
the hour together over the map, all the
details of which I well remembered. Sitting
by the fire in the house-keeper's room, I
approached that island my fancy, from
every possible direction; I explored every
acre of its surface; I climbed a thousand
times to that tall hill the call the Spy-glass,
and from the top enjoyed the most
wonderful and changing prospects.
Sometimes the isle was thick with savages,
with whom we fought; sometimes full of
dangerous animals that hunted us; but in all
my fancies nothing occurred to me so
strange and tragic as our actual adventures.

So the weeks passed on, till one fine day
there came a letter addressed to Dr
Livesey, with this addition, 'To be opened
in the case of his absence, by Tom Redruth,
or young Hawkins.' Obeying this order, we
found, or rather, I found—for the gamekeeper
was a poor hand at reading anything but
print—the following important news:—

'Old Anchor Inn, Bristol, March 1, 17—.

'DEAR LIVESEY ,—As I do not know
whether you are at the Hall or still in London,
I send this in double to both places.

'The ship is bought and fitted. She lies at
anchor, ready for sea. You never imagined
a sweeter schooner—a child might sail
her—two hundred tons; name, Hispaniola.

'I got her through my old friend, Blandly, who
has proved himself throughout the most
surprising trump. The admirable fellow
literally slaved in my interest, and so, I may
say, did everyone in Bristol, as soon as they
got wind of the port we sailed for—treasure, I
mean.'

-22-

him on the spot to be ship's cook. Long
John Silver, he is called, and has lost a leg;
but that I regarded as a recommendation,
since he lost it in hi country's service, under
the immortal Hawke. He has no pension,
Livesey. Imagine the abominable age we
live in!

'Well, sir, I thought I had only found a cook,
but it was a crew I had discovered. Between
Silver and myself we go together in a few
days a company of the toughest old salt
imaginable—not pretty to look at, but fellows,
by their faces, of the most indomitable
spirit. I declare we could fight frigate.

'Long John even got rid of two out of the six
or seven had already engaged. He showed
me in a moment that the were just the sort of
fresh-water swabs we had to fear in an
adventure of importance.

'I am in the most magnificent health and
spirits, eating like a bull, sleeping like a
tree, yet I shall not enjoy a moment till I hear
my old tarpaulins tramping round the
capstan Seaward ho! Hang the treasure!
It's the glory of the sea that has turned my
head. So now, Livesey, come post; do not
lose an hour, if you respect me.

'Let young Hawkins go at once to see his
mother, wit Redruth for a guard; and then
both come full speed to Bristol.

'JOHN TRELAWNEY.

'Postscript.—I did not tell you that Blandly,
who, by the was) is to send a consort after
us if we don't turn up by the en of August,
had found an admirable fellow for sailing
master—a stiff man, which I regret, but, in all
other respects, treasure. Long John Silver
unearthed a very competent man for a
mate, a man named Arrow. I have a
boatswain who pipes, Livesey; so things

-23-

It was on seeing that boy that I understood,
for the first time, my situation. I had thought
up to that moment of the adventures before
me, not at all of the home that I was leaving;
and now, at the sight of this clumsy
stranger, who was to stay here in my place
beside my mother, I had my first attack of
tears. I am afraid I led that boy a dog's life;
for as he was new to the work, I had a
hundred opportunities of setting him right
and putting him down, and I was not slow to
profit by them.

The night passed, and the next day, after
dinner, Redruth and I were afoot again, and
on the road. I said good-bye to mother and
the cove where I had lived since I was born,
and the dear old 'Admiral Benbow'—since
he was repainted, no longer quite so dear.
One of my last thoughts was of the captain,
who had so often strode along the beach
with his cocked hat, his sabre-cut cheek,
and his old brass telescope. Next moment
we had turned the corner, and my home
was out of sight.

The mail picked us up about dusk at the
'Royal George' on the heath. I was wedged
in between Redruth and stout old
gentleman, and in spite of the swift motion
and the cold night air, I must have dozed a
great deal from the very first, and then slept
like a log up hill and down dale through
stage after stage; for when I was awakened
at last, it was by a punch in the ribs, and I
opened my eyes to find that we were
standing still before a large building in a city
street, and that the day had already broken
long time.

'Where are we?' I asked.

'Bristol,' said Tom. 'Get down.'

Mr Trelawney had taken up his residence at
an inn far down the docks, to superintend

-24-

should easily find the place by following the
line of the docks, and keeping a bright look-
out for a little tavern with a large brass
telescope for sign. I set off, overjoyed at
this opportunity to see some more of the
ships and seamen, and picked my way
among a great crowd of people and carts
and bales, for the dock was now at its
busiest, until I found the tavern in question.

It was a bright enough little place of
entertainment. The sign was newly painted;
the windows had neat red curtains; the floor
was cleanly sanded. There was a street on
each side, and an open door on both, which
made the large, low room pretty clear to see
in, in spite of clouds of tobacco smoke.

The customers were mostly seafaring men;
and they talked so loudly that I hung at the
door, almost afraid to enter.

As I was waiting, a man came out of a side
room, and, at a glance, I was sure he must
be Long John. His left leg was cut off close
by the hip, and under the left shoulder he
carried a crutch, which he managed with
wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it
like a bird. He was very tall and strong, with
a face as big as a ham—plain and pale, but
intelligent and smiling. Indeed, he seemed
in the most cheerful spirits, whistling as he
moved about among the tables, with a
merry word or a slap on the shoulder for the
more favoured of his guests.

Now, to tell you the truth, from the very first
mention of Long John in Squire Trelawney's
letter, I had taken a fear in my mind that he
might prove to be the very one-legged
sailor whom I had watched for so long at the
old 'Benbow.' But one look at the man
before me was enough. I had seen the
captain, and Black Dog, and the blind man
Pew, and I thought I knew what a buccaneer
was like—a very different creature,

-25-

you of the buccaneers? He was one of
them.'

'So?' cried Silver. 'In my house! Ben, run
and help Harry. One of those swabs, was
he? Was that you drinking with him,
Morgan? Step up here.'

The man whom he called Morgan—an old,
grey-haired, mahogany-faced sailor—came
forward pretty sheepishly, rolling his quid.

'Now, Morgan,' said Long John, very
sternly; 'you never clapped your eyes on that
Black—Black Dog before, did you, now?'

'Not I, sir,' said Morgan, with a salute.

'You didn't know his name, did you?'

'No, sir.'

'By the powers, Tom Morgan, it's as good
for you!' exclaimed the landlord. 'If you had
been mixed up with the like of that, you
would never have put another foot in my
house, you may lay to that. And what was he
saying to your?'

'I don't rightly know, sir,' answered Morgan.

'Do you call that a head on your shoulders,
or a blessed dead-eye?' cried Long John.
'Don't rightly know, don't you! Perhaps you
don't happen to rightly know who you were
speaking to, perhaps? Come, now, what
was he jawing—v'yages, cap'ns, ships?
Pipe up! What was it?'

'We was a-talkin' of keel-hauling,'
answered Morgan 'Keel-hauling, was you?
and a mighty suitable thing, too and you may
lay to that. Get back to your place for a
lubber Tom.'

And then, as Morgan rolled back to his seat,

-26-

a Dutchman sitting in my own house,
drinking of my own rum! Here you comes
and tells me of it plain; and here I let him
give us all the slip before my blessed dead-
lights! Now, Hawkins, you do me justice
with the cap'n. You're a lad, you are, but
you're as smart as paint. I see that when you
first came in. Now, here it is: What could I
do, with this old timber I hobble on? When I
was an A B master mariner I'd have come
up alongside of him, hand over hand, and
broached him to in a brace of old shakes, I
would; but now——'

And then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and
his jaw drooped as though he had
remembered something.

'The score!' he burst out. 'Three goes o'
rum! Why, shiver my timbers, if I hadn't
forgotten my score!'

And, falling on a bench, he laughed until the
tears ran down his cheeks. I could not help
joining; and we laughed together, peal after
peal, until the tavern rang again.

'Why, what a precious old sea-calf I am!' he
said, at last, wiping his cheeks. 'You and
me should get on well, Hawkins, for I'll take
my davy I should be rated ship's boy. But,
come, now, stand by to go about. This won't
do. Dooty is dooty, messmates. I'll put on
my old cocked hat, and step along of you to
Cap'n Trelawney, and report this here
affair. For, mind you, it's serious, young
Hawkins; and neither you nor me's come
out of it with what I should make so bold as
to call credit. Nor you neither, says you; not
smart—none of the pair of us smart. But dash
my buttons! That was a good 'un about my
score.'

And he began to laugh again, and that so
heartily, that though I did not see the joke as
he did, I was again obliged to join him in his

-27-

squire.

'And now,' added the doctor, 'Jim may
come on board with us, may he not?'

'To be sure he may,' says squire. 'Take
your hat, Hawkins, and we'll see the ship.'

Chapter IX Powder and Arms

THE Hispaniola lay some way out, and we
went under the figureheads and round the
sterns of many other ships, and their cables
sometimes grated underneath our keel, and
sometimes swung above us. At last,
however, we got alongside, and were met
and saluted as we stepped aboard by the
mate, Mr Arrow, a brown old sailor, with
earrings in his ears and a squint. He and the
squire were very thick and friendly, but I
soon observed that things were not the
same between Mr Trelawney and the
captain.

This last was a sharp-looking man, who
seemed angry with everything on board,
and was soon to tell us why, for we had
hardly got down into the cabin when a sailor
followed us.

'Captain Smollett, sir, axing to speak with
you,' said he. 'I am always at the captain's
order. Show him in,' said the squire.

The captain, who was close behind his
messenger, entered at once, and shut the
door behind him.

'Well, Captain Smollett, what have you to
say? All well, I hope; all shipshape and
seaworthy?'

'Well, sir,' said the captain, 'better speak
plain, I believe, even at the risk of offence. I
don't like this cruise; I don't like the men;
and I don't like my officer. That's short and

-28-

a close run.'

