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

you want with your flag of truce?” he cried.

 

This time it was the other man who replied.

 

“Cap’n Silver, sir, to come on board and make terms,”

he shouted.

 

“Cap’n Silver! Don’t know him. Who’s he?” cried the

captain. And we could hear him adding to himself,

“Cap’n, is it? My heart, and here’s promotion!”

 

Long John answered for himself. “Me, sir. These poor

lads have chosen me cap’n, after your desertion, sir”—

laying a particular emphasis upon the word “desertion.”

“We’re willing to submit, if we can come to terms, and

no bones about it. All I ask is your word, Cap’n

Smollett, to let me safe and sound out of this here

stockade, and one minute to get out o’ shot before a

gun is fired.”

 

“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 “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.

 

“Here you are, my man,” said the captain, raising his

head. “You had better sit down.”

 

“You ain’t a-going to let me inside, cap’n?” complained

Long John. “It’s a main cold morning, to be sure, sir,

to sit outside upon the sand.”

 

“Why, Silver,” said the captain, “if you had pleased to

be an honest man, you might have been sitting in your

galley. It’s your own doing. You’re either my ship’s

cook—and then you were treated handsome—or Cap’n Silver,

a common mutineer and pirate, and then you can go hang!”

 

“Well, well, cap’n,” returned the sea-cook, sitting

down as he was bidden on the sand, “you’ll have to give

me a hand up again, that’s all. A sweet pretty place

you have of it here. Ah, there’s Jim! The top of the

morning to you, Jim. Doctor, here’s my service. Why,

there you all are together like a happy family, in a

manner of speaking.”

 

“If you have anything to say, my man, better say it,”

said the captain.

 

“Right you were, Cap’n Smollett,” replied Silver.

“Dooty is dooty, to be sure. Well now, you look here,

that was a good lay of yours last night. I don’t deny

it was a good lay. Some of you pretty handy with a

handspike-end. And I’ll not deny neither but what some

of my people was shook—maybe all was shook; maybe I

was shook myself; maybe that’s why I’m here for terms.

But you mark me, cap’n, it won’t do twice, by thunder!

We’ll have to do sentry-go and ease off a point or so

on the rum. Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the

wind’s eye. But I’ll tell you I was sober; I was on’y

dog tired; and if I’d awoke a second sooner, I’d ‘a

caught you at the act, I would. He wasn’t dead when I

got round to him, not he.”

 

“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, and 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 ain’t 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 Silver down.

He had been growing nettled before, but now he pulled

himself together.

 

“Like enough,” said he. “I would set no limits to what

gentlemen might consider shipshape, or might not, as

the case were. And seein’ as how you are about to take

a pipe, cap’n, I’ll make so free as do likewise.”

 

And he filled a pipe and lighted it; and the two men sat

silently smoking for quite a while, now looking each other

in the face, now stopping their tobacco, now leaning forward

to spit. It was as good as the play to see them.

 

“Now,” resumed Silver, “here it is. You give us the

chart to get the treasure by, and drop shooting poor

seamen and stoving of their heads in while asleep. You

do that, and we’ll offer you a choice. Either you come

aboard along of us, once the treasure shipped, and then

I’ll give you my affy-davy, upon my word of honour, to

clap you somewhere safe ashore. Or if that ain’t to

your fancy, some of my hands being rough and having old

scores on account of hazing, then you can stay here,

you can. We’ll divide stores with you, man for man;

and I’ll give my affy-davy, as before to speak the

first ship I sight, and send ‘em here to pick you up.

Now, you’ll own that’s talking. Handsomer you couldn’t

look to get, now you. And I hope”—raising his voice—

“that all hands in this here block house will overhaul

my words, for what is spoke to one is spoke to all.”

 

Captain Smollett rose from his seat and knocked out the

ashes of his pipe in the palm of his left hand.

 

“Is that all?” he asked.

 

“Every last word, by thunder!” answered 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’re

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, ploughed down

the sand, was helped across the stockade, after four or

five failures, by the man with the flag of truce, and

disappeared in an instant afterwards among the trees.

 

21

 

The Attack

 

AS soon as Silver disappeared, the captain, who had

been closely watching him, turned towards the interior

of the house and found not a man of us at his post but

Gray. It was the first time we had ever seen him angry.

 

“Quarters!” he roared. And then, as we all slunk back

to our places, “Gray,” he said, “I’ll put your name in

the log; you’ve stood by your duty like a seaman. Mr.

Trelawney, I’m surprised at you, sir. Doctor, I thought

you had worn the king’s coat! If that was how you served

at Fontenoy, sir, you’d have been better in your berth.”

 

The doctor’s watch were all back at their loopholes,

the rest were busy loading the spare muskets, and

everyone with a red face, you may be certain, and a

flea in his ear, as the saying is.

 

The captain looked on for a while in silence. Then

he spoke.

 

“My lads,” said he, “I’ve given Silver a broadside. I

pitched it in red-hot on purpose; and before the hour’s

out, as he said, we shall be boarded. We’re

outnumbered, I needn’t tell you that, but we fight in

shelter; and a minute ago I should have said we fought

with discipline. I’ve no manner of doubt that we can

drub them, if you choose.”

 

Then he went the rounds and saw, as he said, that all

was clear.

 

On the two short sides of the house, east and west,

there were only two loopholes; on 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