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

describe their

way of doing; and what with wasted food and sleeping

sentries, though they were bold enough for a brush and

be done with it, I could see their entire unfitness for

anything like a prolonged campaign.

 

Even Silver, eating away, with Captain Flint upon his

shoulder, had not a word of blame for their recklessness.

And this the more surprised me, for I thought he had

never shown himself so cunning as he did then.

 

“Aye, mates,” said he, “it’s lucky you have Barbecue to

think for you with this here head. I got what I wanted,

I did. Sure enough, they have the ship. Where they have

it, I don’t know yet; but once we hit the treasure, we’ll

have to jump about and find out. And then, mates, us that

has the boats, I reckon, has the upper hand.”

 

Thus he kept running on, with his mouth full of the hot

bacon; thus he restored their hope and confidence, and,

I more than suspect, repaired his own at the same time.

 

“As for hostage,” he continued, “that’s his last talk,

I guess, with them he loves so dear. I’ve got my piece

o’ news, and thanky to him for that; but it’s over and

done. I’ll take him in a line when we go treasure-hunting, for we’ll keep him like so much gold, in case

of accidents, you mark, and in the meantime. Once we

got the ship and treasure both and off to sea like

jolly companions, why then we’ll talk Mr. Hawkins over,

we will, and we’ll give him his share, to be sure, for

all his kindness.”

 

It was no wonder the men were in a good humour now.

For my part, I was horribly cast down. Should the

scheme he had now sketched prove feasible, Silver,

already doubly a traitor, would not hesitate to adopt

it. He had still a foot in either camp, and there was

no doubt he would prefer wealth and freedom with the

pirates to a bare escape from hanging, which was the

best he had to hope on our side.

 

Nay, and even if things so fell out that he was forced

to keep his faith with Dr. Livesey, even then what

danger lay before us! What a moment that would be when

the suspicions of his followers turned to certainty and

he and I should have to fight for dear life—he a cripple

and I a boy—against five strong and active seamen!

 

Add to this double apprehension the mystery that still

hung over the behaviour of my friends, their

unexplained desertion of the stockade, their

inexplicable cession of the chart, or harder still to

understand, the doctor’s last warning to Silver, “Look

out for squalls when you find it,” and you will readily

believe how little taste I found in my breakfast and

with how uneasy a heart I set forth behind my captors

on the quest for treasure.

 

We made a curious figure, had anyone been there to see

us—all in soiled sailor clothes and all but me armed

to the teeth. Silver had two guns slung about him—one

before and one behind—besides the great cutlass at his

waist and a pistol in each pocket of his square-tailed

coat. To complete his strange appearance, Captain

Flint sat perched upon his shoulder and gabbling odds

and ends of purposeless sea-talk. I had a line about

my waist and followed obediently after the sea-cook,

who held the loose end of the rope, now in his free

hand, now between his powerful teeth. For all the

world, I was led like a dancing bear.

 

The other men were variously burthened, some carrying

picks and shovels—for that had been the very first

necessary they brought ashore from the HISPANIOLA—

others laden with pork, bread, and brandy for the

midday meal. All the stores, I observed, came from our

stock, and I could see the truth of Silver’s words the

night before. Had he not struck a bargain with the doctor,

he and his mutineers, deserted by the ship, must have been

driven to subsist on clear water and the proceeds of their

hunting. Water would have been little to their taste; a

sailor is not usually a good shot; and besides all that,

when they were so short of eatables, it was not likely

they would be very flush of powder.

 

Well, thus equipped, we all set out—even the fellow

with the broken head, who should certainly have kept in

shadow—and straggled, one after another, to the beach,

where the two gigs awaited us. Even these bore trace

of the drunken folly of the pirates, one in a broken

thwart, and both in their muddy and unbailed condition.

Both were to be carried along with us for the sake of

safety; and so, with our numbers divided between them,

we set forth upon the bosom of the anchorage.

 

As we pulled over, there was some discussion on the

chart. The red cross was, of course, far too large to

be a guide; and the terms of the note on the back, as

you will hear, admitted of some ambiguity. They ran,

the reader may remember, thus:

 

Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to

the N. of N.N.E.

Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E.

Ten feet.

 

A tall tree was thus the principal mark. Now, right

before us the anchorage was bounded by a plateau from

two to three hundred feet high, adjoining on the north

the sloping southern shoulder of the Spy-glass and

rising again towards the south into the rough, cliffy

eminence called the Mizzen-mast Hill. The top of the

plateau was dotted thickly with pine-trees of varying

height. Every here and there, one of a different

species rose forty or fifty feet clear above its

neighbours, and which of these was the particular “tall

tree” of Captain Flint could only be decided on the

spot, and by the readings of the compass.

 

Yet, although that was the case, every man on board the

boats had picked a favourite of his own ere we were

half-way over, Long John alone shrugging his shoulders

and bidding them wait till they were there.