'That is all clear, and, I daresay, true
enough,' replied Livesey. 'We take the risk;
but we are not so ignorant as you believe us.
Next, you say you don't like the crew. Are
they not good seamen?'

'I don't like them, sir,' returned Captain
Smollett. 'And I think I should have had the
choosing of my own hands, you go to that.'

'Perhaps you should,' replied the doctor.
'My friend should, perhaps, have taken you
along with him; but the slight, if there be
one, was unintentional. And you don't like
Mr Arrow?'

'I don't, sir. I believe he's a good seaman;
but he's too free with the crew to be a good
officer. A mate should keep himself to
himself—shouldn't drink with the men before
the mast!'

'Do you mean he drinks?' cried the squire.

'No, sir,' replied the captain; 'only that he's
too familiar.'

'Well, now, and the short and long of it,
captain?' asked the doctor. 'Tell us what
you want.'

'Well, gentlemen, are you determined to go
on this cruise?'

'Like iron,' answered the squire.

'Very good,' said the captain. 'Then, as
you've heard me very patiently, saying
things that I could not prove, hear me a few
words more. They are putting the powder
and the arms in the fore hold. Now, you have
a good place under the cabin; why not put
them there?—first point. Then you are
bringing four of your own people with you,

-29-

the arms and powder on board. In other
words, you fear a mutiny.'

'Sir,' said Captain Smollett, 'with no
intention to take offence, I deny your right to
put words into my mouth. No captain, sir,
would be justified in going to sea at all if he
had ground enough to say that. As for Mr
Arrow, I believe hi thoroughly honest; some
of the men are the same; all may be for what
I know. But I am responsible for the ship's
safety and the life of every man Jack
aboard of her. I see thins going, as I think,
not quite right. And I ask you to take certain
precautions, or let me resign my berth. And
that's all.'

'Captain Smollett,' began the doctor, with a
smile, 'did ever you hear the fable of the
mountain and the mouse? You excuse me, I
daresay, but you remind me of that fable.
When you came in here I'll stake my wig you
meant more than this.'

'Doctor,' said the captain, 'you are smart.
When I can in here I meant to get discharged.
I had no thought that Mr Trelawney would
hear a word.'

'No more I would,' cried the squire. 'Had
Livesey not been here I should have seen
you to the deuce. As it is, I have hear you. I
will do as you desire; but I think the worse of
you.'

'That's as you please, sir,' said the captain.
'You'll find I do my duty.'

And with that he took his leave.

'Trelawney,' said the doctor, 'contrary to all
my notions, I believe you have managed to
get two honest men on board with you—that
man and John Silver.'

'Silver, if you like,' cried the squire; 'but as

-30-

'Why, by the powers,' cried Long John, 'if
we do, we'll miss the morning tide!'

'My orders!' said the captain shortly. 'You
may go below, my man. Hands will want
supper.'

'Ay, ay, sir,' answered the cook; and,
touching his forelock, he disappeared at
once in the direction of his galley.

'That's a good man, captain,' said the
doctor.

'Very likely sir,' replied Captain Smollett.
'Easy with that, men—easy,' he ran on, to the
fellows who were shifting the powder; and
then suddenly observing me examining the
swivel we carried amidships, a long brass
nine—'Here, you ship's boy,' he cried, 'out o'
that! Off with you to the cook and get some
work.'

And then as I was hurrying off I heard him
say, quite loudly, to the doctor:—

'I'll have no favourites on my ship.' I assure
you I was quite of the squire's way of
thinking, and hated the captain deeply.

Chapter X The Voyage

ALL that night we were in a great bustle
getting things stowed in their place, and
boatfuls of the squire's friends, Mr Blandly
and the like, coming off to wish him a good
voyage and a safe return. We never had a
night at the 'Admiral Benbow' when I had
half the work; and I was dog-tired when a
little before dawn, the boatswain sounded
his pipe, and the crew began to man the
capstan-bars. I might have been twice as
weary, yet I would not have left the deck; all
was so new and interesting to me-the brief
commands, the shrill not of the whistle, the
men bustling to their places in the glimmer

-31-

hazy eye, red cheeks, stuttering tongue,
and other marks of drunkenness. Time after
time he was ordered below in disgrace.
Sometimes he fell and cut himself;
sometimes he lay all day long in his little
bunk at one side of the companion;
sometimes for a day or two he would be
almost sober and attend to his work at least
passably.

In the meantime, we could never make out
where he got the drink. That was the ship's
mystery. Watch him as we pleased, we
could do nothing to solve it; and when we
asked him to his face, he would only laugh,
if he were drunk, and if he were sober, deny
solemnly that he ever tasted anything but
water.

He was not only useless as an officer, and a
bad influence amongst the men, but it was
plain that at this rate he must soon kill
himself outright; so nobody was much
surprised, nor very sorry, when one dark
night, with a head sea, he disappeared
entirely and was seen no more.

'Overboard!' said the captain. 'Well,
gentlemen, that saves the trouble of putting
him in irons.'

But there we were, without a mate; and it
was necessary, of course, to advance one
of the men. The boatswain, Job Anderson,
was the likeliest man aboard, and, though
he kept his old title, he served in a way as
mate. Mr Trelawney had followed the sea,
and his knowledge made him very useful,
for he often took a watch himself in easy
weather. And the coxswain, Israel Hands,
was a careful, wily, old, experienced
seaman, who could be trusted at a pinch
with almost anything.

He was a great confidant of Long John
Silver, and so the mention of his name

-32-

you cap'n?'

And the parrot would say, with great
rapidity, 'Pieces of eight! pieces of eight!
pieces of eight!' till you wondered than it
was not out of breath, or till John threw his
handkerchief over the cage.

'Now, that bird,' he would say, 'is, may be,
two hundred years old, Hawkins—they lives
for ever mostly; and if anybody's seen more
wickedness, it must be the devil himself.
She's sailed with England, the great Cap'n
England, the pirate. She's been at
Madagascar, and a Malabar, and Surinam,
and Providence, and Portobello. She was
at the fishing up of the wrecked plate ships.
It's there she learned ''Pieces of eight,''
and little wonder; three hundred and fifty
thousand of 'em, Hawkins! She was at the
boarding of the Viceroy of the Indies out of
Goa, she was; and to look at her you would
think she was a babby. But you smelt
powder—didn't you, cap'n?'

'Stand by to go about,' the parrot would
scream.

'Ah, she's a handsome craft, she is,' the
cook would say, and give her sugar from his
pocket, and then the bird would peck at the
bars and swear straight on, passing belief
for wickedness. 'There,' John would add,
'you can't touch pitch and not be mucked,
lad. Here's this poor old innocent bird o'
mine swearing blue fire, and none the
wiser, you may lay to that. She would swear
the same, in a manner of speaking, before
chaplain.' And John would touch his
forelock with a solemn way he had, that
made me think he was the best of men.

In the meantime, the squire and Captain
Smollett were still on pretty distant terms
with one another. The squire made no
bones about the matter; he despised the

-33-

We had run up the trades to get the wind of
the island we were after—I am not allowed to
be more plain—and now we were running
down for it with a bright look-out day and
night. It was about the last day of our
outward voyage, by the largest
computation; some time that night, or, at
latest, before noon of the morrow, we
should sight the Treasure Island. We were
heading S.S.W., and had a steady breeze
abeam and a quiet sea. The Hispaniola
rolled steadily, dipping her bowsprit nod
and then with a whiff of spray. All was
drawing alow and aloft everyone was in the
bravest spirits, because we were now so
near an end of the first part of our adventure.

Now, just after sundown, when all my work
was over, and I was on my way to my berth,
it occurred to me that I should like an apple. I
ran on deck. The watch was all forward
looking out for the island. The man at the
helm was watching the luff of the sail, and
whistling away gently to himself; and that
was the only sound excepting the swish of
the sea against the bow.' and around the
sides of the ship.

In I got bodily into the apple barrel, and
found there was scarce an apple left; but,
sitting down there in the dark, what with the
sound of the waters and the rocking
movement of the ship, I had either fallen
asleep, or was on the point of doing so,
when a heavy man sat down with rather a
clash close by The barrel shook as he
leaned his shoulders against it, and I was
just about to jump up when the man began
to speak It was Silver's voice, and, before I
had heard a dozen words. I would not have
shown myself for all the world, but lay there,
trembling and listening, in the extreme of
fear and curiosity; for from these dozen
words I understood that the lives of all the
honest men aboard depended upon me
alone.

-34-

'Well, it aint much use, after all,' said the
young seaman.

''Tain't much use for fools, you may lay to
it—that, nor nothing,' cried Silver. 'But now,
you look here: you're young, you are, but
you're as smart as paint. I see that when I
set my eyes on you, and I'll talk to you like a
man.'

You may imagine how I felt when I heard this
abominable old rogue addressing another
in the very same words of flattery as he had
used to myself. I think, if I had been able,
that would have killed him through the barrel.
Meantime, he ran on, little supposing he
was overheard.

'Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They
lives rough and they risk swinging, but they
eat and drink like fighting cocks, and when
a cruise is done, why, it's hundreds of
pounds instead of hundreds of farthings in
their pockets. Now, the most goes for rum
and a good fling, and to sea again in their
shirts. But that's not the course I lay. I puts it
all away, some here, some there, and none
too much anywheres, by reason of
suspicion. I'm fifty, mark you; once back
from this cruise I set up gentleman in
earnest. Time enough, too, says you Ah, but
I've lived easy in the meantime; never
denied myself o nothing heart desires, and
slep' soft and ate dainty all my days, but
when at sea. And how did I begin? Before
the mast like you!'

'Well,' said the other, 'but all the other
money's gone now aint it? You daren't
show face in Bristol after this.'

'Why, where might you suppose it was?'
asked Silver derisively.

'At Bristol, in banks and places,' answered
his companion 'It were,' said the cook; 'it

-35-

hands—perhaps of the last one left aboard.
But on this point I was soon to be relieved
for Silver giving a little whistle, a third man
strolled up and sat down by the party.

