Part Six

Captain Silver



28

In the Enemy's Camp

THE red glare of the torch, lighting up the interior of
the block house, showed me the worst of my
apprehensions realized. The pirates were in possession
of the house and stores: there was the cask of cognac,
there were the pork and bread, as before, and what
tenfold increased my horror, not a sign of any
prisoner. I could only judge that all had perished,
and my heart smote me sorely that I had not been there
to perish with them.

There were six of the buccaneers, all told; not another
man was left alive. Five of them were on their feet,
flushed and swollen, suddenly called out of the first
sleep of drunkenness. The sixth had only risen upon
his elbow; he was deadly pale, and the blood-stained
bandage round his head told that he had recently been
wounded, and still more recently dressed. I remembered
the man who had been shot and had run back among the woods
in the great attack, and doubted not that this was he.

The parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long John's
shoulder. He himself, I thought, looked somewhat paler
and more stern than I was used to. He still wore the
fine broadcloth suit in which he had fulfilled his
mission, but it was bitterly the worse for wear, daubed
with clay and torn with the sharp briers of the wood.

"So," said he, "here's Jim Hawkins, shiver my timbers!
Dropped in, like, eh? Well, come, I take that friendly."

And thereupon he sat down across the brandy cask and
began to fill a pipe.

"Give me a loan of the link, Dick," said he; and then,
when he had a good light, "That'll do, lad," he added;
"stick the glim in the wood heap; and you, gentlemen,
bring yourselves to! You needn't stand up for Mr.
Hawkins; HE'LL excuse you, you may lay to that.
And so, Jim"--stopping the tobacco--"here you were, and
quite a pleasant surprise for poor old John. I see you
were smart when first I set my eyes on you, but this
here gets away from me clean, it do."

To all this, as may be well supposed, I made no answer.
They had set me with my back against the wall, and I
stood there, looking Silver in the face, pluckily
enough, I hope, to all outward appearance, but with
black despair in my heart.

Silver took a whiff or two of his pipe with great
composure and then ran on again.

"Now, you see, Jim, so be as you ARE here," says
he, "I'll give you a piece of my mind. I've always
liked you, I have, for a lad of spirit, and the picter
of my own self when I was young and handsome. I always
wanted you to jine and take your share, and die a
gentleman, and now, my cock, you've got to. Cap'n
Smollett's a fine seaman, as I'll own up to any day,
but stiff on discipline. 'Dooty is dooty,' says he,
and right he is. Just you keep clear of the cap'n.
The doctor himself is gone dead again you--'ungrateful
scamp' was what he said; and the short and the long of
the whole story is about here: you can't go back to
your own lot, for they won't have you; and without you
start a third ship's company all by yourself, which
might be lonely, you'll have to jine with Cap'n Silver."

So far so good. My friends, then, were still alive,
and though I partly believed the truth of Silver's
statement, that the cabin party were incensed at me for
my desertion, I was more relieved than distressed by
what I heard.

"I don't say nothing as to your being in our hands,"
continued Silver, "though there you are, and you may
lay to it. I'm all for argyment; I never seen good
come out o' threatening. If you like the service,
well, you'll jine; and if you don't, Jim, why, you're
free to answer no--free and welcome, shipmate; and if
fairer can be said by mortal seaman, shiver my sides!"

"Am I to answer, then?" I asked with a very tremulous
voice. Through all this sneering talk, I was made to
feel the threat of death that overhung me, and my
cheeks burned and my heart beat painfully in my breast.

"Lad," said Silver, "no one's a-pressing of you. Take
your bearings. None of us won't hurry you, mate; time
goes so pleasant in your company, you see."

"Well," says I, growing a bit bolder, "if I'm to
choose, I declare I have a right to know what's what,
and why you're here, and where my friends are."

"Wot's wot?" repeated one of the buccaneers in a deep
growl. "Ah, he'd be a lucky one as knowed that!"

