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

said the captain, and that was all he said.

 

What a supper I had of it that night, with all my

friends around me; and what a meal it was, with Ben

Gunn’s salted goat and some delicacies and a bottle of

old wine from the HISPANIOLA. Never, I am sure,

were people gayer or happier. And there was Silver,

sitting back almost out of the firelight, but eating

heartily, prompt to spring forward when anything was

wanted, even joining quietly in our laughter—the same

bland, polite, obsequious seaman of the voyage out.

 

34

 

And Last

 

THE next morning we fell early to work, for the

transportation of this great mass of gold near a mile

by land to the beach, and thence three miles by boat to

the HISPANIOLA, was a considerable task for so small a

number of workmen. The three fellows still abroad upon

the island did not greatly trouble us; a single sentry on

the shoulder of the hill was sufficient to ensure us against

any sudden onslaught, and we thought, besides, they had had

more than enough of fighting.

 

Therefore the work was pushed on briskly. Gray and Ben

Gunn came and went with the boat, while the rest during

their absences piled treasure on the beach. Two of the

bars, slung in a rope’s end, made a good load for a

grown man—one that he was glad to walk slowly with.

For my part, as I was not much use at carrying, I was

kept busy all day in the cave packing the minted money

into bread-bags.

 

It was a strange collection, like Billy Bones’s hoard

for the diversity of coinage, but so much larger and so

much more varied that I think I never had more pleasure

than in sorting them. English, French, Spanish,

Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double

guineas and moidores and sequins, the pictures of all

the kings of Europe for the last hundred years, strange

Oriental pieces stamped with what looked like wisps of

string or bits of spider’s web, round pieces and square

pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to

wear them round your neck—nearly every variety of

money in the world must, I think, have found a place in

that collection; and for number, I am sure they were

like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping

and my fingers with sorting them out.

 

Day after day this work went on; by every evening a

fortune had been stowed aboard, but there was another

fortune waiting for the morrow; and all this time we

heard nothing of the three surviving mutineers.

 

At last—I think it was on the third night—the doctor

and I were strolling on the shoulder of the hill where

it overlooks the lowlands of the isle, when, from out

the thick darkness below, the wind brought us a noise

between shrieking and singing. It was only a snatch

that reached our ears, followed by the former silence.

 

“Heaven forgive them,” said the doctor; “‘tis

the mutineers!”

 

“All drunk, sir,” struck in the voice of Silver

from behind us.

 

Silver, I should say, was allowed his entire liberty,

and in spite of daily rebuffs, seemed to regard himself

once more as quite a privileged and friendly dependent.

Indeed, it was remarkable how well he bore these

slights and with what unwearying politeness he kept on

trying to ingratiate himself with all. Yet, I think,

none treated him better than a dog, unless it was Ben

Gunn, who was still terribly afraid of his old

quartermaster, or myself, who had really something to

thank him for; although for that matter, I suppose, I

had reason to think even worse of him than anybody

else, for I had seen him meditating a fresh treachery

upon the plateau. Accordingly, it was pretty gruffly

that the doctor answered him.

 

“Drunk or raving,” said he.

 

“Right you were, sir,” replied Silver; “and precious

little odds which, to you and me.”

 

“I suppose you would hardly ask me to call you a humane

man,” returned the doctor with a sneer, “and so my

feelings may surprise you, Master Silver. But if I

were sure they were raving—as I am morally certain

one, at least, of them is down with fever—I should

leave this camp, and at whatever risk to my own

carcass, take them the assistance of my skill.”

 

“Ask your pardon, sir, you would be very wrong,” quoth

Silver. “You would lose your precious life, and you

may lay to that. I’m on your side now, hand and glove;

and I shouldn’t wish for to see the party weakened, let

alone yourself, seeing as I know what I owes you. But

these men down there, they couldn’t keep their word—

no, not supposing they wished to; and what’s more, they

couldn’t believe as you could.”

 

“No,” said the doctor. “You’re the man to keep your

word, we know that.”

 

Well, that was about the last news we had of the three

pirates. Only once we heard a gunshot a great way off

and supposed them to be hunting. A council was held,

and it was decided that we must desert them on the island

—to the huge glee, I must say, of Ben Gunn, and with the

strong approval of Gray. We left a good stock of powder

and shot, the bulk of the salt goat, a few medicines, and

some other necessaries, tools, clothing, a spare sail, a

fathom or two of rope, and by the particular desire of the

doctor, a handsome present of tobacco.

