The Collected Adventure Tales of R. L. Stevenson (Illustrated Edition). Robert Louis Stevenson
no fool, is Dick.” And he turned his quid and spat. “But look here,” he went on, “here’s what I want to know, Barbecue: how long are we a-going to stand off and on like a blessed bumboat? I’ve had a’most enough o’ Cap’n Smollett; he’s hazed me long enough, by thunder! I want to go into that cabin, I do. I want their pickles and wines, and that.”
“Israel,” said Silver, “your head ain’t much account, nor ever was. But you’re able to hear, I reckon; leastways, your ears is big enough. Now, here’s what I say: you’ll berth forward, and you’ll live hard, and you’ll speak soft, and you’ll keep sober till I give the word; and you may lay to that, my son.”
“Well, I don’t say no, do I?” growled the coxswain. “What I say is, when? That’s what I say.”
“When! By the powers!” cried Silver. “Well now, if you want to know, I’ll tell you when. The last moment I can manage, and that’s when. Here’s a first-rate seaman, Cap’n Smollett, sails the blessed ship for us. Here’s this squire and doctor with a map and such — I don’t know where it is, do I? No more do you, says you. Well then, I mean this squire and doctor shall find the stuff, and help us to get it aboard, by the powers. Then we’ll see. If I was sure of you all, sons of double Dutchmen, I’d have Cap’n Smollett navigate us half-way back again before I struck.”
“Why, we’re all seamen aboard here, I should think,” said the lad Dick.
“We’re all forecastle hands, you mean,” snapped Silver. “We can steer a course, but who’s to set one? That’s what all you gentlemen split on, first and last. If I had my way, I’d have Cap’n Smollett work us back into the trades at least; then we’d have no blessed miscalculations and a spoonful of water a day. But I know the sort you are. I’ll finish with ’em at the island, as soon’s the blunt’s on board, and a pity it is. But you’re never happy till you’re drunk. Split my sides, I’ve a sick heart to sail with the likes of you!”
“Easy all, Long John,” cried Israel. “Who’s a-crossin’ of you?”
“Why, how many tall ships, think ye, now, have I seen laid aboard? And how many brisk lads drying in the sun at Execution Dock?” cried Silver. “And all for this same hurry and hurry and hurry. You hear me? I seen a thing or two at sea, I have. If you would on’y lay your course, and a p’int to windward, you would ride in carriages, you would. But not you! I know you. You’ll have your mouthful of rum tomorrow, and go hang.”
“Everybody knowed you was a kind of a chapling, John; but there’s others as could hand and steer as well as you,” said Israel. “They liked a bit o’ fun, they did. They wasn’t so high and dry, nohow, but took their fling, like jolly companions every one.”
“So?” says Silver. “Well, and where are they now? Pew was that sort, and he died a beggar-man. Flint was, and he died of rum at Savannah. Ah, they was a sweet crew, they was! On’y, where are they?”
“But,” asked Dick, “when we do lay ’em athwart, what are we to do with ’em, anyhow?”
“There’s the man for me!” cried the cook admiringly. “That’s what I call business. Well, what would you think? Put ’em ashore like maroons? That would have been England’s way. Or cut ’em down like that much pork? That would have been Flint’s, or Billy Bones’s.”
“Billy was the man for that,” said Israel. “‘Dead men don’t bite,’ says he. Well, he’s dead now hisself; he knows the long and short on it now; and if ever a rough hand come to port, it was Billy.”
“Right you are,” said Silver; “rough and ready. But mark you here, I’m an easy man — I’m quite the gentleman, says you; but this time it’s serious. Dooty is dooty, mates. I give my vote — death. When I’m in Parlyment and riding in my coach, I don’t want none of these sea-lawyers in the cabin a-coming home, unlooked for, like the devil at prayers. Wait is what I say; but when the time comes, why, let her rip!”
“John,” cries the coxswain, “you’re a man!”
“You’ll say so, Israel when you see,” said Silver. “Only one thing I claim — I claim Trelawney. I’ll wring his calf’s head off his body with these hands, Dick!” he added, breaking off. “You just jump up, like a sweet lad, and get me an apple, to wet my pipe like.”
You may fancy the terror I was in! I should have leaped out and run for it if I had found the strength, but my limbs and heart alike misgave me. I heard Dick begin to rise, and then someone seemingly stopped him, and the voice of Hands exclaimed, “Oh, stow that! Don’t you get sucking of that bilge, John. Let’s have a go of the rum.”
“Dick,” said Silver, “I trust you. I’ve a gauge on the keg, mind. There’s the key; you fill a pannikin and bring it up.”
Terrified as I was, I could not help thinking to myself that this must have been how Mr. Arrow got the strong waters that destroyed him.
Dick was gone but a little while, and during his absence Israel spoke straight on in the cook’s ear. It was but a word or two that I could catch, and yet I gathered some important news, for besides other scraps that tended to the same purpose, this whole clause was audible: “Not another man of them’ll jine.” Hence there were still faithful men on board.
When Dick returned, one after another of the trio took the pannikin and drank — one “To luck,” another with a “Here’s to old Flint,” and Silver himself saying, in a kind of song, “Here’s to ourselves, and hold your luff, plenty of prizes and plenty of duff.”
Just then a sort of brightness fell upon me in the barrel, and looking up, I found the moon had risen and was silvering the mizzen-top and shining white on the luff of the fore-sail; and almost at the same time the voice of the lookout shouted, “Land ho!”
Chapter XII
Council of War
There was a great rush of feet across the deck. I could hear people tumbling up from the cabin and the forecastle, and slipping in an instant outside my barrel, I dived behind the fore-sail, made a double towards the stern, and came out upon the open deck in time to join Hunter and Dr. Livesey in the rush for the weather bow.
There all hands were already congregated. A belt of fog had lifted almost simultaneously with the appearance of the moon. Away to the south-west of us we saw two low hills, about a couple of miles apart, and rising behind one of them a third and higher hill, whose peak was still buried in the fog. All three seemed sharp and conical in figure.
So much I saw, almost in a dream, for I had not yet recovered from my horrid fear of a minute or two before. And then I heard the voice of Captain Smollett issuing orders. The HISPANIOLA was laid a couple of points nearer the wind and now sailed a course that would just clear the island on the east.
“And now, men,” said the captain, when all was sheeted home, “has any one of you ever seen that land ahead?”
“I have, sir,” said Silver. “I’ve watered there with a trader I was cook in.”
“The anchorage is on the south, behind an islet, I fancy?” asked the captain.
“Yes, sir; Skeleton Island they calls it. It were a main place for pirates once, and a hand we had on board knowed all their names for it. That hill to the nor’ard they calls the Fore-mast Hill; there are three hills in a row running south’ard — fore, main, and mizzen, sir. But the main — that’s the big un, with the cloud on it — they usually calls the Spy-glass, by reason of a lookout they kept when they was in the anchorage cleaning, for it’s there they cleaned their ships, sir, asking your pardon.”
“I have a chart here,” says Captain Smollett. “See if that’s the place.”
Long John’s