The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 6

He was not only useless as an officer, and a bad influence amongst the men, but it was plain that at this rate he must soon kill himself outright; so nobody was much surprised, nor very sorry, when one dark night, with a head sea, he disappeared entirely and was seen no more.

“Overboard!” said the captain. “Well, gentlemen, that saves the trouble of putting him in irons.”

But there we were, without a mate; and it was necessary, of course, to advance one of the men. The boatswain, Job Anderson, was the likeliest man aboard, and, though he kept his old title, he served in a way as mate. Mr. Trelawney had followed the sea, and his knowledge made him very useful, for he often took a watch himself in easy weather. And the coxswain, Israel Hands, was a careful, wily, old, experienced seaman, who could be trusted at a pinch with almost anything.

He was a great confidant of Long John Silver, and so the mention of his name leads me on to speak of our ship’s cook, Barbecue, as the men called him.

Aboard-ship he carried his crutch by a lanyard round his neck, to have both hands as free as possible. It was something to see him wedge the foot of the crutch against a bulkhead, and, propped against it, yielding to every movement of the ship, get on with his cooking like some one safe ashore. Still more strange was it to see him in the heaviest of weather cross the deck. He had a line or two rigged up to help him across the widest spaces – Long John’s earrings they were called; and he would hand himself from one place to another, now using the crutch, now trailing it alongside by the lanyard, as quickly as another man could walk. Yet some of the men who had sailed with him before expressed their pity to see him so reduced.

“He’s no common man, Barbecue,” said the coxswain to me. “He had good schooling in his young days, and can speak like a book when so minded; and brave – a lion’s nothing alongside of Long John! I seen him grapple four, and knock their heads together – him unarmed.”

All the crew respected, and even obeyed him. He had a way of talking to each, and doing everybody some particular service. To me he was unweariedly kind; and always glad to see me in the galley, which he kept as clean as a new pin; the dishes hanging up burnished, and his parrot in a cage in one corner.

“Come away, Hawkins,” he would say; “come and have a yarn with John. Nobody more welcome than yourself, my son. Sit you down and hear the news. Here’s Cap’n Flint – I calls my parrot Cap’n Flint, after the famous buccaneer – here’s Cap’n Flint predicting success to our v’yage. – Wasn’t you, cap’n?”

And the parrot would say, with great rapidity, “Pieces of eight! pieces of eight! pieces of eight!” till you wondered that it was not out of breath, or till John threw his handkerchief over the cage.

“Now, that bird,” he would say, “is, maybe, two hundred years old, Hawkins – they lives for ever mostly; and if anybody’s seen more wickedness, it must be the devil himself. She’s sailed with England, the great Cap’n England, the pirate. She’s been at Madagascar, and at Malabar, and Surinam, and Providence, and Portobello. She was at the fishing up of the wrecked plate ships. It’s there she learned ‘Pieces of eight,’ and little wonder; three hundred and fifty thousand of ’em, Hawkins! She was at the boarding of the Viceroy of the Indies out of Goa, she was; and to look at her you would think she was a babby. But you smelt powder – didn’t you, cap’n?”

“Stand by to go about,” the parrot would scream.

“Ah, she’s a handsome craft, she is,” the cook would say, and give her sugar from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at the bars and swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness. “There,” John would add, “you can’t touch pitch and not be mucked, lad. Here’s this poor old innocent bird o’ mine swearing blue fire, and none the wiser, you may lay to that. She would swear the same, in a manner of speaking, before chaplain.” And John would touch his forelock with a solemn way he had, that made me think he was the best of men.

In the meantime the squire and Captain Smollett were still on pretty distant terms with one another. The squire made no bones about the matter; he despised the captain. The captain, on his part, never spoke but when he was spoken to, and then sharp and short and dry, and not a word wasted. He owned, when driven into a corner, that he seemed to have been wrong about the crew, that some of them were as brisk as he wanted to see, and all had behaved fairly well. As for the ship, he had taken a downright fancy to her. “She’ll lie a point nearer the wind than a man has a right to expect of his own married wife, sir. But,” he would add, “all I say is we’re not home again, and I don’t like the cruise.”

The squire, at this, would turn away and march up and down the deck, chin in air.

“A trifle more of that man,” he would say, “and I should explode.”

We had some heavy weather, which only proved the qualities of the Hispaniola. Every man on board seemed well content, and they must have been hard to please if they had been otherwise; for it is my belief that there was never a ship’s company so spoiled since Noah put to sea. Double grog was going on the least excuse; there was duff on odd days, as, for instance, if the squire heard it was any man’s birthday, and always a barrel of apples standing broached in the waist, for any one to help himself that had a fancy.

“Never knew good come of it yet,” the captain said to Dr. Livesey. “Spoil foc’s’le hands, make devils. That’s my belief.”

But good did come of the apple-barrel, as you shall hear; for if it had not been for that we should have had no note of warning, and might all have perished by the hand of treachery.

This was how it came about.