'Dick's square,' said Silver.

'Oh, I know'd Dick was square,' returned
the voice of the coxswain, Israel Hands.
'He's no fool, is Dick.' And he turned his
quid and spat. 'But, look here,' he went on,
here's what I want to know, Barbecue: how
long are we a-going to stand off and on like
a blessed bumboat? I've had a' most
enough o Cap'n Smollett; he's hazed me
long enough, by thunder! I want to go into
that cabin, I do. I want their pickles and
wines, and that.'

'Israel,' said Silver, 'your head aint much
account, nor ever was. But you're able to
hear, I reckon; leastways, your ears is big
enough. Now, here's what I say: you'll berth
forward, and you'll live hard, and you'll
speak soft, and you'll keep sober, till I give
the word; and you may lay to that, my son.'

'Well, I don't say no, do I?' growled the
coxswain. 'What I say is, when? That's what
I say.'

'When! by the powers!' cried Silver. 'Well,
now, if you want to know, I'll tell you when.
The last moment I can manage; and that's
when. Here's a first-rate seaman, Cap'n
Smollett, sails the blessed ship for us.
Here's this squire and doctor with a map
and such—I don't know where it is, do I? No
more do you, says you. Well, then, I mean
this squire and doctor shall find the stuff,
and help us to get it aboard, by the powers.
Then we'll see. If was sure of you all, sons
of double Dutchmen, I'd have Cap'n
Smollett navigate us half-way back again
before struck.'

-36-

anyhow?'

'There's the man for me!' cried the cook,
admiringly. 'That's what I call business. Well,
what would you think? Put 'em ashore like
maroons? That would have been England's
way. Or cut 'em down like that much pork?
That would have been Flint's or Billy
Bones's.'

'Billy was the man for that,' said Israel.
'''Dead men don't bite,'' says he. Well, he's
dead now himself; he knows the long and
short on it now; and if ever a rough hand
come to port, it was Billy.'

'Right you are,' said Silver, 'rough and
ready. But mark you here: I'm an easy
man—I'm quite the gentleman, says you; but
this time it's serious. Dooty is dooty, mates.
I give my vote—death. When I'm in Parlyment,
and riding in my coach, I don't want none of
these sea—lawyers in the cabin a-coming
home, unlooked for, like the devil at
prayers. Wait is what I say; but when the time
comes, why let her rip!'

'John,' cries the coxswain, 'you're a man!'

'You'll say so, Israel, when you see,' said
Silver. 'Only one thing I claim—I claim
Trelawney. I'll wring his calf's head off his
body with these hands. Dick!' he added,
breaking off, 'you just jump up, like a sweet
lad, and get me an apple, to wet my pipe
like.'

You may fancy the terror I was in! I should
have leaped out and run for it, if I had found
the strength; but my limbs and heart alike
misgave me. I heard Dick begin to rise, and
then someone seemingly stopped him, and
the voice of Hands exclaimed:—

'Oh, stow that! Don't you get sucking of that
bilge, John. Let's have a go of the rum.'

-37-

saw two low hills, about a couple of miles
apart, and rising behind one of them a third
and higher hill, whose peak was still buried
in the fog. All three seemed sharp and
conical in figure.

So much I saw, almost in a dream, for I had
not yet recovered from my horrid fear of a
minute or two before. And then I heard the
voice of Captain Smollett issuing orders.
The Hispaniola was laid a couple of points
nearer the wind, and now sailed a course
that would just clear the island on the east.

'And now, men,' said the captain, when all
was sheeted home, 'has any one of you
ever seen that land ahead?'

'I have, sir,' said Silver. 'I've watered there
with a trader I was cook in.'

'The anchorage is on the south, behind an
islet, I fancy?' asked the captain.

'Yes, sir; Skeleton Island they calls it. It were
a main place for pirates once, and a hand
we had on board knowed all their names for
it. That hill to the nor'ard they calls the Fore-
mast Hill; there are three hills in a row
running south'ard—fore, main, and mizzen,
sir. But the main—that's the big 'un, with the
cloud on it—they usually calls the Spy-glass,
by reason of a look-out they kept when they
was in the anchorage cleaning; for it's there
they cleaned their ships, sir, asking your
pardon.'

'I have a chart here,' says Captain Smollett.
'See if that's the place.'

Long John's eyes burned in his head as he
took the char but, by the fresh look of the
paper, I knew he was doom to
disappointment. This was not the map we
found in Billy Bones's chest, but an
accurate copy, complete in all things—names

-38-

And clapping me in the friendliest way upon
the shoulder he hobbled off forward and
went below.

Captain Smollett, the squire, and Dr
Livesey were talking together on the
quarterdeck, and, anxious as I was to tell
them my story, I durst not interrupt them
openly. While I was still casting about in my
thoughts to find some probable excuse, Dr
Livesey called me to his side. He had left his
pipe below, and being a slave to tobacco,
had meant that I should fetch it; but as soon
as I was near enough ta speak and not to be
overheard, I broke out immediately:
'Doctor, let me speak. Get the captain and
squire down to the cabin, and then make
some pretence to send for me. I have
terrible news.'

The doctor changed countenance a little,
but next moment he was master of himself.

'Thank you, Jim,' said he, quite loudly, 'that
was all I wanted to know,' as if he had
asked me a question.

And with that he turned on his heel and
rejoined the other two. They spoke together
for a little, and though none of them started,
or raised his voice, or so much as whistled,
it was plain enough that Dr Livesey had
communicated my request; for the next
thing that I heard was the captain giving an
order to Job Anderson, and all hands were
piped on deck.

'My lads,' said Captain Smollett, 'I've a
word to say to you. This land that we have
sighted is the place we have been sailing
for. Mr Trelawney, being a very open-
handed gentleman, as we all know, has just
asked me a word or two, and as I was able
to tell him that every man on board had done
his duty, alow and aloft, as I never ask to
see it done better, why, he and I and the

-39-

my hands with raisins, and three, one after
the other, and each with a bow, drank my
good health, and their service to me, for my
luck and courage.

'Now, captain,' said the squire, 'you were
right, and I was wrong. I own myself an ass,
and I await your orders.'

'No more an ass than I, sir,' returned the
captain. 'I never heard of a crew that meant
to mutiny but what showed signs before, for
any man that had an eye in his head to see
the mischief and take steps according. But
this crew,' he added 'beats me.'

'Captain,' said the doctor, 'with your
permission, that Silver. A very remarkable
man.'

'He'd look remarkably well from a yard-
arm, sir,' returned the captain. 'But this is
talk; this don't lead to anything. I see three or
four points, and with Mr Trelawney's
permission I'll name them.'

'You, sir, are the captain. It is for you to
speak,' says Mr Trelawney, grandly.

'First point,' began Mr Smollett. 'We must
go on, because we can't turn back. If I gave
the word to go about, they would rise at
once. Second point, we have time before
us—at least until this treasure's found. Third
point, there are faithful hands. Now, sir, it's
got to come to blows sooner or later and
what I propose is, to take time by the
forelock, as the saying is, and come to
blows some fine day when they least expect
it. We can count, I take it, on your own home
servants, Mr Trelawney?'

'As upon myself,' declared the squire.

'Three,' reckoned the captain, 'ourselves
make seven, counting Hawkins, here. Now,

-40-

THE appearance of the island when I came
on deck next morning was altogether
changed. Although the breeze ha now utterly
ceased, we had made a great deal of way
during the night, and were now lying
becalmed about half a mile to the south-
east of the low eastern coast. Grey-
coloured woods covered a large part of the
surface. This even tint was indeed broken
up by streaks of yellow sandbreak in the
lower lands, and by many tall trees of the
pine family, out-topping the others—some
singly, some in clumps; but the general
colouring was uniform and sad. The hills ran
up clear above the vegetation in spires of
naked rock. All were strangely shaped, and
the Spy-glass, which was by three or four
hundred feet the tallest on the island, was
likewise the strange in configuration,
running up sheer from almost every side
then suddenly cut off at the top like a
pedestal to put statue on.

The Hispaniola was rolling scuppers under
in the ocean swell. The booms were tearing
at the blocks, the rudder we banging to and
fro, and the whole ship creaking, groaning
and jumping like a manufactory. I had to
cling tight to the backstay, and the world
turned giddily before my eyes; for though I
was a good enough sailor when there was
way or this standing still and being rolled
about like a bottle was thing I never learned
to stand without a qualm or so, above all in
the morning, on an empty stomach.

Perhaps it was this—perhaps it was the look
of the island with its grey, melancholy
woods, and wild stone spires, an the surf
that we could both see and hear foaming an
thundering on the steep beach—at least,
although the sun shone bright and hot, and
the shore birds were fishing and crying all
around us, and you would have thought
anyone would have been glad to get to land
after being so long at sea, my heart sank,

-41-

more silent.

The place was entirely land-locked, buried
in woods, the trees coming right down to
high-water mark, the shores mostly flat,
and the hill-tops standing round at a
distance in a sort of amphitheatre, one
here, one there. Two little rivers, or, rather,
two swamps, emptied out into this pond, as
you might call it; and the foliage round that
part of the shore had a kind of poisonous
brightness. From the ship, we could see
nothing of the house or stockade, for they
were quite buried among trees; and if it had
not been for the chart on the companion we
might have been the first that had ever
anchored there sin the island arose out of
the seas.

There was not a breath of air moving, nor a
sound but the of the surf booming half a mile
away along the beaches a against the rocks
outside. A peculiar stagnant smell hung over
the anchorage—a smell of sodden leaves
and rotting tree trunks. I observed the doctor
sniffing and sniffing, like someone tasting a
bad egg.

'I don't know about treasure,' he said, 'but
I'll stake my wig there's fever here.'

