“Fair! I reckon so,” said the sea-cook. “You lost the ship; I found the treasure. Who’s the better man at that? And now I resign, by thunder! Elect whom you please to be your cap’n now; I’m done with it.”
“Silver!” they cried. “Barbecue forever! Barbecue for cap’n!”
“So that’s the toon, is it?” cried the cook. “George, I reckon you’ll have to wait another turn, friend, and lucky for you as I’m not a revengeful man. But that was never my way. And now, shipmates, this black spot? ‘Tain’t much good now, is it? Dick’s crossed his luck and spoiled his Bible, and that’s about all.”
“It’ll do to kiss the book on still, won’t it?” growled Dick, who was evidently uneasy at the curse he had brought upon himself.
“A Bible with a bit cut out!” returned Silver, derisively. “Not it. It don’t bind no more’n a ballad-book.”
“Don’t it, though?” cried Dick, with a sort of joy. “Well, I reckon that’s worth having, too.”
“Here, Jim — here’s a cur’osity for you,” said Silver, and he tossed me the paper.
It was a round about the size of a crown piece. One side was blank, for it had been the last leaf; the other contained a verse or two of Revelation — these words among the rest, which struck sharply home upon my mind: “Without are dogs and murderers.” The printed side had been blackened with wood ash, which already began to come off and soil my fingers; on the blank side had been written with the same material the one word “Deposed.” I have that curiosity beside me at this moment; but not a trace of writing now remains beyond a single scratch, such as a man might make with his thumb-nail.
That was the end of the night’s business. Soon after, with a drink all round, we lay down to sleep, and the outside of Silver’s vengeance was to put George Merry up for sentinel, and threaten him with death if he should prove unfaithful.
It was long ere I could close an eye, and heaven knows I had matter enough for thought in the man whom I had slain that afternoon, in my own most perilous position, and, above all, in the remarkable game that I saw Silver now engaged upon — keeping the mutineers together with one hand, and grasping, with the other, after every means, possible and impossible, to make his peace and save his miserable life. He himself slept peacefully, and snored aloud; yet my heart was sore for him, wicked as he was, to think on the dark perils that environed, and the shameful gibbet that awaited him.
CHAPTER XXX
ON PAROLE
I was wakened — indeed, we were all wakened, for I could see even the sentinel shake himself together from where he had fallen against the doorpost — by a clear, hearty voice hailing us from the margin of the wood:
“Blockhouse, ahoy!” it cried. “Here’s the doctor.”
And the doctor it was. Although I was glad to hear the sound, yet my gladness was not without admixture. I remembered with confusion my insubordinate and stealthy conduct; and when I saw where it had brought me — among what companions and surrounded by what dangers — I felt ashamed to look him in the face.
He must have risen in the dark, for the day had hardly come; and when I ran to a loophole and looked out, I saw him standing, like Silver once before, up to the mid-leg in creeping vapor.
“You, doctor! Top o’ the morning to you, sir!” cried Silver, broad awake and beaming with good nature in a moment. “Bright and early, to be sure; and it’s the early bird, as the saying goes, that gets the rations. George, shake up your timbers, son, and help Doctor Livesey over the ship’s side. All a-doin’ well, your patients was — all well and merry.”
So he pattered on, standing on the hilltop, with his crutch under his elbow, and one hand upon the side of the log-house — quite the old John in voice, manner, and expression.
“We’ve quite a surprise for you, too, sir,” he continued. “We’ve a little stranger here — he! he! A noo boarder and lodger, sir, and looking fit and taut as a fiddle; slep’ like a supercargo, he did, right alongside of John — stem to stem we was, all night.”
Doctor Livesey was by this time across the stockade and pretty near the cook, and I could hear the alteration in his voice as he said:
“Not Jim?”
“The very same Jim as ever was,” says Silver.
The doctor stopped outright, although he did not speak, and it was some seconds before he seemed able to move on.
“Well, well,” he said at last, “duty first and pleasure afterwards, as you might have said yourself, Silver. Let us overhaul these patients of yours.”
A moment afterwards he had entered the blockhouse, and, with one grim nod to me, proceeded with his work among the sick. He seemed under no apprehension, though he must have known that his life, among these treacherous demons, depended on a hair, and he rattled on to his patients as if he were paying an ordinary professional visit in a quiet English family. His manner, I suppose, reacted on the men, for they behaved to him as if nothing had occurred — as if he were still ship’s doctor, and they still faithful hands before the mast.
“You’re doing well, my friend,” he said to the fellow with the bandaged head, “and if ever any person had a close shave, it was you; your head must be as hard as iron. Well, George, how goes it? You’re a pretty color, certainly; why, your liver, man, is upside down. Did you take that medicine? Did he take that medicine, men?”
“Ay, ay, sir, he took it sure enough,” returned Morgan.
