Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson (best ebook reader txt) 📗

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 at

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

captain. The captain, on his part, never spoke but when

he was spoken to, and then sharp and short and dry, and

not a word wasted. He owned, when driven into a corner,

that he seemed to have been wrong about the crew, that

some of them were as brisk as he wanted to see and all

had behaved fairly well. As for the ship, he had taken

a downright fancy to her. “She’ll lie a point nearer

the wind than a man has a right to expect of his own

married wife, sir. But,” he would add, “all I say is,

we’re not home again, and I don’t like the cruise.”

 

The squire, at this, would turn away and march up and

down the deck, chin in air.

 

“A trifle more of that man,” he would say, “and I

shall explode.”

 

We had some heavy weather, which only proved the

qualities of the HISPANIOLA. Every man on board

seemed well content, and they must have been hard to

please if they had been otherwise, for it is my belief

there was never a ship’s company so spoiled since Noah

put to sea. Double grog was going on the least excuse;

there was duff on odd days, as, for instance, if the

squire heard it was any man’s birthday, and always a

barrel of apples standing broached in the waist for

anyone to help himself that had a fancy.

 

“Never knew good come of it yet,” the captain said to

Dr. Livesey. “Spoil forecastle hands, make devils.

That’s my belief.”

 

But good did come of the apple barrel, as you shall

hear, for if it had not been for that, we should have

had no note of warning and might all have perished by

the hand of treachery.

 

This was how it came about.

 

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 lookout

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 now 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 bows 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.

 

11

 

What I Heard in the Apple Barrel

 

“NO, not I,” said Silver. “Flint was cap’n; I was

quartermaster, along of my timber leg. The same

broadside I lost my leg, old Pew lost his deadlights.

It was a master surgeon, him that ampytated me—out of

college and all—Latin by the bucket, and what not; but

he was hanged like a dog, and sun-dried like the rest,

at Corso Castle. That was Roberts’ men, that was, and

comed of changing names to their ships—ROYAL

FORTUNE and so on. Now, what a ship was christened,

so let her stay, I says. So it was with the CASSANDRA,

as brought us all safe home from Malabar,

after England took the viceroy of the Indies; so it was

with the old WALRUS, Flint’s old ship, as I’ve seen

amuck with the red blood and fit to sink with gold.”

 

“Ah!” cried another voice, that of the youngest hand on

board, and evidently full of admiration. “He was the

flower of the flock, was Flint!”

 

“Davis was a man too, by all accounts,” said Silver.

“I never sailed along of him; first with England, then

with Flint, that’s my story; and now here on my own

account, in a manner of speaking. I laid by nine

hundred safe, from England, and two thousand after

Flint. That ain’t bad for a man before the mast—all

safe in bank. ‘Tain’t earning now, it’s saving does

it, you may lay to that. Where’s all England’s men

now? I dunno. Where’s Flint’s? Why, most on ‘em

aboard here, and glad to get the duff—been begging

before that, some on ‘em. Old Pew, as had lost his

sight, and might have thought shame, spends twelve

hundred pound in a year, like a lord in Parliament.

Where is he now? Well, he’s dead now and under hatches;

but for two year before that, shiver my timbers, the

man was starving! He begged, and he stole, and he cut

throats, and starved at that, by the powers!”

 

“Well, it ain’t 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

I 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,

ain’t 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 were when we weighed anchor.

But my old missis has it all by now. And the Spy-glass is

sold, lease and goodwill and rigging; and the old girl’s off

to meet me. I would tell you where, for I trust you, but

it’d make jealousy among the mates.”

 

“And can you trust your missis?” asked the other.

 

“Gentlemen of fortune,” returned the cook, “usually

trusts little among themselves, and right they are, you may

lay to it. But I have a way with me, I have. When a mate

brings a slip on his cable—one as knows me, I mean—it

won’t be in the same world with old John. There was some

that was feared of Pew, and some that was feared of Flint;

but Flint his own self was feared of me. Feared he was, and

proud. They was the roughest crew afloat, was Flint’s; the

devil himself would have been feared to go to sea with them.

Well now, I tell you, I’m not a boasting man, and you seen

yourself how easy I keep company, but when I was quartermaster,

LAMBS wasn’t the word for Flint’s old buccaneers. Ah, you may

be sure of yourself in old John’s ship.”

 

“Well, I tell you now,” replied the lad, “I didn’t half

a quarter like the job till I had this talk with you,

John; but there’s my hand on it now.”

 

“And a brave lad you were, and smart too,” answered

Silver, shaking hands so heartily that all the barrel

shook, “and a finer figurehead for a gentleman of

fortune I never clapped my eyes on.”

 

By this time I had begun to understand the meaning of

their terms. By a “gentleman of fortune” they plainly

meant neither more nor less than a common pirate, and

the little scene that I had overheard was the last act

in the corruption of one of the honest 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 ain’t much