If the conduct of the men had been alarming
in the boat it became truly threatening when
they had come aboard. The lay about the
deck growling together in talk. The slightest
order was received with a black look, and
grudgingly and carelessly obeyed. Even the
honest hands must have caught the
infection, for there was not one man aboard
to mend another. Mutiny, it was plain, hung
over us like a thunder-cloud.

And it was not only we of the cabin party
who perceived the danger. Long John was
hard at work going from group to group,
spending himself in good advice, and as for

-42-

'My lads,' said he, 'we've had a hot day,
and are all tired and out of sorts. A turn
ashore'll hurt nobody—the boats are still in
the water; you can take the gigs, and as
many as please may go ashore for the
afternoon. I'll fire a gun half an hour before
sundown.'

I believe the silly fellows must have thought
they would break their shins over treasure
as soon as they were landed; for they all
came out of their sulks in a moment, and
gave a cheer that started the echo in a far-
away hill, and sent the birds once more
flying and squalling round the anchorage.

The captain was too bright to be in the way.
He whipped out of sight in a moment,
leaving Silver to arrange the party; and I
fancy it was as well he did so. Had he been
on deck, he could no longer so much as
have pretended not to understand the
situation. It was as plain as day. Silver was
the captain, and a mighty rebellious crew he
had of it. The honest hands-and I was soon
to see it proved that there were such on
board—must have been stupid fellows. Or,
rather, I suppose the truth was this, that all
hands were disaffected by the example of
the ringleaders—only some more, some less:
and a few, being good fellows in the main,
could neither be led nor driven any further. It
is one thing to be idle and skulk, and quite
another to take a ship and murder a number
of innocent men.

At last, however, the party was made up.
Six fellows were to stay on board, and the
remaining thirteen, including Silver, began
to embark.

Then it was that there came into my head
the first of the mad notions that contributed
so much to save our lives. If six men were
left by Silver, it was plain our party could not
take and fight the ship; and since only six

-43-

in the foliage, like willows. On the far side of
the open stood one of the hills, with two
quaint, craggy peaks, shining vividly in the
sun.

I now felt for the first time the joy of
exploration. The isle was uninhabited; my
shipmates I had left behind, and nothing
lived in front of me but dumb brutes and
fowls. I turned hither and thither among the
trees. Here and there were flowering plants,
unknown to me; here and there I saw
snakes, and one raised his head from a
ledge of rock and hissed at me with a noise
not unlike the spinning of a top. Little did I
suppose that he was a deadly enemy, and
that the noise was the famous rattle.

Then I came to a long thicket of these oak-
like trees—live, or evergreen, oaks, I heard
afterwards they should be called—which
grew low along the sand like brambles, the
boughs curiously twisted, the foliage
compact, like thatch. The thicket stretched
down from the top of one of the sandy
knolls, spreading and growing taller as it
went, until it reached the margin of the
broad, reedy fen, through which the nearest
of the little rivers soaked its way into the
anchorage. The marsh was steaming in the
strong sun, and the outline of the Spy-glass
trembled through the haze.

All at once there began to go a sort of bustle
among the bulrushes; a wild duck flew up
with a quack, another followed, and soon
over the whole surface of the marsh a great
cloud of birds hung screaming and circling
in the air. I judged at once that some of my
shipmates must be drawing near along the
borders of the fen. Nor was I deceived; for
soon I hear the very distant and low tones of
a human voice, which, I continued to give
ear, grew steadily louder and nearer. This
put me in a great fear, and I crawled under
cover of the nearest live-oak, and squatted

-44-

of appeal.

'Mate,' he was saying, 'it's because I thinks
gold dust of you—gold dust, and you may lay
to that! If I hadn't too to you like pitch, do you
think I'd have been here a-warning of you?
All's up—you can't make nor mend; it's to
save your neck that I'm a-speaking, and if
one of the wild 'uns knew it, where 'ud I be,
Tom—now, tell me, where 'ud I be?'

'Silver,' said the other man—and I observed
he was not only red in the face, but spoke as
hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook, too,
like a taut rope—Silver,' says he, 'you're old,
and you're honest, or has the name for it;
and you've money, too, which lots of poor
sailors hasn't; and you're brave, or I'm
mistook. And will you tell me you'll let
yourself be led away with that kind of a
mess of swabs? not you! As sure as God
sees me, I'd sooner lose my hand. If I turn
agin my dooty——'

And then all of a sudden he was interrupted
by a noise. I had found one of the honest
hands—well, here, at that same moment,
came news of another. Far away out in the
marsh there arose, all of a sudden, a sound
like the cry of anger, then another on the
back of it; and then one horrid, long-drawn
scream. The rocks of the Spy-glass re-
echoed it a score of times; the whole troop
of marsh-birds rose again, darkening
heaven, with a simultaneous whirr; and long
after that death yell was still ringing in my
brain, silence had re-established its
empire, and only the rustle of the
redescending birds and the boom of the
distant surges disturbed the languor of the
afternoon.

Tom had leaped at the sound, like a horse
at the spur; but Silver had not winked an
eye. He stood where he was, resting lightly
on his crutch, watching his companion like a

-45-

or crutch, was on the top of him next
moment, and had twice buried his knife up
to the hilt in that defenceless body. From my
place of ambush, I could hear him pant
aloud as he struck the blows.

I do not know what it rightly is to faint, but I
do know that for the next little while the
whole world swam away from before me in
a whirling mist; Silver and the birds, and the
tall Spy-glass hill-top, going round and
round and topsy-turvy before my eyes, and
all manner of bells ringing and distant
voices shouting in my ear.

When I came again to myself, the monster
had pulled himself together, his crutch under
his arm, his hat upon his head. Just before
him Tom lay motionless upon the sward; but
the murderer minded him not a whit,
cleansing his bloodstained knife the while
upon a wisp of grass. Everything else was
unchanged, the sun still shining mercilessly
on the steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle
of the mountain, and I could scarce
persuade myself that murder had been
actually done, and a human life cruelly cut
short a moment since, before my eyes.

But now John put his hand into his pocket,
brought out a whistle, and blew upon it
several modulated blasts, that rang far
across the heated air. I could not tell, of
course, the meaning of the signal; but it
instantly awoke my fears. More men would
be coming. I might be discovered. They had
already slain two of the honest people; after
Tom and Alan, might not I come next?

Instantly I began to extricate myself and
crawl back again, with what speed and
silence I could manage, to the more open
portion of the wood. As I did so, I could hear
hails coming and going between the old
buccaneer and his comrades, and this
sound of danger lent me wings. As soon as I

-46-

But the terror of this new apparition brought
me to a stand.

I was now, it seemed, cut off upon both
sides; behind me the murderers, before me
this lurking nondescript. An immediately I
began to prefer the dangers that I knew to
those I knew not. Silver himself appeared
less terrible in contract with this creature of
the woods, and I turned on my heel, and
looking sharply behind me over my
shoulder, began to retract my steps in the
direction of the boats.

Instantly the figure reappeared, and,
making a wide circuit began to head me off.
I was tired, at any rate; but had I bee as
fresh as when I rose, I could see it was in
vain for me to contend in speed with such an
adversary. From trunk to trunk the creature
flitted like a deer, running manlike on two
legs but unlike any man that I had ever seen,
stooping almost double as it ran. Yet a man
it was, I could no longer be in doubt about
that.

I began to recall what I had heard of
cannibals. I was within an ace of calling for
help. But the mere fact that he was man,
however wild, had somewhat reassured
me, and my fear of Silver began to revive in
proportion. I stood still, therefore and cast
about for some method of escape; and as I
was so thinking, the recollection of my pistol
flashed into my mind. As soon as I
remembered I was not defenceless,
courage glowed again in my heart; and I set
my face resolutely for this man of the island,
and walked briskly towards him.

He was concealed by this time, behind
another tree trunk but he must have been
watching me closely, for as soon as I began
to move in his direction he reappeared and
took a step to meet me. Then he hesitated,
drew back, came forward again, and at

-47-

is, says I, a man can do for himself. But,
mate, my heart is sore for Christian diet.
You mightn't happen to have a piece of
cheese about you, now? No? Well, many's
the long night I've dreamed of
cheese—toasted, mostly—and woke up
again, and here I were.'

'If ever I can get aboard again,' said I, 'you
shall have cheese by the stone.'

All this time he had been feeling the stuff of
my jacket, smoothing my hands, looking at
my boots, and generally, in the intervals of
his speech, showing a childish pleasure in
the presence of a fellow-creature. But at my
last words he perked up into a kind of
startled slyness.

'If ever you can get aboard again, says
you?' he repeated.

'Why, now, who's to hinder you?'

'Not you, I know,' was my reply.

'And right you was,' he cried. 'Now
you—what do you call yourself, mate?'

'Jim,' I told him.

'Jim, Jim,' says he, quite pleased
apparently. 'Well, now, Jim, I've lived that
rough as you'd be ashamed to hear of.
Now, for instance, you wouldn't think I had
had a pious mother—to look at me?' he
asked.

'Why, no, not in particular,' I answered.

'Ah, well,' said he, 'but I had—remarkable
pious. And I was a civil, pious boy, and
could rattle off my catechism that fast, as
you couldn't tell one word from another. And
here's what it come to, Jim, and it begun
with chuck-farthen on the blessed grave-

-48-

'He's the cook; and the ringleader, too.'

He was still holding me by the wrist, and at
that he gave it quite a wring.

'If you was sent by Long John,' he said, 'I'm
as good as pork, and I know it. But where
was you, do you suppose?'

I had made my mind up in a moment, and by
way of answer told him the whole story of
our voyage, and the predicament in which
we found ourselves. He heard me with the
keenest interest, and when I had done he
patted me on the head.

'You're a good lad, Jim,' he said; 'and
you're all in a clove hitch ain't you? Well, you
just put your trust in Ben Gunn—Ben Gunn's
the man to do it. Would you think it likely,
now, that your squire would prove a liberal-
minded one in case of help—him being in a
clove hitch, as you remark?'