“Because, you see, since I am mutineers’ doctor, or prison doctor, as I prefer to call it,” says Doctor Livesey, in his pleasantest way, “I make it a point of honor not to lose a man for King George (God bless him!) and the gallows.”
The rogues looked at each other, but swallowed the home-thrust in silence.
“Dick don’t feel well, sir,” said one.
“Don’t he?” replied the doctor. “Well, step up here, Dick, and let me see your tongue. No, I should be surprised if he did; the man’s tongue is fit to frighten the French. Another fever.”
“Ah, there,” said Morgan, “that comed of sp’iling Bibles.”
“That comed — as you call it — of being arrant asses,” retorted the doctor, “and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most probable — though, of course, it’s only an opinion — that you’ll all have the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out of your systems. Camp in a bog, would you? Silver, I’m surprised at you. You’re less of a fool than many, take you all round; but you don’t appear to me to have the rudiments of a notion of the rules of health.
“Well,” he added, after he had dosed them round, and they had taken his prescriptions, with really laughable humility, more like charity school-children than blood-guilty mutineers and pirates, “well, that’s done for to-day. And now I should wish to have a talk with that boy, please.”
And he nodded his head in my direction carelessly.
George Merry was at the door, spitting and spluttering over some bad-tasted medicine; but at the first word of the doctor’s proposal he swung round with a deep flush, and cried, “No!” and swore.
Silver struck the barrel with his open hand.
“Si-lence!” he roared, and looked about him positively like a lion. “Doctor,” he went on, in his usual tones, “I was thinking of that, knowing as how you had a fancy for the boy. We’re all humbly grateful for your kindness, and, as you see, puts faith in you, and takes the drugs down like that much grog. And I take it I’ve found a way as’ll suit all. Hawkins, will you give me your word of honor as a young gentleman — for a young gentleman you are, although poor born — your word of honor not to slip your cable?”
I readily gave the pledge required.
“Then, doctor,” said Silver, “you just step outside o’ that stockade, and once you’re there, I’ll bring the boy down on the inside, and I reckon you can yarn through the spars. Good-day to you, sir, and all our dooties to the squire and Cap’n Smollett.”
The explosion of
disapproval, which nothing but Silver’s black looks had restrained, broke out immediately the doctor had left the house. Silver was roundly accused of playing double — of trying to make a separate peace for himself — of sacrificing the interests of his accomplices and victims; and, in one word, of the identical, exact thing that he was doing. It seemed to me so obvious, in this case, that I could not imagine how he was to turn their anger. But he was twice the man the rest were, and his last night’s victory had given him a huge preponderance on their minds. He called them all the fools and dolts you can imagine, said it was necessary I should talk to the doctor, fluttered the chart in their faces, asked them if they could afford to break the treaty the very day they were bound a-treasure-hunting.
“No, by thunder!” he cried, “it’s us must break the treaty when the time comes; and till then I’ll gammon that doctor, if I have to ile his boots with brandy.”
And then he bade them get the fire lit, and stalked out upon his crutch, with his hand on my shoulder, leaving them in a disarray, and silenced by his volubility rather than convinced.
“Slow, lad, slow,” he said. “They might round upon us in a twinkle of an eye if we was seen to hurry.”
Very deliberately, then, did we advance across the sand to where the doctor awaited us on the other side of the stockade, and as soon as we were within easy speaking distance, Silver stopped.
“You’ll make a note of this here also, doctor,” said he, “and the boy’ll tell you how I saved his life, and were deposed for it, too, and you may lay to that. Doctor, when a man’s steering as near to the wind as me — playing chuck-farthing with the last breath in his body, like — you wouldn’t think it too much, mayhap, to give him one good word! You’ll please bear in mind it’s not my life only now — it’s that boy’s into the bargain; and you’ll speak me fair, doctor, and give me a bit o’ hope to go on, for the sake of mercy.”
Silver was a changed man, once he was out there and had his back to his friends and the blockhouse; his cheeks seemed to have fallen in, his voice trembled; never was a soul more dead in earnest.
“Why, John, you’re not afraid?” asked Doctor Livesey.
“Doctor, I’m no coward; no, not I — not so much!” and he snapped his fingers. “If I was I wouldn’t say it. But I’ll own up fairly, I’ve the shakes upon me for the gallows. You’re a good man and a true; I never seen a better man! And you’ll not forget what I done good, not any more than you’ll forget the bad, I know. And I step aside — see here — and leave you and Jim alone. And you’ll put that down for me, too, for it’s a long stretch, is that!”
So saying, he stepped back a little way till he was out of earshot, and there sat down upon a tree-stump and began to whistle, spinning round now and again upon his seat so as to command a sight, sometimes of me and the doctor, and sometimes of his unruly ruffians as they went to and fro in the sand, between the fire — which they were busy rekindling — and the house, from which they brought forth pork and bread to make the breakfast.
