Treasure Island

CHAPTER 9 Powder and Arms

The Hispaniola lay some way out, and we went under the figureheads and round the sterns of many other ships, and their cables sometimes grated underneath our keel, and sometimes swung above us. At last, however, we got alongside, and were met and saluted as we stepped aboard by the mate, Mr Arrow, a brown old sailor, with earrings in his ears and a squint. He and the squire were very thick and friendly, but I soon observed that things were not the same between Mr Trelawney and the captain.

This last was a sharp-looking man, who seemed angry with everything on board, and was soon to tell us why, for we had hardly got down into the cabin when a sailor followed us.

‘Captain Smollett, sir, axing to speak with you,’ said he.

‘I am always at the captain’s orders. Show him in,’ said the squire.

The captain, who was close behind his messenger, entered at once, and shut the door behind him.

‘Well, Captain Smollett, what have you to say? All well, I hope; all shipshape and seaworthy?’

‘Well, sir,’ said the captain, ‘better speak plain, I believe even at the risk of offence. I don’t like this cruise; I don’t like the men; and I don’t like my officer. That’s short and sweet.’

‘Perhaps, sir, you don’t like the ship?’ inquired the squire, very angry, as I could see.

‘I can’t speak as to that, sir, not having seen her tried,’ said the captain. ‘She seems a clever craft; more I can’t say.’

‘Possibly, sir, you may not like your employer, either?’ says the squire.

But here Dr Livesey cut in.

‘Stay a bit,’ said he, ‘stay a bit. No use of such questions as that but to produce ill-feeling. The captain has said too much or he has said too little, and I’m bound to say that I require an explanation of his words. You don’t, you say, like this cruise. Now, why?’

‘I was engaged, sir, on what we call sealed orders, to sail this ship for that gentleman where he should bid me,’ said the captain. ‘So far so good. But now I find that every man before the mast knows more than I do. I don’t call that fair, now, do you?’

‘No,’ said Dr Livesey, ‘I don’t.’

‘Next,’ said the captain, ‘I learn we are going after treasure – hear it from my own hands, mind you. Now, treasure is ticklish work; I don’t like treasure voyages on any account; and I don’t like them, above all, when they are secret, and when (begging your pardon, Mr Trelawney) the secret has been told to the parrot.’

‘Silver’s parrot?’ asked the squire.

‘It’s a way of speaking,’ said the captain. ‘Blabbed, I mean. It’s my belief neither of you gentlemen know what you are about; but I’ll tell you my way of it – life or death, and a close run.’

‘That is all clear, and, I daresay, true enough,’ replied Dr Livesey. ‘We take the risk; but we are not so ignorant as you believe us. Next, you say you don’t like the crew. Are they not good seamen?’

‘I don’t like them, sir,’ returned Captain Smollett. ‘And I think I should have had the choosing of my own hands, if you go to that.’

‘Perhaps you should,’ replied the doctor. ‘My friend should, perhaps, have taken you along with him; but the slight, if there be one, was unintentional. And you don’t like Mr Arrow?’

‘I don’t, sir. I believe he’s a good seaman; but he’s too free with the crew to be a good officer. A mate should keep himself to himself – shouldn’t drink with the men before the mast!’

‘Do you mean he drinks?’ cried the squire.

‘No, sir,’ replied the captain; ‘only that he’s too familiar.’

‘Well, now, and the short and long of it, captain?’ asked the doctor. ‘Tell us what you want.’

‘Well, gentlemen, are you determined to go on this cruise?’

‘Like iron,’ answered the squire.

‘Very good,’ said the captain. ‘Then, as you’ve heard me very patiently, saying things that I could not prove, hear me a few words more. They are putting the powder and the arms in the fore-hold. Now, you have a good place under the cabin; why not put them there? – first point. Then you are bringing four of your own people with you, and they tell me some of them are to be berthed forward. Why not give them the berths here beside the cabin? – second point.’

‘Any more?’ asked Mr Trelawney.

‘One more,’ said the captain. ‘There’s been too much blabbing already.’

‘Far too much,’ agreed the doctor.

‘I’ll tell you what I’ve heard myself,’ continued Captain Smollett: ‘that you have a map of an island; that there’s crosses on the map to show where treasure is; and that the island lies –’ And then he named the latitude and longitude exactly.

‘I never told that,’ cried the squire, ‘to a soul!’

‘The hands know it, sir,’ returned the captain.

‘Livesey, that must have been you or Hawkins,’ cried the squire.

‘It doesn’t much matter who it was,’ replied the doctor. And I could see that neither he nor the captain paid much regard to Mr Trelawney’s protestations. Neither did I, to be sure, he was so loose a talker; yet in this case I believe he was really right, and that nobody had told the situation of the island.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ continued the captain, ‘I don’t know who has this map; but I make it a point, it shall be kept secret even from me and Mr Arrow. Otherwise I would ask you to let me resign.’

‘I see,’ said the doctor. ‘You wish us to keep this matter dark, and to make a garrison of the stern part of the ship, manned with my friend’s own people, and provided with all the arms and powder on board. In other words, you fear a mutiny.’

‘Sir,’ said Captain Smollett, ‘with no intention to take offence, I deny your right to put words into my mouth. No captain, sir, would be justified in going to sea at all if he had ground enough to say that. As for Mr Arrow, I believe him thoroughly honest; some of the men are the same; all may be for what I know. But I am responsible for the ship’s safety and the life of every man Jack aboard of her. I see things going, as I think, not quite right. And I ask you to take certain precautions, or let me resign my berth. And that’s all.’