I told him the squire was the most liberal of
men.

'Ay, but you see,' returned Ben Gunn, 'I
didn't mean giving me a gate to keep, and a
shuit of livery clothes, and such; that's not
my mark, Jim. What I mean is, would he be
likely to come down to the toon of, say one
thousand pounds out of money that's as
good as a man's own already?'

'I am sure he would,' said I. 'As it was, all
hands were to share.'

'And a passage home?' he added, with a
look of great shrewdness.

'Why,' I cried, 'the squire's a gentleman.
And, besides, if we got rid of the others, we
should want you to help work the vessel
home.'

-49-

'Just you mention them words to your
squire, Jim'—he went on: 'Nor he weren't,
neither—that's the words. Three years he
were the man of this island, light and dark,
fair and rain; and sometimes he would,
maybe, think upon a prayer (says you), and
sometimes he would, maybe, think of his
old mother, so be as she's alive (you'll say);
but the most part of Gunn's time (this is what
you'll say)—the most part of his time Was took
up with another matter. And then you'll give
him a nip, like I do.'

And he pinched me again in the most
confidential manner.

'Then,' he continued—'then you'll up, and
you'll say this:—Gunn is a good man (you'll
say), and he puts a precious sight more
confidence-a precious sight, mind that—in a
gen'leman born than in these gen'lemen of
fortune, having been one hisself.'

'Well,' I said, 'I don't understand one word
that you've been saying. But that's neither
here nor there; for how am I to get on
board?'

'Ah,' said he, 'that's the hitch, for sure. Well,
there's my boat, that I made with my two
hands. I keep her under the white rock. If the
worst come to the worst, we might try that
after dark. Hi!' he broke out, 'what's that?'

For just then, although the sun had still an
hour or two to run, all the echoes of the
island awoke and bellowed to the thunder of
a cannon.

'They have begun to fight!' I cried. 'Follow
me.'

And I began to run towards the anchorage,
my terrors all forgotten; while, close at my
side, the marooned man in his goatskins
trotted easily and lightly.

-50-

safety. With the men in the temper they we
in, it seemed an even chance if we should
see the lad again. We ran on deck. The pitch
was bubbling in the seams; the nasty stench
of the place turned me sick; if ever a man
smelt fever and dysentery, it was in that
abominable anchorage. The six scoundrels
were sitting grumbling under a sail in the
forecastle; ashore we could see the gigs
made fast, and a man sitting in each, hard
by where the river runs in. One of them was
whistling 'Lillibullero.'

Waiting was a strain; and it was decided
that Hunter and I should go ashore with the
jolly-boat, in quest of information. The gigs
had leaned to their right; but Hunter and I
pulled straight in, in the direction of the
stockade upon the chart. The two who were
left guarding their boats seemed in a bustle
at our appearance; 'Lillibullero' stopped
off, and I could see the pair discussing what
they ought to do. Had they gone an told
Silver, all might have turned out differently;
but they had their orders, I suppose and
decided to sit quietly where they were and
hark back again to 'Lillibullero.'

There was a slight bend in the coast, and I
steered so as to put it between us; even
before we landed we had thus lost sight of
the gigs. I jumped out, and came as near
running as I durst, with a big silk
handkerchief under my hat for coolness'
sake, and a brace of pistols ready primed
for safety.

I had not gone a hundred yards when I
reached the stockade.

This was how it was: a spring of clear water
rose almost at the top of a knoll. Well, on the
knoll, and enclosing the spring, they had
clapped a stout log-house, fit to hold two
score of people on a pinch, and loop-holed
for musketry on every side. All round this

-51-

came nigh-hand fainting, doctor when he
heard the cry. Another touch of the rudder
and that man would join us.'

I told my plan to the captain, and between us
we settle on the details of its
accomplishment.

We put old Redruth in the gallery between
the cabin and the forecastle, with three or
four loaded muskets and mattress for
protection. Hunter brought the boat round
under the stern-port, and Joyce and I set to
work loading her with powder tins,
muskets, bags of biscuits, kegs of pork, a
cask of cognac, and my invaluable
medicine chest.

In the meantime, the squire and the captain
stayed on deck and the latter hailed the
coxswain, who was the principal man
aboard.

'Mr Hands,' he said, 'here are two of us
with a brace of pistols each. If any one of
you six make a signal of any description,
that man's dead.'

They were a good deal taken aback; and,
after a little consultation, one and all
tumbled down the fore companion thinking,
no doubt, to take us on the rear. But when
they saw Redruth waiting for them in the
sparred gallery, they went about ship at
once, and a head popped out again on
deck.

'Down, dog!' cries the captain.

And the head popped back again; and we
heard no more, for the time, of these six
very faint-hearted seamen.

By this time, tumbling things in as they
came, we had the jolly-boat loaded as
much as we dared. Joyce and I got out

-52-

we dropped overboard in two fathoms and
a half of water, so that we could see the
bright steel shining far below us in the sun,
on the clean, sandy bottom.

By this time the tide was beginning to ebb,
and the ship was swinging round to her
anchor. Voices were heard faintly halloaing
in the direction of the two gigs; and though
this reassured us for Joyce and Hunter, who
were well to the eastward, it warned our
party to be off.

Redruth retreated from his place in the
gallery, and dropped into the boat, which
we then brought round to the ship's counter,
to be handier for Captain Smollett.

'Now men,' said he, 'do you hear me?'

There was no answer from the forecastle.

'It's to you, Abraham Gray—it's to you, I am
speaking.'

Still no reply.

'Gray,' resumed Mr Smollett, a little louder,
'I am leaving this ship, and I order you to
follow your captain. I know you are a good
man at bottom, and I daresay not one of the
lot of you's as bad as he makes out. I have
my watch here in my hand; I give you thirty
seconds to join me in.'

There was a pause.

'Come, my fine fellow,' continued the
captain, 'don't hang so long in stays. I'm
risking my life, and the lives of these good
gentlemen every second.'

There was a sudden scuffle, a sound of
blows, and out burst Abraham Gray with a
knife-cut on the side of the cheek, and
came running to the captain, like a dog to

-53-

sir,' said I to the captain. I was steering,
while he and Redruth, two fresh men, were
at the oars. 'The tide keeps washing her
down. Could you pull a little stronger?'

'Not without swamping the boat,' said he.
'you must bear up, sir, if you please—bear up
until you see you're gaining.'

I tried, and found by experiment that the tide
kept sweeping us westward until I had laid
her head due east, or just about right angles
to the way we ought to go.

'We'll never get ashore at this rate,' said I.

'If it's the only course that we can lie, sir, we
must even lie it,' returned the captain. 'We
must keep up-stream. You see, sir,' he
went on, 'if once we dropped to leeward of
the landing-place, it's hard to say where we
should get ashore besides the chance of
being boarded by the gigs; whereas, the
way we go the current must slacken, and
then we can dodge back along the shore.'

'The current's less a'ready, sir,' said the
man Gray, who was sitting in the fore-
sheets; 'you can ease her off a bit.'

'Thank you, my man,' said I, quite as if
nothing had happened; for we had all quietly
made up our minds to treat him like one of
ourselves.

Suddenly the captain spoke up again, and I
thought his voice was a little changed.

'The gun!' said he.

'I have thought of that,' said I, for I made
sure he was thinking of a bombardment of
the fort. 'They could never get the gun
ashore, and if they did, they could never
haul it through the woods.'

-54-

The squire raised his gun, the rowing
ceased, and we leaned over to the other
side to keep the balance, and all was so
nicely contrived that we did not ship a drop.

They had the gun, by this time, slewed
round upon the swivel, and Hands, who was
at the muzzle with the rammer, was, in
consequence, the most exposed. However,
we had no luck; for just as Trelawney fired,
down he stooped, the ball whistled over
him, and it was one of the other four who
fell.

The cry he gave was echoed, not only by his
companions on board, but by a great
number of voices from the shore, and
looking in that direction I saw the other
pirates trooping out from among the trees
and tumbling into their places in the boats.

'Here come the gigs, sir,' said I.

'Give way then,' cried the captain. 'We
mustn't mind if we swamp her now. If we
can't get ashore, all's up.'

'Only one of the gigs is being manned, sir,' I
added, 'the crew of the other most likely
going round by shore to cut us off.'

'They'll have a hot run, sir,' returned the
captain. 'Jack ashore, you know. It's not
them I mind; it's the round-shot. Carpet-
bowls! My lady's maid couldn't miss. Tell
us, squire, when you see the match, and
we'll hold water.'

In the meanwhile we had been making
headway at a good pace for a boat so
overloaded, and we had shipped but little
water in the process. We were now close in;
thirty or forty strokes and we should beach
her; for the ebb had already disclosed a
narrow belt of sand below the clustering
trees. The gig was no longer to be feared;

-55-

had gone down with the boat.

To add to our concern, we heard voices
already drawing near us in the woods along
shore; and we had not only the danger of
being cut off from the stockade in our half-
crippled state, but the fear before us
whether, if Hunter and Joyce were attacked
by half a dozen, they would have the sense
an conduct to stand firm. Hunter was
steady, that we knew; Joyce was a doubtful
case—a pleasant, polite man for a valet, and
to brush one's clothes, but not entirely fitted
for a man of war.

With all this in our minds, we waded ashore
as fast as we could, leaving behind us the
poor jolly-boat, and a good half of all our
powder and provisions.

Chapter XVIII Narrative Continued by the
Doctor: End of the First Day's Fighting

WE made our best speed across the strip of
wood that now divided us from the
stockade; and at every step we took the
voices of the buccaneers rang nearer. Soon
we could hear their footfalls as they ran, and
the cracking of the branches as they
breasted across a bit of thicket.

I began to see we should have a brush for it
in earnest, and looked to my priming.

'Captain,' said I, 'Trelawney is the dead
shot. Give him your gun; his own is useless.'