 

We pulled easily, by Silver’s directions, not to weary

the hands prematurely, and after quite a long passage,

landed at the mouth of the second river—that which

runs down a woody cleft of the Spy-glass. Thence,

bending to our left, we began to ascend the slope

towards the plateau.

 

At the first outset, heavy, miry ground and a matted,

marish vegetation greatly delayed our progress; but by

little and little the hill began to steepen and become

stony under foot, and the wood to change its character

and to grow in a more open order. It was, indeed, a

most pleasant portion of the island that we were now

approaching. A heavy-scented broom and many flowering

shrubs had almost taken the place of grass. Thickets

of green nutmeg-trees were dotted here and there with

the red columns and the broad shadow of the pines; and

the first mingled their spice with the aroma of the

others. The air, besides, was fresh and stirring, and

this, under the sheer sunbeams, was a wonderful

refreshment to our senses.

 

The party spread itself abroad, in a fan shape,

shouting and leaping to and fro. About the centre, and

a good way behind the rest, Silver and I followed—I

tethered by my rope, he ploughing, with deep pants,

among the sliding gravel. From time to time, indeed, I

had to lend him a hand, or he must have missed his

footing and fallen backward down the hill.

 

We had thus proceeded for about half a mile and were

approaching the brow of the plateau when the man upon

the farthest left began to cry aloud, as if in terror.

Shout after shout came from him, and the others began

to run in his direction.

 

“He can’t ‘a found the treasure,” said old Morgan, hurrying

past us from the right, “for that’s clean a-top.”

 

Indeed, as we found when we also reached the spot, it

was something very different. At the foot of a pretty

big pine and involved in a green creeper, which had even

partly lifted some of the smaller bones, a human skeleton

lay, with a few shreds of clothing, on the ground. I

believe a chill struck for a moment to every heart.

 

“He was a seaman,” said George Merry, who, bolder than

the rest, had gone up close and was examining the rags

of clothing. “Leastways, this is good sea-cloth.”

 

“Aye, aye,” said Silver; “like enough; you wouldn’t

look to find a bishop here, I reckon. But what sort of

a way is that for bones to lie? ‘Tain’t in natur’.”

 

Indeed, on a second glance, it seemed impossible to

fancy that the body was in a natural position. But for

some disarray (the work, perhaps, of the birds that had

fed upon him or of the slow-growing creeper that had

gradually enveloped his remains) the man lay perfectly

straight—his feet pointing in one direction, his

hands, raised above his head like a diver’s, pointing

directly in the opposite.

 

“I’ve taken a notion into my old numbskull,” observed

Silver. “Here’s the compass; there’s the tip-top p’int

o’ Skeleton Island, stickin’ out like a tooth. Just

take a bearing, will you, along the line of them bones.”

 

It was done. The body pointed straight in the

direction of the island, and the compass read duly

E.S.E. and by E.

 

“I thought so,” cried the cook; “this here is a

p’inter. Right up there is our line for the Pole Star

and the jolly dollars. But, by thunder! If it don’t

make me cold inside to think of Flint. This is one of

HIS jokes, and no mistake. Him and these six was

alone here; he killed ‘em, every man; and this one he

hauled here and laid down by compass, shiver my

timbers! They’re long bones, and the hair’s been

yellow. Aye, that would be Allardyce. You mind

Allardyce, Tom Morgan?”

 

“Aye, aye,” returned Morgan; “I mind him; he owed me

money, he did, and took my knife ashore with him.”

 

“Speaking of knives,” said another, “why don’t we find his’n

lying round? Flint warn’t the man to pick a seaman’s pocket;

and the birds, I guess, would leave it be.”

 

“By the powers, and that’s true!” cried Silver.

 

“There ain’t a thing left here,” said Merry, still

feeling round among the bones; “not a copper doit nor a

baccy box. It don’t look nat’ral to me.”

 

“No, by gum, it don’t,” agreed Silver; “not nat’ral,

nor not nice, says you. Great guns! Messmates, but if

Flint was living, this would be a hot spot for you and

me. Six they were, and six are we; and bones is what

they are now.”

 

“I saw him dead with these here deadlights,” said

Morgan. “Billy took me in. There he laid, with penny-pieces on his eyes.”

 

“Dead—aye, sure enough he’s dead and gone below,” said

the fellow with the bandage; “but if ever sperrit

walked, it would be Flint’s. Dear heart, but he died

bad, did Flint!”

 

“Aye, that he did,” observed another; “now he raged,

and now he hollered for the rum, and now he sang.

‘Fifteen Men’ were his only song, mates; and I tell you

true, I never rightly liked to hear it since. It was

main hot, and the windy was open, and I hear that old

song comin’ out as clear as clear—and the death-haul

on the man already.”

 

“Come, come,” said Silver; “stow this talk. He’s dead,

and he don’t walk, that I know; leastways, he won’t

walk by day, and you may lay to that. Care