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

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 girdle of trees, it fell

with all its force upon the clearing and drank up the

vapours at a draught. Soon the sand was baking and the

resin melting in the logs of the block house. Jackets

and coats were flung aside, shirts thrown open at the

neck and rolled up to the shoulders; and we stood there,

each at his post, in a fever of heat and anxiety.

 

An hour passed away.

 

“Hang them!” said the captain. “This is as dull as the

doldrums. Gray, whistle for a wind.”

 

And just at that moment came the first news of the attack.

 

“If you please, sir,” said Joyce, “if I see anyone, am

I to fire?”

 

“I told you so!” cried the captain.

 

“Thank you, sir,” returned Joyce with the same quiet civility.

 

Nothing followed for a time, but the remark had set us

all on the alert, straining ears and eyes—the

musketeers with their pieces balanced in their hands,

the captain out in the middle of the block house with

his mouth very tight and a frown on his face.

 

So some seconds passed, till suddenly Joyce whipped up

his musket and fired. The report had scarcely died

away ere it was repeated and repeated from without in a

scattering volley, shot behind shot, like a string of

geese, from every side of the enclosure. Several

bullets struck the log-house, but not one entered; and

as the smoke cleared away and vanished, the stockade

and the woods around it looked as quiet and empty as

before. Not a bough waved, not the gleam of a musket-barrel betrayed the presence of our foes.

 

“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 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 of these, one was evidently more

frightened than hurt, for he was on his feet again in a

crack and instantly disappeared among the trees.

 

Two had bit the dust, one had fled, four had made good

their footing inside our defences, while from the

shelter of the woods seven or eight men, each evidently

supplied with several muskets, kept up a hot though

useless fire on the log-house.

 

The four who had boarded made straight before them for

the building, shouting as they ran, and the men among

the trees shouted back to encourage them. Several shots

were fired, but such was the hurry of the marksmen that

not one appears to have taken effect. In a moment, the

four pirates had swarmed up the mound and were upon us.

 

The head of Job Anderson, the boatswain, appeared at

the middle loophole.

 

“At ‘em, all hands—all hands!” he roared in a voice

of thunder.

 

At the same moment, another pirate grasped Hunter’s

musket by the muzzle, wrenched it from his hands,

plucked it through the loophole, and with one stunning

blow, laid the poor fellow senseless on the floor.

Meanwhile a third, running unharmed all around the

house, appeared suddenly in the doorway and fell with

his cutlass on the doctor.

 

Our position was utterly reversed. A moment since we

were firing, under cover, at an exposed enemy; now it

was we who lay uncovered and could not return a blow.

 

The log-house was full of smoke, to which we owed our

comparative safety. Cries and confusion, the flashes

and reports of pistol-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 down the big

boatswain ere he had time to recover from his last

blow. Another had been shot at a loophole in the very

act of firing into the house and now lay in agony, the

pistol still smoking in his hand. A third, as I had

seen, the doctor had disposed of at a blow. Of the

four who had scaled the palisade, one only remained

unaccounted for, and he, having left his cutlass on the

field, was now clambering out again with the fear of

death upon him.

 

“Fire—fire from the house!” cried the doctor. “And

you, lads, back into cover.”

 

But his words were unheeded, no shot was fired, and the

last boarder made good his escape and disappeared with

the rest into the wood. In three seconds nothing

remained of the attacking party but the five who had

fallen, four on the inside and one on the outside of

the palisade.

 

The doctor and Gray and I ran full speed for shelter.

The survivors would soon be back where they had left

their muskets, and at any moment the fire might recommence.

 

The house was by this time somewhat cleared of smoke,

and we saw at a glance the price we had paid for

victory. Hunter lay beside his loophole, stunned;

Joyce by his, shot through the head, never to move

again; while right in the centre, the squire was

supporting the captain, one as pale as the other.

 

“The captain’s wounded,” said Mr. Trelawney.

 

“Have they run?” asked Mr. Smollett.

 

“All that could, you may be bound,” returned the doctor;

“but there’s five of them will never run again.”

 

“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.”*

 

*The 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.