They exchanged guns, and Trelawney,
silent and cool as he had been since the
beginning of the bustle, hung a moment on
his heel to see that all was fit for service. At
the same time, observing Gray to be
unarmed, I handed him my cutlass. It did all
our hearts good to see him spit in his hand,
knit his brows, and make the blade sing
through the air. It was plain from every line of

-56-

Poor old fellow, he had not uttered one
word of surprise, complaint, fear, or even
acquiescence, from the very beginning of
our troubles till now, when we had laid him
down in the log-house to die. He had lain
like a Trojan behind his mattress in the
gallery; he had followed every order silently
doggedly, and well; he was the oldest of our
party by a score of years; and now, sullen,
old, serviceable servant, it was he that was
to die.

The squire dropped down beside him on his
knees and kissed his hand, crying like a
child.

'Be I going, doctor?' he asked.

'Tom, my man,' said I, 'you're going home.'

'I wish I had had a lick at them with the gun
first,' he replied.

'Tom,' said the squire, 'say you forgive me,
won't you?'

'Would that be respectful like, from me to
you, squire?' was the answer. 'Howsoever,
so be it, amen!'

After a little while of silence, he said he
thought somebody might read a prayer. 'It's
the custom, sir,' he added apologetically.
And not long after, without another word, he
passed away.

In the meantime the captain, whom I had
observed to be wonderfully swollen about
the chest and pockets, had turned out a
great many various stores—the British
colours, a Bible a coil of stoutish rope, pen,
ink, the log-book, and pounds of tobacco.
He had found a longish fir-tree lying felled
an trimmed in the enclosure, and, with the
help of Hunter, he had set it up at the corner
of the log-house where the trunks crossed

-57-

Just then, with a roar and a whistle, a round-
shot passed high above the roof of the log-
house and plumped far beyond us in the
wood.

'Oho!' said the captain. 'Blaze away!
You've little enough powder already my
lads.'

At the second trial, the aim was better, and
the ball descended inside the stockade,
scattering a cloud of sand, but doing no
further damage.

'Captain,' said the squire, 'the house is
quite invisible from the ship. It must be the
flag they are aiming at. Would it not be wiser
to take it in?'

'Strike my colours!' cried the captain. 'No,
sir, not I;' and as soon as he had said the
words, I think we all agreed with him. For it
was not only a piece of stout, seamanly,
good feeling; it was good policy besides,
and showed our enemies that we despised
their cannonade.

All through the evening they kept thundering
away. Ball after ball flew over or fell short, or
kicked up the sand in the enclosure; but they
had to fire so high that the shot fell dead and
buried itself in the soft sand. We had no
ricochet to fear; and though one popped in
through the roof of the log-house and out
again through the floor, we soon got used to
that sort of horse-play, and minded it no
more than cricket.

'There is one thing good about all this,'
observed the captain; 'the wood in front of
us is likely clear. The ebb has made a good
while; our stores should be uncovered.
Volunteers to go and bring in pork.'

Gray and Hunter were the first to come
forward. Well armed, they stole out of the

-58-

'Now,' said he, 'there's your friends, sure
enough.'

'Far more likely it's the mutineers,' I
answered.

'That!' he cried. 'Why, in a place like this,
where nobody puts in but gen'lemen of
fortune, Silver would fly the Jolly Roger, you
don't make no doubt of that. No; that's your
friends. There's been blows, too, and I
reckon your friends has had the best of it;
and here they are ashore in the old
stockade, as was made years and years
ago by Flint. Ah, he was the man to have a
headpiece, was Flint! Barring rum, his
match were never seen. He were afraid of
none, not he; on'y Silver—Silver was that
genteel.'

'Well,' said I, 'that may be so, and so be it;
all the more reason that I should hurry on and
join my friends.'

'Nay, mate,' returned Ben, 'not you. you're
a good boy or I'm mistook; but you're on'y a
boy, all told. Now, Ben Gunn is fly. Rum
wouldn't bring me there, where you're
going—not rum wouldn't I, till I see your born
gen'leman and gets it on his word of
honour. And you won't forget my words: "A
precious sight (that's what you'll say),
precious sight more confidence"—and then
nips him.'

And he pinched me the third time with the
same air of cleverness.

'And when Ben Gunn is wanted, you know
where to find him, Jim. Just where you
found him to-day. And him that comes is to
have a white thing in his hand: and he's to
come alone. Oh! and you'll say this: "Ben
Gunn," says you, "has reasons of his own."'

'Well,' said I, 'I believe I understand. You

-59-

sand lay uncovered; the air, after the heat of
the day, chilled me through my jacket.

The Hispaniola still lay where she had
anchored; but, sure enough, there was the
Jolly Roger—the black flag of piracy—flying
from her peak. Even as I looked, there
came another red flash and another report,
that sent the echoes clattering, and one
more round-shot whistled through the air. It
was the last of the cannonade.

I lay for some time, watching the bustle
which succeeded the attack. Men were
demolishing something with axes on the
beach near the stockade; the poor jolly-
boat, I afterwards discovered. Away, near
the mouth of the river, a great fire was
glowing among the trees, and between that
point and the ship one of the gigs kept
coming and going, the men, whom I had
seen so gloomy, shouting at the oars like
children. But there was a sound in their
voices which suggested rum.

At length I thought I might return towards the
stockade. I was pretty far down on the low,
sandy spit that encloses the anchorage to
the east, and is joined at half-water to
Skeleton Island; and now, as I rose to my
feet, I saw, some distance further down the
spit, and rising from among low bushes, an
isolated rock, pretty high, and peculiarly
white in colour. It occurred to me that this
might be the white rock of which Ben Gunn
had spoken, and that some day or other a
boat might be wanted, and I should know
where to look for one.

Then I skirted among the woods until I had
regained the rear, or shoreward side, of the
stockade, and was soon warmly welcomed
by the faithful party.

I had soon told my story, and began to look
about me. The log-house was made of

-60-

face tied up in a bandage for a cut he had
got in breaking away from the mutineers;
and that poor old Tom Redruth, still
unburied, lay along the wall, stiff and stark,
under the Union Jack.

If we had been allowed to sit idle, we should
all have fallen in the blues but Captain
Smollett was never the man for that. All
hands were called up before him, and he
divided us into watches. The doctor, and
Gray, and I, for one; the squire, Hunter, and
Joyce, upon the other. Tired though we all
were, two were sent out for firewood; two
more were set to dig a grave for Redruth;
the doctor was named cook; I was put
sentry at the door; and the captain himself
went from one to another, keeping up our
spirits and lending a hand wherever it was
wanted.

From time to time the doctor came to the
door for a little air and to rest his eyes,
which were almost smoked out of his head;
and whenever he did so, he had a word for
me.

'That man Smollett,' he said once, 'is a
better man than I am. And when I say that it
means a deal, Jim.'

Another time he came and was silent for a
while. Then he put his head on one side,
and looked at me.

'Is this Ben Gunn a man?' he asked.

'I do not know, sir,' said I. 'I am not very sure
whether he's sane.'

'If there's any doubt about the matter, he is,'
returned the doctor. 'A man who has been
three years biting his nails on a desert
island, Jim, can't expect to appear as sane
as you or me. It doesn't lie in human nature.
Was it cheese you said he had a fancy for?'

-61-

'So,' he added, 'if we are not all shot down
first they'll be glad to be packing in the
schooner. It's always a ship, and they can
get to buccaneering again, I suppose.'

'First ship that ever I lost,' said Captain
Smollett.

I was dead tired, as you may fancy; and
when I got to sleep which was not till after a
great deal of tossing, I slept like log of
wood.

The rest had long been up, and had already
breakfasted and increased the pile of
firewood by about half as much again,
when I was wakened by a bustle and the
sound of voices.

'Flag of truce!' I heard someone say; and
then, immediately after, with a cry of
surprise, 'Silver himself!'

And, at that, up I jumped, and, rubbing my
eyes, ran to a loophole in thewall.

Chapter XX Silver's Embassy

SURE enough, there were two men just
outside the stockade, one of them waving a
white cloth; the other, no less a person than
Silver himself, standing placidly by.

It was still quite early, and the coldest
morning that I think I ever was abroad in; a
chill that pierced into the marrow. The sky
was bright and cloudless overhead, and the
tops of the trees shone rosily in the sun. But
where Silver stood with his lieutenant all
was still in shadow, and they waded knee
deep in a low, white vapour, that had
crawled during the night out of the morass.
The chill and the vapour taken together told
a poor tale of the island. It was plainly a
damp, feverish, unhealthy spot.

-62-

'My man,' said Captain Smollett, 'I have not
the slightest desire to talk to you. If you wish
to talk to me, you can come, that's all. If
there's any treachery, it'll be on your side,
and the Lord help you.'

'That's enough, cap'n,' shouted Long John,
cheerily. 'A word from you's enough. I know
a gentleman, and you may lay to that.'

We could see the man who carried the flag
of truce attempting to hold Silver back. Nor
was that wonderful, seeing how cavalier
had been the captain's answer. But Silver
laughed at him aloud, and slapped him on
the back, as if the idea of alarm had been
absurd. Then he advanced to the stockade,
threw over his crutch, got a leg up, and with
great vigour and skill succeeded in
surmounting the fence and dropping safely
to the other side.

I will confess that I was far too much taken
up with what was going on to be of the
slightest use as sentry; indeed, I had
already deserted my eastern loophole, and
crept up behind the captain, who had now
seated himself on the threshold, with his
elbows on his knees, his head in his hands,
and his eyes fixed on the water, as it
bubbled out of the old iron kettle in the sand.
He was whistling to himself, 'Come,
Lasses and Lads.'

Silver had terrible hard work getting up the
knoll. What with the steepness of the incline,
the thick tree stumps, and the soft sand, he
and his crutch were as helpless as a ship in
stays. But he stuck to it like a man in silence,
and at last arrived before the captain, whom
he saluted in the handsomest style. He was
tricked out in his best; an immense blue
coat, thick with brass buttons, hung as low
as to his knees, and a fine laced hat was set
on the back of his head.

