15

The Man of the Island

FROM the side of the hill, which was here steep and
stony, a spout of gravel was dislodged and fell
rattling and bounding through the trees. My eyes
turned instinctively in that direction, and I saw a
figure leap with great rapidity behind the trunk of a
pine. What it was, whether bear or man or monkey, I
could in no wise tell. It seemed dark and shaggy; more
I knew not. But the terror of this new apparition
brought me to a stand.

I was now, it seemed, cut off upon both sides; behind
me the murderers, before me this lurking nondescript.
And immediately I began to prefer the dangers that I
knew to those I knew not. Silver himself appeared less
terrible in contrast with this creature of the woods,
and I turned on my heel, and looking sharply behind me
over my shoulder, began to retrace my steps in the
direction of the boats.

Instantly the figure reappeared, and making a wide
circuit, began to head me off. I was tired, at any
rate; but had I been as fresh as when I rose, I could
see it was in vain for me to contend in speed with such
an adversary. From trunk to trunk the creature flitted
like a deer, running manlike on two legs, but unlike
any man that I had ever seen, stooping almost double as
it ran. Yet a man it was, I could no longer be in
doubt about that.

I began to recall what I had heard of cannibals. I was
within an ace of calling for help. But the mere fact
that he was a man, however wild, had somewhat reassured
me, and my fear of Silver began to revive in proportion.
I stood still, therefore, and cast about for some method
of escape; and as I was so thinking, the recollection of
my pistol flashed into my mind. As soon as I remembered
I was not defenceless, courage glowed again in my heart
and I set my face resolutely for this man of the island
and walked briskly towards him.

He was concealed by this time behind another tree
trunk; but he must have been watching me closely, for
as soon as I began to move in his direction he
reappeared and took a step to meet me. Then he
hesitated, drew back, came forward again, and at last,
to my wonder and confusion, threw himself on his knees
and held out his clasped hands in supplication.

At that I once more stopped.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Ben Gunn," he answered, and his voice sounded hoarse and
awkward, like a rusty lock. "I'm poor Ben Gunn, I am; and
I haven't spoke with a Christian these three years."

I could now see that he was a white man like myself and
that his features were even pleasing. His skin,
wherever it was exposed, was burnt by the sun; even his
lips were black, and his fair eyes looked quite
startling in so dark a face. Of all the beggar-men
that I had seen or fancied, he was the chief for
raggedness. He was clothed with tatters of old ship's
canvas and old sea-cloth, and this extraordinary
patchwork was all held together by a system of the most
various and incongruous fastenings, brass buttons, bits
of stick, and loops of tarry gaskin. About his waist
he wore an old brass-buckled leather belt, which was
the one thing solid in his whole accoutrement.

"Three years!" I cried. "Were you shipwrecked?"

"Nay, mate," said he; "marooned."

I had heard the word, and I knew it stood for a
horrible kind of punishment common enough among the
buccaneers, in which the offender is put ashore with a
little powder and shot and left behind on some desolate
and distant island.

"Marooned three years agone," he continued, "and lived
on goats since then, and berries, and oysters. Wherever
a man is, says I, a man can do for himself. But, mate,
my heart is sore for Christian diet. You mightn't happen
to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No? Well,
many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese--toasted,
mostly--and woke up again, and here I were."

"If ever I can get aboard again," said I, "you shall
have cheese by the stone."

All this time he had been feeling the stuff of my
jacket, smoothing my hands, looking at my boots, and
generally, in the intervals of his speech, showing a
childish pleasure in the presence of a fellow creature.
But at my last words he perked up into a kind of
startled slyness.

"If ever you can get aboard again, says you?" he
repeated. "Why, now, who's to hinder you?"

"Not you, I know," was my reply.

"And right you was," he cried. "Now you--what do you
call yourself, mate?"

"Jim," I told him.

"Jim, Jim," says he, quite pleased apparently. "Well,
now, Jim, I've lived that rough as you'd be ashamed to
hear of. Now, for instance, you wouldn't think I had
had a pious mother--to look at me?" he asked.

"Why, no, not in particular," I answered.

"Ah, well," said he, "but I had--remarkable pious. And
I was a civil, pious boy, and could rattle off my
catechism that fast, as you couldn't tell one word from
another. And here's what it come to, Jim, and it begun
with chuck-farthen on the blessed grave-stones! That's
what it begun with, but it went further'n that; and so
my mother told me, and predicked the whole, she did, the
pious woman! But it were Providence that put me here.
I've thought it all out in this here lonely island, and
I'm back on piety. You don't catch me tasting rum so
much, but just a thimbleful for luck, of course, the
first chance I have. I'm bound I'll be good, and I see
the way to. And, Jim"--looking all round him and lowering
his voice to a whisper--"I'm rich."

I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone crazy in
his solitude, and I suppose I must have shown the
feeling in my face, for he repeated the statement
hotly: "Rich! Rich! I says. And I'll tell you what:
I'll make a man of you, Jim. Ah, Jim, you'll bless
your stars, you will, you was the first that found me!"

And at this there came suddenly a lowering shadow over
his face, and he tightened his grasp upon my hand and
raised a forefinger threateningly before my eyes.

"Now, Jim, you tell me true: that ain't Flint's ship?"
he asked.

At this I had a happy inspiration. I began to believe
that I had found an ally, and I answered him at once.