We had ran up the trades to get the wind of the island we were after – I am not allowed to be more plain, – and now we were running down for it with a bright look-out day and night. It was about the last day of our outward voyage, by the largest computation; some time that night, or, at latest, before noon of the morrow, we should sight the Treasure Island. We were heading s. s.w., and had a steady breeze abeam and a quiet sea. The Hispaniola rolled steadily, dipping her bowsprit now and then with a whiff of spray. All was drawing alow and aloft; every one was in the bravest spirits, because we were now so near an end of the first part of our adventure.

Now, just after sundown, when all my work was over, and I was on my way to my berth, it occurred to me that I should like an apple. I ran on deck. The watch was all forward looking out for the island. The man at the helm was watching the luff of the sail, and whistling away gently to himself; and that was the only sound excepting the swish of the sea against the bows and around the sides of the ship.

In I got bodily into the apple-barrel, and found there was scarce an apple left; but, sitting down there in the dark, what with the sound of the waters and the rocking movement of the ship, I had either fallen asleep, or was on the point of doing so, when a heavy man sat down with rather a clash close by. The barrel shook as he leaned his shoulders against it, and I was just about to jump up when the man began to speak. It was Silver’s voice, and, before I had heard a dozen words, I would not have shown myself for all the world, but lay there, trembling and listening, in the extreme of fear and curiosity; for from these dozen words I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended upon me alone.

CHAPTER XI

WHAT I HEARD IN THE APPLE-BARREL

“No, not I,” said Silver. “Flint was cap’n; I was quartermaster, along of my timber leg. The same broadside I lost my leg old Pew lost his dead-lights. It was a master surgeon, him that ampytated me – out of college and all – Latin by the bucket, and what not; but he was hanged like a dog, and sun-dried like the rest, at Corso Castle. That was Roberts’ men, that was, and comed of changing names to their ships —Royal Fortune and so on. Now, what a ship was christened, so let her stay, I say. So it was with the Cassandra, as brought us all safe home from Malabar, after England took the Viceroy of the Indies; so it was with the old Walrus, Flint’s old ship, as I’ve seen a-muck with the red blood and fit to sink with gold.”

“Ah!” cried another voice, that of the youngest hand on board, and evidently full of admiration, “he was the flower of the flock, was Flint!”

“Davis was a man, too, by all accounts,” said Silver. “I never sailed along of him; first with England, then with Flint, that’s my story; and now here on my own account, in a manner of speaking. I laid by nine hundred safe, from England, and two thousand after Flint. That ain’t bad for a man before the mast – all safe in bank. ’Tain’t earning now, it’s saving does it, you may lay to that. Where’s all England’s men now? I dunno. Where’s Flint’s? Why, most on ’em aboard here, and glad to get the duff – been begging before that, some on ’em. Old Pew, as had lost his sight, and might have thought shame, spends twelve hundred pound in a year, like a lord in Parliament. Where is he now? Well, he’s dead now and under hatches; but for two year before that, shiver my timbers! the man was starving. He begged, and he stole, and he cut throats, and starved at that, by the powers!”

“Well, it ain’t much use, after all,” said the young seaman.

“’Tain’t much use for fools, you may lay to it – that, nor nothing,” cried Silver. “But now, you look here: you’re young, you are, but you’re as smart as paint. I see that when I set my eyes on you, and I’ll talk to you like a man.”

You may imagine how I felt when I heard this abominable old rogue addressing another in the very same words of flattery as he had used to myself. I think, if I had been able, that I would have killed him through the barrel. Meantime he ran on, little supposing he was overheard.

“Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They lives rough, and they risk swinging, but they eat and drink like fighting cocks, and when a cruise is done, why, it’s hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings in their pockets. Now, the most goes for rum and a good fling, and to sea again in their shirts. But that’s not the course I lay. I puts it all away, some here, some there, and none too much anywheres, by reason of suspicion. I’m fifty, mark you; once back from this cruise, I set up gentleman in earnest. Time enough, too, says you. Ah, but I’ve lived easy in the meantime; never denied myself o’ nothing heart desires, and slep’ soft and ate dainty all my days, but when at sea. And how did I begin? Before the mast, like you!”

“Well,” said the other, “but all the other money’s gone now, ain’t it? You daren’t show face in Bristol after this.”

“Why, where might you suppose it was?” asked Silver derisively.

“At Bristol, in banks and places,” answered his companion.

“It were,” said the cook; “it were when we weighed anchor. But my old missis has it all by now. And the ‘Spy-glass’ is sold, lease and goodwill and rigging; and the old girl’s off to meet me. I would tell you where, for I trust you; but it ’ud make jealousy among the mates.”

“And can you trust your missis?” asked the other.