“So, Jim,” said the doctor, sadly, “here you are. As you have brewed, so shall you drink, my boy. Heaven knows I cannot find it in my heart to blame you; but this much I will say, be it kind or unkind: when Captain Smollett was well you dared not have gone off, and when he was ill, and couldn’t help it by George, it was downright cowardly!”
I will own that I here began to weep. “Doctor,” I said, “you might spare me. I have blamed myself enough; my life’s forfeit anyway, and I should have been dead now if Silver hadn’t stood for me; and, doctor, believe this, I can die — and I dare say I deserve it — but what I fear is torture. If they come to torture me—”
“Jim,” the doctor interrupted, and his voice was quite changed, “Jim, I can’t have this. Whip over, and we’ll run for it.”
“Doctor,” said I, “I passed my word.”
“I know, I know,” he cried. “We can’t help that, Jim, now. I’ll take it on my shoulders, holus-bolus, blame and shame, my boy; but stay here, I cannot let you. Jump! One jump and you’re out, and we’ll run for it like antelopes.”
“No,” I replied, “you know right well you wouldn’t do the thing yourself; neither you, nor squire, nor captain, and no more will I. Silver trusted me; I passed my word, and back I go. But, doctor, you did not let me finish. If they come to torture me, I might let slip a word of where the ship is; for I got the ship, part by luck and part by risking, and she lies in North Inlet, on the southern beach, and just below high water. At half-tide she must be high and dry.”
“The ship!” exclaimed the doctor.
Rapidly I described to him my adventures, and he heard me out in silence.
“There’s a kind of fate in this,” he observed, when I had done. “Every step it’s you that save our lives, and do you suppose by any chance that we are going to let you lose yours? That would be a poor return, my boy. You found out the plot; you found Ben Gunn — the best deed that ever you did, or will do, though you live to ninety. Oh, by Jupiter! and talking of Ben Gunn, why, this is the mischief in person. Silver!” he cried, “Silver! I’ll give you a piece of advice,” he continued, as the cook drew near again; “don’t you be in any great hurry after that treasure.”
“Why, sir, I do my possible, which that ain’t,” said Silver. “I can only, asking your pardon, save my life and the boy’s by seeking for that treasure; and you may lay to that.”
“Well, Silver,” replied the doctor, “if that is so, I’ll go one step farther; look out for squalls when you find it!”
“Sir,” said Silver, “as between man and man, that’s too much and too little. What you’re after, why you left the blockhouse, why you’ve given me that there chart, I don’t know, now, do I? and yet I done your bidding with my eyes shut and never a word of hope! But no, this here’s too much. If you won’t tell me what you mean plain out, just say so, and I’ll leave the helm.”
“No,” said the doctor, musingly, “I’ve no right to say more; it’s not my secret, you see, Silver, or, I give you my word, I’d tell it you. But I’ll go as far with you as I dare go, and a step beyond, for I’ll have my wig sorted by the captain, or I’m mistaken! And first, I’ll give you a bit of hope. Silver, if we both get out alive out of this wolf-trap, I’ll do my best to save you, short of perjury.”
Silver’s face was radiant. “You couldn’t say more, I am sure, sir, not if you was my mother,” he cried.
“Well, that’s my first concession,” added the doctor. “My second is a piece of advice. Keep the boy close beside you, and when you need help, halloo. I’m off to seek it for you, and that itself will show you if I speak at random. Good-by, Jim.”
And Doctor Livesey shook hands with me through the stockade, nodded to Silver, and set off at a brisk pace into the wood.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE TREASURE-HUNT — FLINT’S POINTER
“Jim,” said Silver, when we were alone, “if I saved your life, you saved mine, and I’ll not forget it. I seen the doctor waving you to run for it — with the tail of my eye, I did — and I seen you say no, as plain as hearing. Jim, that’s one to you. This is the first glint of hope I had since the attack failed, and I owe it to you. And now, Jim, we’re to go in for this here treasure-hunting, with sealed orders, too, and I don’t like it; and you and me must stick close, back to back like, and we’ll save our necks in spite o’ fate and fortune.”
Just then a man hailed us from the fire that breakfast was ready, and we were soon seated here and there about the sand over biscuit and fried junk. They had lighted a fire fit to roast an ox; and it was now grown so hot that they could only approach it from the windward, and even there not without precaution. In the same wasteful spirit, they had cooked, I suppose, three times more than we could eat; and one of them, with an empty laugh, threw what was left into the fire, which blazed and roared again over this unusual fuel. I never in my life saw men so careless of the morrow; hand to mouth is the only word that can describe their way of doing; and w
hat 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 showed himself so cunning as he did then.
“Ay, 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 humor 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 Doctor 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!
Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson Page 18