‘Captain Smollett,’ began the doctor, with a smile, ‘did ever you hear the fable of the mountain and the mouse? You’ll excuse me, I daresay, but you remind me of that fable. When you came in here I’ll stake my wig you meant more than this.’

‘Doctor,’ said the captain, ‘you are smart. When I came in here I meant to get discharged. I had no thought that Mr Trelawney would hear a word.’

‘No more I would,’ cried the squire. ‘Had Livesey not been here I should have seen you to the deuce. As it is, I have heard you. I will do as you desire; but I think the worse of you.’

‘That’s as you please, sir,’ said the captain. ‘You’ll find I do my duty.’

And with that he took his leave.

‘Trelawney,’ said the doctor, ‘contrary to all my notions, I believe you have managed to get two honest men on board with you – that man and John Silver.’

‘Silver, if you like,’ cried the squire; ‘but as for that intolerable humbug, I declare I think his conduct unmanly, unsailorly, and downright un-English.’

‘Well,’ says the doctor, ‘we shall see.’

When we came on deck, the men had begun already to take out the arms and powder, yo-ho-ing at their work, while the captain and Mr Arrow stood by superintending.

The new arrangement was quite to my liking. The whole schooner had been overhauled; six berths had been made astern, out of what had been the after-part of the main hold; and this set of cabins was only joined to the galley and forecastle by a sparred passage on the port side. It had been originally meant that the captain, Mr Arrow, Hunter, Joyce, the doctor, and the squire, were to occupy these six berths. Now, Redruth and I were to get two of them, and Mr Arrow and the captain were to sleep on deck in the companion, which had been enlarged on each side till you might almost have called it a round-house. Very low it was still, of course; but there was room to swing two hammocks, and even the mate seemed pleased with the arrangement. Even he, perhaps, had been doubtful as to the crew, but that is only guess; for, as you shall hear, we had not long the benefit of his opinion.

We were all hard at work, changing the powder and the berths, when the last man or two, and Long John along with them, came off in a shore-boat.

The cook came up the side like a monkey for cleverness, and, as soon as he saw what was doing, ‘So ho, mates!’ says he, ‘what’s this?’

‘We’re a-changing of the powder, Jack,’ answers one.

‘Why, by the powers,’ cried Long John, ‘if we do, we’ll miss the morning tide!’

‘My orders!’ said the captain shortly. ‘You may go below, my man. Hands will want supper.’

‘Ay, ay, sir,’ answered the cook; and, touching his forelock, he disappeared at once in the direction of his galley.

‘That’s a good man, captain,’ said the doctor.

‘Very likely, sir,’ replied Captain Smollett. ‘Easy with that, men – easy,’ he ran on, to the fellows who were shifting the powder; and then suddenly observing me examining the swivel gun we carried amidships, a long brass nine – ‘Here, you ship’s boy,’ he cried, ‘out o’ that! Off with you to the cook and get some work.’

And then as I was hurrying off I heard him say, quite loudly, to the doctor:

‘I’ll have no favourites on my ship.’

I assure you I was quite of the squire’s way of thinking and hated the captain deeply.

CHAPTER 10 The Voyage

All that night we were in a great bustle getting things stowed in their place, and boatfuls of the squire’s friends, Mr Blandly and the like, coming off to wish him a good voyage and a safe return. We never had a night at the ‘Admiral Benbow’ when I had half the work; and I was dog-tired when, a little before dawn, the boatswain sounded his pipe, and the crew began to man the capstan-bars. I might have been twice as weary, yet I would not have left the deck; all was so new and interesting to me – the brief commands, the shrill note of the whistle, the men bustling to their places in the glimmer of the ship’s lanterns.

‘Now, Barbecue, tip us a stave,’ cried one voice.

‘The old one,’ cried another.

‘Ay, ay, mates,’ said Long John, who was standing by, with his crutch under his arm, and at once broke out in the air and words I knew so well:

‘Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest’ –

And then the whole crew bore chorus:

‘Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!’

And at the third ‘ho!’ drove the bars before them with a will.

Even at that exciting moment it carried me back to the old ‘Admiral Benbow’ in a second; and I seemed to hear the voice of the captain piping in the chorus. But soon the anchor was short up; soon it was hanging dripping at the bows; soon the sails began to draw, and the land and shipping to flit by on either side; and before I could lie down to snatch an hour of slumber the Hispaniola had begun her voyage to the Isle of Treasure.

I am not going to relate that voyage in detail. It was fairly prosperous. The ship proved to be a good ship, the crew were capable seamen, and the captain thoroughly understood his business. But before we came the length of Treasure Island, two or three things had happened which require to be known.

Mr Arrow, first of all, turned out even worse than the captain had feared. He had no command among the men, and people did what they pleased with him. But that was by no means the worst of it; for after a day or two at sea he began to appear on deck with hazy eye, red cheeks, stuttering tongue, and other marks of drunkenness. Time after time he was ordered below in disgrace. Sometimes he fell and cut himself; sometimes he lay all day long in his little bunk at one side of the companion; sometimes for a day or two he would be almost sober and attend to his work at least passably.

In the meantime, we could never make out where he got the drink. That was the ship’s mystery. Watch him as we pleased, we could do nothing to solve it; and when we asked him to his face, he would only laugh, if he were drunk, and if he were sober, deny solemnly that he ever tasted anything but water.

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.

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