-63-

'Well?' says Captain Smollett, as cool as
can be.

All that Silver said was a riddle to him, but
you would never have guessed it from his
tone. As for me, I began to have an inkling.
Ben Gunn's last words came back to my
mind. I began to suppose that he had paid
the buccaneers a visit while they all lay
drunk together round their fire, and I
reckoned up with glee that we had only
fourteen enemies to deal with.

'Well, here it is,' said Silver. 'We want that
treasure, an we'll have it—that's our point!
You would just as soon save your lives, I
reckon; and that's yours. You have a chart,
haven't you?'

'That's as may be,' replied the captain.

'Oh, well, you have, I know that,' returned
Long John. 'You needn't be so husky with a
man; there aint a particle of service in that,
and you may lay to it. What I mean is, we
want your chart. Now, I never meant you no
harm, myself.'

'That won't do with me, my man,'
interrupted the captain. 'We know exactly
what you meant to do, and we don't care;
for now, you see, you can't do it.'

And the captain looked at him calmly, and
proceeded to fill a pipe.

'If Abe Gray——' Silver broke out.

'Avast there!' cried Mr Smollett. 'Gray told
me nothing, and I asked him nothing; and
what's more I would see you and him and
this whole island blown clean out of the
water into blazes first. So there's my mind
for you, my man, on that.'

This little whiff of temper seemed to cool

-64-

John. 'Refuse that, and you've seen the last
of me but musket-balls.'

'Very good,' said the captain. 'Now you'll
hear me. If you'll come up one by one,
unarmed, I'll engage to clap you all in irons,
and take you home to a fair trial in England.
If you won't my name is Alexander Smollett,
I've flown my sovereign's colours, and I'll
see you all to Davy Jones. You can't find the
treasure. You can't sail the ship—there's not
a man among you fit to sail the ship. You
can't fight us—Gray, there, got away from
five of you. Your ship's in irons, Master
Silver; you're on a lee shore, and so you'll
find. I stand here and tell you so; and they'd
the last good words you'll get from me; for,
in the name of heaven, I'll put a bullet in your
back when next I meet you. Tramp, my lad.
Bundle out of this, please, hand over hand,
and double quick.'

Silver's face was a picture; his eyes started
in his head with wrath. He shook the fire out
of his pipe.

'Give me a hand up!' he cried.

'Not I,' returned the captain.

'Who'll give me a hand up?' he roared.

Not a man among us moved. Growling the
foulest imprecations, he crawled along the
sand till he got hold of the porch and could
hoist himself again upon his crutch. Then he
spat into the spring.

'There!' he cried, 'that's what I think of ye.
Before an hour's out, I'll stove in your old
block-house like a rum puncheon. Laugh,
by thunder, laugh! Before an hour's out, ye'll
laugh upon the other side. Them that die'll
be the lucky ones.'

And with a dreadful oath he stumbled off,

-65-

the south side where the porch was, two
again; and on the north side, five. There
was a round score of muskets for the seven
of us; the firewood had been built into four
piles—tables, you might say-one about the
middle of each side, and on each of these
tables some ammunition and four loaded
muskets were laid ready to the hand of the
defenders. In the middle, the cutlasses lay
ranged.

'Toss out the fire,' said the captain; 'the chill
is past, and we mustn't have smoke in our
eyes.'

The iron fire-basket was carried bodily out
by Mr Trelawney, and the embers
smothered among sand.

'Hawkins hasn't had his breakfast.
Hawkins, help yourself, and back to your
post to eat it,' continued Captain Smollett.
'Lively, now, my lad; you'll want it before
you've done. Hunter, serve out a round of
brandy to all hands.'

And while this was going on, the captain
completed, in his own mind, the plan of the
defence.

'Doctor, you will take the door,' he
resumed. 'See, and don't expose yourself;
keep within, and fire through the porch.
Hunter, take the east side, there. Joyce, you
stand by the west, my man. Mr Trelawney,
you are the best shot—you and Gray will take
this long north side, with the five loopholes;
it's there the danger is. If they can get up to
it, and fire in upon us through our own ports,
things would begin to look dirty. Hawkins,
neither you nor I are much account at the
shooting we'll stand by to load and bear a
hand.'

As the captain had said, the chill was past.
As soon as the sun had climbed above our

-66-

'Did you hit your man?' asked the captain.

'No, sir,' replied Joyce. 'I believe not, sir.'

'Next best thing to tell the truth,' muttered
Captain Smollett. 'Load his gun, Hawkins.
How many should you say there were on
your side, doctor?'

'I know precisely,' said Dr Livesey. 'Three
shots were fired on this side. I saw the three
flashes—two close together—one farther to
the west.'

'Three!' repeated the captain. 'And how
many on yours, Mr Trelawney?'

But this was not so easily answered. There
had come many from the north seven, by the
squire's computation; eight or nine,
according to Gray. From the east and west
only a single shot had been fired. It was
plain, therefore, that the attack would be
developed from the north, and that on the
other three sides we were only to be
annoyed by a show of hostilities. But
Captain Smollett made no change in his
arrangements. If the mutineers succeeded
in crossing the stockade, he argued, they
would take possession of any unprotected
loophole, and shoot us down like rats in our
own stronghold.

Nor had we much time left to us for thought.
Suddenly, with a loud huzza, a little cloud of
pirates leaped from the woods on the north
side, and ran straight on the stockade. At
the same moment, the fire was once more
opened from the woods, and a rifle-ball
sang through the doorway, and knocked the
doctor's musket into bits.

The boarders swarmed over the fence like
monkeys. Squire and Gray fired again and
yet again; three men fell, one forwards into
the enclosure, two back on the outside. But

-67-

shots, and one loud groan, rang in my ears.

'Out, lads, out, and fight 'em in the open!
Cutlasses!' cried the captain.

I snatched a cutlass from the pile, and
someone, at the same time snatching
another, gave me a cut across the knuckles
which I hardly felt. I dashed out of the door
into the clear sunlight. Someone was close
behind, I knew not whom. Right in front, the
doctor was pursuing his assailant down the
hill, and, just as my eyes fell upon him, beat
down his guard, and sent him sprawling on
his back, with a great slash across the face.

'Round the house, lads! round the house!'
cried the captain and even in the hurly-burly I
perceived a change in his voice.

Mechanically I obeyed, turned eastwards,
and with my cutlass raised, ran round the
corner of the house. Next moment I was
face to face with Anderson. He roared
aloud, and his hanger went up above his
head, flashing in the sunlight. I had not time
to be afraid, but, as the blow still hung
impending, leaped in a trice upon one side,
and missing my foot in the soft sand, rolled
headlong down the slope.

When I had first sallied from the door, the
other mutineers had been already
swarming up the palisade to make an end
of us. One man, in a red night-cap, with his
cutlass in his mouth, had even got upon the
top and thrown a leg across. Well, so short
had been the interval, that when I found my
feet again all was in the same posture, the
fellow with the red night-cap still half-way
over, another still just showing his head
above the top of the stockade. And yet, in
this breath of time, the fight was over, and
the victory was ours.

Gray, following close behind me, had cut

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'Five!' cried the captain. 'Come, that's
better. Five against three leaves us four to
nine. That's better odds than we had at
starting. We were seven to nineteen then, or
thought we were, and that's as bad to
bear.'1

[Footnote:] 1The mutineers were soon only
eight in number, for the man shot by Mr
Trelawney on board the schooner died that
same evening of his wound. But this was, of
course, not known till after by the faithful
party.

PART V. My Sea Adventure

Chapter XXII How My Sea Adventure
Began

THERE was no return of the mutineers—not
so much as another shot out of the woods.
They had 'got their rations for that day,' as
the captain put it, and we had the place to
ourselves and a quiet time to overhaul the
wounded and get dinner. Squire and I
cooked outside in spite of the danger, and
even outside we could hardly tell what we
were at, for horror of the loud groans that
reached us from the doctor's patients.

Out of the eight men who had fallen in the
action, only three still breathed—that one of
the pirates who had been shot at the
loophole, Hunter, and Captain Smollett; and
of these the first two were as good as dead;
the mutineer, indeed, died under the
doctor's knife, and Hunter, do what we
could, never recovered consciousness in
this world. He lingered all day, breathing
loudly like the old buccaneer at home in his
apoplectic fit; but the bones of his chest had
been crushed by the blow and his skull
fractured in falling, and some time in the
following night, without sign or sound, he
went to his Maker.

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Gunn.'

I was right, as appeared later; but, in the
meantime, the house being stifling hot, and
the little patch of sand inside the palisade
ablaze with midday sun, I began to get
another thought into my head, which was
not by any means so right. What I began to
do was to envy the doctor, walking in the
cool shadow of the woods, with the birds
about him, and the pleasant smell of the
pines, while I sat grilling, with my clothes
stuck to the hot resin, and so much blood
about me, and so many poor dead bodies
lying all around, that I took a disgust of the
place that was almost as strong as fear.

All the time I was washing out the block-
house, and then washing up the things from
dinner, this disgust and envy kept growing
stronger and stronger, till at last, being near
a bread-bag, and no one then observing
me, I took the first step towards my
escapade, and filled both pockets of my
coat with biscuit.

I was a fool, if you like, and certainly I was
going to do a foolish, over-bold act; but I
was determined to do it with all the
precautions in my power. These biscuits,
should anything befall me, would keep me,
at least, from starving till far on in the next
day.

The next thing I laid hold of was a brace of
pistols, and as I already had a powder-horn
and bullets, I felt myself well supplied with
arms.

As for the scheme I had in my head, it was
not a bad one in itself. I was to go down the
sandy spit that divides the anchorage on the
east from the open sea, find the white rock I
had observed last evening, and ascertain
whether it was there or not that Ben Gunn
had hidden his boat; a thing quite worth

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by day and night; and I scarce believe there
is one spot in the island where a man would
be out of earshot of their noise.

