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

on the

other side into the trough as lightly as a bird.

 

I began after a little to grow very bold and sat up to

try my skill at paddling. But even a 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 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 again gave a weak stroke or

two to turn her head to shore.

 

It was very tiring and slow work, yet I did visibly

gain ground; and as we drew near the Cape of the Woods,

though I saw I must infallibly miss that point, I had

still made some hundred yards of easting. I was,

indeed, close in. I could see the cool green tree-tops

swaying together in the breeze, and I felt sure I

should make the next promontory without fail.

 

It was high time, for I now began to be tortured with

thirst. The glow of the sun from above, its

thousandfold reflection from the waves, the sea-water

that fell and dried upon me, caking my very lips with

salt, combined to make my throat burn and my brain

ache. The sight of the trees so near at hand had

almost made me sick with longing, but the current had

soon carried me past the point, and as the next reach

of sea opened out, I beheld a sight that changed the

nature of my thoughts.

 

Right in front of me, not half a mile away, I beheld

the HISPANIOLA under sail. I made sure, of course,

that I should be taken; but I was so distressed for

want of water that I scarce knew whether to be glad or

sorry at the thought, and long before I had come to a

conclusion, surprise had taken entire possession of my

mind and I could do nothing but stare and wonder.

 

The HISPANIOLA was under her main-sail and two

jibs, and the beautiful white canvas shone in the sun

like snow or silver. When I first sighted her, all her

sails were drawing; she was lying a course about north-west, and I presumed the men on board were going round

the island on their way back to the anchorage.

Presently she began to fetch more and more to the

westward, so that I thought they had sighted me and

were going about in chase. At last, however, she fell

right into the wind’s eye, was taken dead aback, and

stood there awhile 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 bail, 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

of foam in my face.

 

I was now gaining rapidly on the schooner; I could see

the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about, and

still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not

choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men

were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down,

perhaps, and do what I chose with the ship.

 

For some time she had been doing the worse thing

possible for me—standing still. She headed nearly due

south, yawing, of course, all the time. Each time she

fell off, her sails partly filled, and these brought

her in a moment right to the wind again. I have said

this was the worst thing possible for me, for helpless

as she looked in this situation, with the canvas cracking

like cannon and the blocks trundling and banging on the

deck, she still continued to run away from me, not only

with the speed of the current, but by the whole amount

of her leeway, which was naturally great.

 

But now, at last, I had my chance. The breeze fell for

some seconds, very low, and the current gradually

turning her, the HISPANIOLA revolved slowly round

her centre and at last presented me her stern, with the

cabin window still gaping open and the lamp over the

table still burning on into the day. The main-sail

hung drooped like a banner. She was stock-still but

for the current.

 

For the last little while I had even lost, but now

redoubling my efforts, I began once more to overhaul

the chase.

 

I was not a hundred yards from her when the wind came

again in a clap; she filled on the port tack and was

off again, stooping and skimming like a swallow.

 

My first impulse was one of despair, but my second was

towards joy. Round she came, till she was broadside on

to me—round still till she had covered a half and then

two thirds and then three quarters of the distance that

separated us. I could see the waves boiling white

under her forefoot. Immensely tall she looked to me

from my low station in the coracle.

 

And then, of a sudden, I began to comprehend. I had

scarce time to think—scarce time to act and save

myself. I was on the summit of one swell when the

schooner came stooping over the next. The bowsprit was

over my head. I sprang to my feet and leaped, stamping

the coracle under water. With one hand I caught the

jib-boom, while my foot was lodged between the stay and

the brace; and as I still clung there panting, a dull

blow told me that the schooner had charged down upon

and struck the coracle and that I was left without

retreat on the HISPANIOLA.

 

25

 

I Strike the Jolly Roger

 

I HAD scarce gained a position on the bowsprit when the

flying jib flapped and filled upon the other tack, with

a report like a gun. The schooner trembled to her keel

under the reverse, but next moment, the other sails still

drawing, the jib flapped back again and hung idle.

 

This had nearly tossed me off into the sea; and now I

lost no time, crawled back along the bowsprit, and

tumbled head foremost on the deck.

 

I was on the lee side of the forecastle, and the main-sail, which was still drawing, concealed from me a

certain portion of the after-deck. Not a soul was to

be seen. The planks, which had not been swabbed since

the mutiny, bore the print of many feet, and an empty

bottle, broken by the neck, tumbled to and fro like a

live thing in the scuppers.

 

Suddenly the HISPANIOLA came right into the wind. The

jibs behind me cracked aloud, the rudder slammed to, the

whole ship gave a sickening heave and shudder, and at the

same moment the main-boom swung inboard, the sheet groaning

in the blocks, and showed me the lee after-deck.

 

There were the two watchmen, sure enough: red-cap on

his back, as stiff as a handspike, with his arms

stretched out like those of a crucifix and his teeth

showing through his open lips; Israel Hands propped

against the bulwarks, his chin on his chest, his hands

lying open before him on the deck, his face as white,

under its tan, as a tallow candle.

 

For a while the ship kept bucking and sidling like a

vicious horse, the sails filling, now on one tack, now

on another, and the boom swinging to and fro till the

mast groaned aloud under the strain. Now and again too

there would come a cloud of light sprays over the

bulwark and a heavy blow of the ship’s bows against the

swell; so much heavier weather was made of it by this

great rigged ship than by my home-made, lop-sided

coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea.

 

At every jump of the schooner, red-cap slipped to and

fro, but—what was ghastly to behold—neither his

attitude nor his fixed teeth-disclosing grin was anyway

disturbed by this rough usage. At every jump too,

Hands appeared still more to sink into himself and

settle down upon the deck, his feet sliding ever the

farther out, and the whole body canting towards the

stern, so that his face became, little by little, hid

from me; and at last I could see nothing beyond his ear

and the frayed ringlet of one whisker.

 

At the same time, I observed, around both of them,

splashes of dark blood upon the planks and began to

feel sure that they had killed each other in their

drunken wrath.

 

While I