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

destined to go far. With a cry John

seized the branch of a tree, whipped the crutch out of

his armpit, and sent that uncouth missile hurtling

through the air. It struck poor Tom, point foremost,

and with stunning violence, right between the shoulders

in the middle of his back. His hands flew up, he gave

a sort of gasp, and fell.

 

Whether he were injured much or little, none could ever

tell. Like enough, to judge from the sound, his back

was broken on the spot. But he had no time given him

to recover. Silver, agile as a monkey even without leg

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 hilltop, 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 blood-stained 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 was clear of the thicket,

I ran as I never ran before, scarce minding the

direction of my flight, so long as it led me from the

murderers; and as I ran, fear grew and grew upon me

until it turned into a kind of frenzy.

 

Indeed, could anyone be more entirely lost than I?

When the gun fired, how should I dare to go down to the

boats among those fiends, still smoking from their crime?

Would not the first of them who saw me wring my neck like

a snipe’s? Would not my absence itself be an evidence

to them of my alarm, and therefore of my fatal knowledge?

It was all over, I thought. Good-bye to the HISPANIOLA;

good-bye to the squire, the doctor, and the captain!

There was nothing left for me but death by starvation

or death by the hands of the mutineers.

 

All this while, as I say, I was still running, and

without taking any notice, I had drawn near to the foot

of the little hill with the two peaks and had got into

a part of the island where the live-oaks grew more

widely apart and seemed more like forest trees in their

bearing and dimensions. Mingled with these were a few

scattered pines, some fifty, some nearer seventy, feet

high. The air too smelt more freshly than down beside

the marsh.

 

And here a fresh alarm brought me to a standstill with

a thumping heart.

 

15

 

The Man of the Island

 

FROM the side of the hill, which was here steep and

stony, a spout of gravel was dislodged and fell

rattling and bounding through the trees. My eyes

turned instinctively in that direction, and I saw a

figure leap with great rapidity behind the trunk of a

pine. What it was, whether bear or man or monkey, I

could in no wise tell. It seemed dark and shaggy; more

I knew not. 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.

And immediately I began to prefer the dangers that I

knew to those I knew not. Silver himself appeared less

terrible in contrast with this creature of the woods,

and I turned on my heel, and looking sharply behind me

over my shoulder, began to retrace 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 been 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 a 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 last,

to my wonder and confusion, threw himself on his knees

and held out his clasped hands in supplication.

 

At that I once more stopped.

 

“Who are you?” I asked.

 

“Ben Gunn,” he answered, and his voice sounded hoarse and

awkward, like a rusty lock. “I’m poor Ben Gunn, I am; and

I haven’t spoke with a Christian these three years.”

 

I could now see that he was a white man like myself and

that his features were even pleasing. His skin,

wherever it was exposed, was burnt by the sun; even his

lips were black, and his fair eyes looked quite

startling in so dark a face. Of all the beggar-men

that I had seen or fancied, he was the chief for

raggedness. He was clothed with tatters of old ship’s

canvas and old sea-cloth, and this extraordinary

patchwork was all held together by a system of the most

various and incongruous fastenings, brass buttons, bits

of stick, and loops of tarry gaskin. About his waist

he wore an old brass-buckled leather belt, which was

the one thing solid in his whole accoutrement.

 

“Three years!” I cried. “Were you shipwrecked?”

 

“Nay, mate,” said he; “marooned.”

 

I had heard the word, and I knew it stood for a

horrible kind of punishment common enough among the

buccaneers, in which the offender is put ashore with a

little powder and shot and left behind on some desolate

and distant island.

 

“Marooned three years agone,” he continued, “and lived

on goats since then, and berries, and oysters. Wherever

a man 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-stones! That’s

what it begun with, but it went further’n that; and so

my mother told me, and predicked the whole, she did, the

pious woman! But it were Providence that put me here.

I’ve thought it all out in this here lonely island, and

I’m back on piety. You don’t catch me tasting rum so

much, but just a thimbleful for luck, of course, the

first chance I have. I’m bound I’ll be good, and I see

the way to. And, Jim”—looking all round him and lowering

his voice to a whisper—“I’m rich.”

 

I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone crazy in

his solitude, and I suppose I must have shown the

feeling in my face, for he repeated the statement

hotly: “Rich! Rich! I says. And I’ll tell you what:

I’ll make a man of you, Jim. Ah, Jim, you’ll bless

your stars, you will, you was the first that found me!”

 

And at this there came suddenly a lowering shadow over

his face, and he tightened his grasp upon my hand and

raised a forefinger threateningly before my eyes.

 

“Now, Jim, you tell me true: that ain’t Flint’s ship?”

he asked.

 

At this I had a happy inspiration. I began to believe

that I had found an ally, and I answered him at once.

 

“It’s not Flint’s ship, and Flint is dead; but I’ll

tell you true, as you ask me—there are some of Flint’s

hands aboard; worse luck for the rest of us.”

 

“Not a man—with one—leg?” he gasped.

 

“Silver?” I asked.

 

“Ah, Silver!” says he. “That were his name.”

 

“He’s the cook, and the ringleader too.”

 

He was still holding me by the wrist, and at that he

give 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