“Gentlemen of fortune,” returned the cook, “usually trusts little among themselves, and right they are, you may lay to it. But I have a way with me, I have. When a mate brings a slip on his cable – one as knows me, I mean – it won’t be in the same world with old John. There was some that was feared of Pew, and some that was feared of Flint; but Flint his own self was feared of me. Feared he was, and proud. They was the roughest crew afloat, was Flint’s; the devil himself would have been feared to go to sea with them. Well, now, I tell you, I’m not a boasting man, and you seen yourself how easy I keep company; but when I was quartermaster, lambs wasn’t the word for Flint’s old buccaneers. Ah, you may be sure of yourself in old John’s ship.”

“Well, I tell you now,” replied the lad, “I didn’t half a quarter like the job till I had this talk with you, John; but there’s my hand on it now.”

“And a brave lad you were, and smart too,” answered Silver, shaking hands so heartily that all the barrel shook, “and a finer figurehead for a gentleman of fortune I never clapped my eyes on.”

By this time I had begun to understand the meaning of their terms. By a “gentleman of fortune” they plainly meant neither more nor less than a common pirate, and the little scene that I had overheard was the last act in the corruption of one of the honest hands – perhaps of the last one left aboard. But on this point I was soon to be relieved, for, Silver giving a little whistle, a third man strolled up and sat down by the party.

“Dick’s square,” said Silver.

“Oh, I know’d Dick was square,” returned the voice of the coxswain, Israel Hands. “He’s 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 bum-boat? 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 foc’s’le 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 to-morrow, and go hang.”

“Everybody know’d 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 of that sort, and he died a beggarman. 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 some one 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 look-out 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 foc’s’le; 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 look-out 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 eyes burned in his head as he took the chart; but, by the fresh look of the paper, I knew he was doomed to disappointment. This was not the map we found in Billy Bones’s chest, but an accurate copy, complete in all things – names and heights and soundings – with the single exception of the red crosses and the written notes. Sharp as must have been his annoyance, Silver had the strength of mind to hide it.

“Yes, sir,” said he, “this is the spot, to be sure; and very prettily drawed out. Who might have done that, I wonder? The pirates were too ignorant, I reckon. Ay, here it is: ‘Capt. Kidd’s Anchorage’ – just the name my shipmate called it. There’s a strong current runs along the south, and then away nor’ard up the west coast. Right you was, sir,” says he, “to haul your wind and keep the weather of the island. Leastways, if such was your intention as to enter and careen, and there ain’t no better place for that in these waters.”

“Thank you, my man,” says Captain Smollett. “I’ll ask you, later on, to give us a help. You may go.”

I was surprised at the coolness with which John avowed his knowledge of the island; and I own I was half-frightened when I saw him drawing nearer to myself. He did not know, to be sure, that I had overheard his council from the apple-barrel, and yet I had, by this time, taken such a horror of his cruelty, duplicity, and power, that I could scarce conceal a shudder when he laid his hand upon my arm.

“Ah,” says he, “this here is a sweet spot, this island – a sweet spot for a lad to get ashore on. You’ll bathe, and you’ll climb trees, and you’ll hunt goats, you will; and you’ll get aloft on them hills like a goat yourself. Why, it makes me young again. I was going to forget my timber leg, I was. It’s a pleasant thing to be young, and have ten toes, and you may lay to that. When you want to go a bit of exploring, you just ask old John, and he’ll put up a snack for you to take along.”

And clapping me in the friendliest way upon the shoulder, he hobbled off forward, and went below.

Captain Smollett, the squire, and Dr. Livesey were talking together on the quarter-deck, and, anxious as I was to tell them my story, I durst not interrupt them openly. While I was still casting about in my thoughts to find some probable excuse, Dr. Livesey called me to his side. He had left his pipe below, and, being a slave to tobacco, had meant that I should fetch it; but as soon as I was near enough to speak and not to be overheard, I broke out immediately: “Doctor, let me speak. Get the captain and squire down to the cabin, and then make some pretence to send for me. I have terrible news.”

The doctor changed countenance a little, but next moment he was master of himself.

“Thank you, Jim,” said he, quite loudly, “that was all I wanted to know,” as if he had asked me a question.

And with that he turned on his heel and rejoined the other two. They spoke together for a little, and though none of them started, or raised his voice, or so much as whistled, it was plain enough that Dr. Livesey had communicated my request; for the next thing that I heard was the captain giving an order to Job Anderson, and all hands were piped on deck.

“My lads,” said Captain Smollett, “I’ve a word to say to you. This land that we have sighted is the place we have been sailing to. Mr. Trelawney, being a very open-handed gentleman, as we all know, has just asked me a word or two, and as I was able to tell him that every man on board had done his duty, alow and aloft, as I never ask to see it done better, why, he and I and the doctor are going below to the cabin to drink your health and luck, and you’ll have grog served out for you to drink our health and luck. I’ll tell you what I think of this: I think it handsome. And if you think as I do, you’ll give a good sea cheer for the gentleman that does it.”

The cheer followed – that was a matter of course; but it rang out so full and hearty that I confess I could hardly believe these same men were plotting for our blood.

“One more cheer for Cap’n Smollett,” cried Long John, when the first had subsided.