 

That was about our last doing on the island. Before

that, we had got the treasure stowed and had shipped

enough water and the remainder of the goat meat in case

of any distress; and at last, one fine morning, we weighed

anchor, which was about all that we could manage, and stood

out of North Inlet, the same colours flying that the captain

had flown and fought under at the palisade.

 

The three fellows must have been watching us closer

than we thought for, as we soon had proved. For coming

through the narrows, we had to lie very near the

southern point, and there we saw all three of them

kneeling together on a spit of sand, with their arms

raised in supplication. It went to all our hearts, I

think, to leave them in that wretched state; but we

could not risk another mutiny; and to take them home

for the gibbet would have been a cruel sort of

kindness. The doctor hailed them and told them of the

stores we had left, and where they were to find them.

But they continued to call us by name and appeal to us,

for God’s sake, to be merciful and not leave them to

die in such a place.

 

At last, seeing the ship still bore on her course and

was now swiftly drawing out of earshot, one of them—I

know not which it was—leapt to his feet with a hoarse

cry, whipped his musket to his shoulder, and sent a shot

whistling over Silver’s head and through the main-sail.

 

After that, we kept under cover of the bulwarks, and

when next I looked out they had disappeared from the

spit, and the spit itself had almost melted out of

sight in the growing distance. That was, at least, the

end of that; and before noon, to my inexpressible joy,

the highest rock of Treasure Island had sunk into the

blue round of sea.

 

We were so short of men that everyone on board had to

bear a hand—only the captain lying on a mattress in

the stern and giving his orders, for though greatly

recovered he was still in want of quiet. We laid her

head for the nearest port in Spanish America, for we

could not risk the voyage home without fresh hands; and

as it was, what with baffling winds and a couple of

fresh gales, we were all worn out before we reached it.

 

It was just at sundown when we cast anchor in a most

beautiful land-locked gulf, and were immediately

surrounded by shore boats full of Negroes and Mexican

Indians and half-bloods selling fruits and vegetables

and offering to dive for bits of money. The sight of

so many good-humoured faces (especially the blacks),

the taste of the tropical fruits, and above all the

lights that began to shine in the town made a most

charming contrast to our dark and bloody sojourn on the

island; and the doctor and the squire, taking me along

with them, went ashore to pass the early part of the

night. Here they met the captain of an English man-of-war, fell in talk with him, went on board his ship,

and, in short, had so agreeable a time that day was

breaking when we came alongside the HISPANIOLA.

 

Ben Gunn was on deck alone, and as soon as we came on

board he began, with wonderful contortions, to make us

a confession. Silver was gone. The maroon had

connived at his escape in a shore boat some hours ago,

and he now assured us he had only done so to preserve

our lives, which would certainly have been forfeit if

“that man with the one leg had stayed aboard.” But

this was not all. The sea-cook had not gone empty-handed. He had cut through a bulkhead unobserved and

had removed one of the sacks of coin, worth perhaps

three or four hundred guineas, to help him on his

further wanderings.

 

I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him.

 

Well, to make a long story short, we got a few hands on

board, made a good cruise home, and the HISPANIOLA

reached Bristol just as Mr. Blandly was beginning to

think of fitting out her consort. Five men only of

those who had sailed returned with her. “Drink and the

devil had done for the rest,” with a vengeance,

although, to be sure, we were not quite in so bad a

case as that other ship they sang about:

 

With one man of her crew alive,

 

What put to sea with seventy-five.

 

All of us had an ample share of the treasure and used

it wisely or foolishly, according to our natures.

Captain Smollett is now retired from the sea. Gray not

only saved his money, but being suddenly smit with the

desire to rise, also studied his profession, and he is

now mate and part owner of a fine full-rigged ship,

married besides, and the father of a family. As for

Ben Gunn, he got a thousand pounds, which he spent or

lost in three weeks, or to be more exact, in nineteen

days, for he was back begging on the twentieth. Then

he was given a lodge to keep, exactly as he had feared

upon the island; and he still lives, a great favourite,

though something of a butt, with the country boys, and

a notable singer in church on Sundays and saints’ days.

 

Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable

seafaring man with one leg has at last gone clean out

of my life; but I dare say he met his old Negress, and

perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain

Flint. It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his

chances of comfort in another world are very small.

 

The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I

know, where Flint buried them; and certainly they shall

lie there for me. Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring

me back again to that accursed island; and the worst

dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf

booming about its coasts or start upright in