"It's not Flint's ship, and Flint is dead; but I'll
tell you true, as you ask me--there are some of Flint's
hands aboard; worse luck for the rest of us."

"Not a man--with one--leg?" he gasped.

"Silver?" I asked.

"Ah, Silver!" says he. "That were his name."

"He's the cook, and the ringleader too."

He was still holding me by the wrist, and at that he
give it quite a wring.

"If you was sent by Long John," he said, "I'm as good as
pork, and I know it. But where was you, do you suppose?"

I had made my mind up in a moment, and by way of answer
told him the whole story of our voyage and the
predicament in which we found ourselves. He heard me
with the keenest interest, and when I had done he
patted me on the head.

"You're a good lad, Jim," he said; "and you're all in a
clove hitch, ain't you? Well, you just put your trust
in Ben Gunn--Ben Gunn's the man to do it. Would you
think it likely, now, that your squire would prove a
liberal-minded one in case of help--him being in a
clove hitch, as you remark?"

I told him the squire was the most liberal of men.

"Aye, but you see," returned Ben Gunn, "I didn't mean
giving me a gate to keep, and a suit of livery clothes,
and such; that's not my mark, Jim. What I mean is,
would he be likely to come down to the toon of, say one
thousand pounds out of money that's as good as a man's
own already?"

"I am sure he would," said I. "As it was, all hands
were to share."

"AND a passage home?" he added with a look of great
shrewdness.

"Why," I cried, "the squire's a gentleman. And
besides, if we got rid of the others, we should want
you to help work the vessel home."

"Ah," said he, "so you would." And he seemed very much
relieved.

"Now, I'll tell you what," he went on. "So much I'll
tell you, and no more. I were in Flint's ship when he
buried the treasure; he and six along--six strong
seamen. They was ashore nigh on a week, and us
standing off and on in the old WALRUS. One fine
day up went the signal, and here come Flint by himself
in a little boat, and his head done up in a blue scarf.
The sun was getting up, and mortal white he looked
about the cutwater. But, there he was, you mind, and
the six all dead--dead and buried. How he done it, not
a man aboard us could make out. It was battle, murder,
and sudden death, leastways--him against six. Billy
Bones was the mate; Long John, he was quartermaster;
and they asked him where the treasure was. 'Ah,' says
he, 'you can go ashore, if you like, and stay,' he
says; 'but as for the ship, she'll beat up for more, by
thunder!' That's what he said.

"Well, I was in another ship three years back, and we
sighted this island. 'Boys,' said I, 'here's Flint's
treasure; let's land and find it.' The cap'n was
displeased at that, but my messmates were all of a mind
and landed. Twelve days they looked for it, and every
day they had the worse word for me, until one fine
morning all hands went aboard. 'As for you, Benjamin
Gunn,' says they, 'here's a musket,' they says, 'and a
spade, and pick-axe. You can stay here and find
Flint's money for yourself,' they says.

"Well, Jim, three years have I been here, and not a bite
of Christian diet from that day to this. But now, you
look here; look at me. Do I look like a man before the
mast? No, says you. Nor I weren't, neither, I says."

And with that he winked and pinched me hard.

"Just you mention them words to your squire, Jim," he went
on. "Nor he weren't, neither--that's the words. Three
years he were the man of this island, light and dark, fair
and rain; and sometimes he would maybe think upon a prayer
(says you), and sometimes he would maybe think of his old
mother, so be as she's alive (you'll say); but the most
part of Gunn's time (this is what you'll say)--the most
part of his time was took up with another matter. And
then you'll give him a nip, like I do."

And he pinched me again in the most confidential manner.

"Then," he continued, "then you'll up, and you'll say
this: Gunn is a good man (you'll say), and he puts a
precious sight more confidence--a precious sight, mind
that--in a gen'leman born than in these gen'leman of
fortune, having been one hisself."

"Well," I said, "I don't understand one word that
you've been saying. But that's neither here nor there;
for how am I to get on board?"

"Ah," said he, "that's the hitch, for sure. Well,
there's my boat, that I made with my two hands. I keep
her under the white rock. If the worst come to the
worst, we might try that after dark. Hi!" he broke
out. "What's that?"

For just then, although the sun had still an hour or
two to run, all the echoes of the island awoke and
bellowed to the thunder of a cannon.

"They have begun to fight!" I cried. "Follow me."

And I began to run towards the anchorage, my terrors
all forgotten, while close at my side the marooned man
in his goatskins trotted easily and lightly.

"Left, left," says he; "keep to your left hand, mate
Jim! Under the trees with you! Theer's where I killed
my first goat. They don't come down here now; they're
all mastheaded on them mountings for the fear of
Benjamin Gunn. Ah! And there's the cetemery"--
cemetery, he must have meant. "You see the mounds? I
come here and prayed, nows and thens, when I thought
maybe a Sunday would be about doo. It weren't quite a
chapel, but it seemed more solemn like; and then, says
you, Ben Gunn was short-handed--no chapling, nor so
much as a Bible and a flag, you says."

So he kept talking as I ran, neither expecting nor
receiving any answer.

The cannon-shot was followed after a considerable
interval by a volley of small arms.

Another pause, and then, not a quarter of a mile in
front of me, I beheld the Union Jack flutter in the air
above a wood.