I walked along beside the surf with great
enjoyment, till, thinking I was now got far
enough to the south, I took the cover of
some thick bushes, and crept warily up to
the ridge of the spit.

Behind me was the sea, in front the
anchorage. The sea breeze, as though it
had the sooner blown itself out by its
unusual violence, was already at an end; it
had been succeeded by light, variable airs
from the south and south-east, carrying
great banks of fog; and the anchorage,
under lee of Skeleton Island, lay still and
leaden as when first we entered it. The
Hispaniola, in that unbroken mirror, was
exactly portrayed from the truck to the water
line, the Jolly Roger hanging from her peak.

Alongside lay one of the gigs, Silver in the
stern-sheets—him I could always
recognise—while a couple of men were
leaning over the stern bulwarks, one of them
with a red cap—the very rogue that I had seen
some hours before stride-legs upon the
palisade. Apparently they were talking and
laughing, though at that distance—upwards
of a mile—I could, of course, hear no word of
what was said. All at once, there began the
most horrid, unearthly screaming, which at
first startled me badly, though I had soon
remembered the voice of Captain Flint, and
even thought I could make out the bird by her
bright plumage as she sat perched upon her
master's wrist.

Soon after the jolly-boat shoved off and
pulled for shore, and the man with the red
cap and his comrade went below by the
cabin companion.

Just about the same time the sun had gone

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obstinately fond of it, that I would have
carried it out, I believe, in the teeth of
Captain Smollett himself. This was to slip
out under cover of the night, cut the
Hispaniola adrift, and let her go ashore
where she fancied. I had quite made up my
mind that the mutineers, after their repulse
of the morning, had nothing nearer their
hearts than to up anchor and away to sea;
this, I thought, it would be a fine thing to
prevent, and now that I had seen how they
left their watchmen unprovided with a boat, I
thought it might be done with little risk.

Down I sat to wait for darkness, and made a
hearty meal of biscuit. It was a night out of
ten thousand for my purpose. The fog had
now buried all heaven. As the last rays of
daylight dwindled and disappeared,
absolute blackness settled down on
Treasure Island. And when, at last, I
shouldered the coracle, and groped my way
stumblingly out of the hollow where I had
supped, there were but two points visible on
the whole anchorage.

One was the great fire on shore, by which
the defeated pirates lay carousing in the
swamp. The other, a mere blur of light upon
the darkness, indicated the position of the
anchored ship. She had swung round to the
ebb her bow was now towards me—the only
lights on board were in the cabin; and what I
saw was merely a reflection on the fog of
the strong rays that flowed from the stern
window.

The ebb had already run some time, and I
had to wade through a long belt of swampy
sand, where I sank several times above the
ankle, before I came to the edge of the
retreating water, and wading a little way in,
with some strength and dexterity, set my
coracle, keel downwards, on the surface.

Chapter XXIII The Ebb-Tide Runs

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This brought me to a full stop, and if fortune
had not again particularly favoured me, I
should have had to abandon my design. But
the light airs which had begun blowing from
the south-east and south had hauled round
after nightfall into the south-west. Just while
I was meditating, a puff came, caught the
Hispaniola, and forced her up into the
current; and to my great joy, I felt the hawser
slacken in my grasp, and the hand by which I
held it dip for a second under water.

With that I made my mind up, took out my
gully, opened it with my teeth, and cut one
strand after another, till the vessel swung
only by two. Then I lay quiet, waiting to sever
these last when the strain should be once
more lightened by a breath of wind.

All this time I had heard the sound of loud
voices from the cabin; but, to say truth, my
mind had been so entirely take up with other
thoughts that I had scarcely given ear. Now,
however, when I had nothing else to do, I
began to pay more heed.

One I recognised for the coxswain's, Israel
Hands, that had been Flint's gunner in
former days. The other was, of course, my
friend of the red night-cap. Both men were
plainly the worse of drink, and they were still
drinking; for, even while I was listening, one
of them, with a drunken cry, opened the
stern window and threw out something,
which I divined to be an empty bottle. But
they were not only tipsy; it was plain that
they were furiously angry. Oaths flew like
hailstones, and every now and then there
came forth such an explosion as I thought
was sure to end in blows. But each time the
quarrel passed off, and the voices
grumbled lower for a while, until the next
crisis came, and, in its turn, passed away
without result.

On shore, I could see the glow of the great

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to get the upper hand, and I determined I
should have one look through the cabin
window.

I pulled in hand over hand on the cord, and,
when I judged myself near enough, rose at
infinite risk to about half my height, and thus
commanded the roof and a slice of the
interior of the cabin.

By this time the schooner and her little
consort were gliding pretty swiftly through
the water; indeed, we had already fetched
up level with the camp fire. The ship was
talking, as sailors say, loudly, treading the
innumerable ripples with an incessant
weltering splash; and until I got my eye
above the window-sill I could not
comprehend why the watchmen had taken
no alarm. One glance, however, was
sufficient; and it was only one glance that I
durst take from that unsteady skiff. It
showed me Hands and his companion
locked together in deadly wrestle, each with
a hand upon the other's throat.

I dropped upon the thwart again, none too
soon, for I was near overboard. I could see
nothing for the moment but these two
furious, encrimsoned faces, swaying
together under the smoky lamp; and I shut
my eyes to let them grow once more familiar
with the darkness.

The endless ballad had come to an end at
last, and the whole diminished company
about the camp fire had broken into the
chorus I had heard so often:—

'Fifteen men on the dead man's chest—

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest—

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!'

-74-

upon my fate as it approached.

So I must have lain for hours, continually
beaten to and fro upon the billows, now and
again wetted with flying sprays, and never
ceasing to expect death at the next plunge.
Gradually weariness grew upon me; a
numbness, an occasional stupor, fell upon
my mind even in the midst of my terrors; until
sleep at last supervened, and in my sea-
tossed coracle I lay and dreamed of home
and the old 'Admiral Benbow.'

Chapter XXIV The Cruise of the Coracle

IT was broad day when I awoke, and found
myself tossing at the south-west end of
Treasure Island. The sun was up, but was
still hid from me behind the great bulk of the
Spy-glass, which on this side descended
almost to the sea in formidable cliffs.

Haulbowline Head and Mizzen-mast Hill
were at my elbow; the hill bare and dark, the
head bound with cliffs forty or fifty feet high,
and fringed with great masses of fallen
rock. I was scarce a quarter of a mile to
seaward, and it was my first thought to
paddle in and land.

That notion was soon given over. Among
the fallen rocks the breakers spouted and
bellowed; loud reverberations, heavy
sprays flying and falling, succeeded one
another from second to second; and I saw
myself, if I ventured nearer, dashed to death
upon the rough shore, or spending my
strength in vain to scale the beetling crags.

Nor was that all; for crawling together on flat
tables of rocks or letting themselves drop
into the sea with loud reports, I beheld huge
slimy monsters—soft snails as it were, of
incredible bigness—two or three score of
them together, making the rocks to echo
with their barkings.

-75-

small change in the disposition of the
weight will produce violent changes in the
behaviour of a coracle. And I had hardly
moved before the boat, giving up at once
her gentle dancing movement, ran straight
down a slope of water so steep that it made
me giddy, and struck her nose, with a spout
of spray, deep into the side of the next
wave.

I was drenched and terrified, and fell
instantly back into my old position,
whereupon the coracle seemed to find her
head again, and led me as softly as before
among the billows. It was plain she was not
to be interfered with, and at that rate, since I
could in no way influence her course, what
hope had I left of reaching land?

I began to be horribly frightened, but I kept
my head, for all that. First, moving with all
care, I gradually baled out the coracle with
my sea-cap; then getting my eye once more
above the gunwale, I set myself to study
how it was she managed to slip so quietly
through the rollers.

I found each wave, instead of the big,
smooth glossy mountain it looks from shore,
or from a vessel's deck, was for all the
world like any range of hills on the dry land,
full of peaks and smooth places and valleys.
The coracle, left to herself, turning from side
to side, threaded, so to speak, her way
through these lower parts, and avoided the
steep slopes and higher, toppling summits
of the wave.

'Well, now,' thought I to myself, 'it is plain I
must lie where I am, and not disturb the
balance; but it is plain, also, that I can put
the paddle over the side, and from time to
time, in smooth places, give her a shove or
two towards land.' No sooner thought upon
than done. There I lay on my elbows, in the
most trying attitude, and every now and

-76-

going about in chase. At last, however, she
fell right into the wind's eye, was taken
dead aback, and stood there a while
helpless, with her sails shivering.

'Clumsy fellows,' said I; 'they must still be
drunk as owls.' And I thought how Captain
Smollett would have set them skipping.

Meanwhile, the schooner gradually fell off,
and filled again upon another tack, sailed
swiftly for a minute or so, and brought up
once more dead in the wind's eye. Again
and again was this repeated. To and fro, up
and down, north, south, east, and west, the
Hispaniola sailed by swoops and dashes,
and at each repetition ended as she had
begun, with idly-flapping canvas. It became
plain to me that nobody was steering. And,
if so, where were the men? Either they were
dead drunk, or had deserted her, I thought,
and perhaps if I could get on board, I might
return the vessel to her captain.

The current was bearing coracle and
schooner southward at an equal rate. As for
the latter's sailing, it was so wild and
intermittent, and she hung each time so long
in irons, that she certainly gained nothing, if
she did not even lose. If only I dared to sit up
and paddle, I made sure that I could
overhaul her. The scheme had an air of
adventure that inspired me, and the thought
of the water-breaker beside the fore
companion doubled my growing courage.

Up I got, was welcomed almost instantly by
another cloud of spray, but this time stuck to
my purpose; and set myself, with all my
strength and caution, to paddle after the
unsteered Hispaniola. Once I shipped a sea
so heavy that I had to stop and bale, with my
heart fluttering like a bird; but gradually I got
into the way of the thing, and guided my
coracle among the waves, with only now
and then a blow upon her bows and a dash