"You'll perhaps batten down your hatches till you're
spoke to, my friend," cried Silver truculently to this
speaker. And then, in his first gracious tones, he
replied to me, "Yesterday morning, Mr. Hawkins," said
he, "in the dog-watch, down came Doctor Livesey with a
flag of truce. Says he, 'Cap'n Silver, you're sold
out. Ship's gone.' Well, maybe we'd been taking a
glass, and a song to help it round. I won't say no.
Leastways, none of us had looked out. We looked out,
and by thunder, the old ship was gone! I never seen a
pack o' fools look fishier; and you may lay to that, if
I tells you that looked the fishiest. 'Well,' says the
doctor, 'let's bargain.' We bargained, him and I, and
here we are: stores, brandy, block house, the firewood
you was thoughtful enough to cut, and in a manner of
speaking, the whole blessed boat, from cross-trees to
kelson. As for them, they've tramped; I don't know
where's they are."

He drew again quietly at his pipe.

"And lest you should take it into that head of yours,"
he went on, "that you was included in the treaty,
here's the last word that was said: 'How many are you,'
says I, 'to leave?' 'Four,' says he; 'four, and one of
us wounded. As for that boy, I don't know where he is,
confound him,' says he, 'nor I don't much care. We're
about sick of him.' These was his words.

"Is that all?" I asked.

"Well, it's all that you're to hear, my son,"
returned Silver.

"And now I am to choose?"

"And now you are to choose, and you may lay to
that," said Silver.

"Well," said I, "I am not such a fool but I know pretty
well what I have to look for. Let the worst come to
the worst, it's little I care. I've seen too many die
since I fell in with you. But there's a thing or two I
have to tell you," I said, and by this time I was quite
excited; "and the first is this: here you are, in a bad
way--ship lost, treasure lost, men lost, your whole
business gone to wreck; and if you want to know who did
it--it was I! I was in the apple barrel the night we
sighted land, and I heard you, John, and you, Dick
Johnson, and Hands, who is now at the bottom of the
sea, and told every word you said before the hour was
out. And as for the schooner, it was I who cut her
cable, and it was I that killed the men you had aboard
of her, and it was I who brought her where you'll never
see her more, not one of you. The laugh's on my side;
I've had the top of this business from the first; I no
more fear you than I fear a fly. Kill me, if you
please, or spare me. But one thing I'll say, and no
more; if you spare me, bygones are bygones, and when
you fellows are in court for piracy, I'll save you all
I can. It is for you to choose. Kill another and do
yourselves no good, or spare me and keep a witness to
save you from the gallows."

I stopped, for, I tell you, I was out of breath, and to
my wonder, not a man of them moved, but all sat staring
at me like as many sheep. And while they were still
staring, I broke out again, "And now, Mr. Silver," I
said, "I believe you're the best man here, and if
things go to the worst, I'll take it kind of you to let
the doctor know the way I took it."

"I'll bear it in mind," said Silver with an accent so
curious that I could not, for the life of me, decide
whether he were laughing at my request or had been
favourably affected by my courage.

"I'll put one to that," cried the old mahogany-faced
seaman--Morgan by name--whom I had seen in Long John's
public-house upon the quays of Bristol. "It was him
that knowed Black Dog."

"Well, and see here," added the sea-cook. "I'll put
another again to that, by thunder! For it was this
same boy that faked the chart from Billy Bones. First
and last, we've split upon Jim Hawkins!"

"Then here goes!" said Morgan with an oath.

And he sprang up, drawing his knife as if he had
been twenty.

"Avast, there!" cried Silver. "Who are you, Tom
Morgan? Maybe you thought you was cap'n here, perhaps.
By the powers, but I'll teach you better! Cross me,
and you'll go where many a good man's gone before you,
first and last, these thirty year back--some to the
yard-arm, shiver my timbers, and some by the board, and
all to feed the fishes. There's never a man looked me
between the eyes and seen a good day a'terwards, Tom
Morgan, you may lay to that."

Morgan paused, but a hoarse murmur rose from the others.

"Tom's right," said one.

"I stood hazing long enough from one," added another.
"I'll be hanged if I'll be hazed by you, John Silver."

"Did any of you gentlemen want to have it out with ME?"
roared Silver, bending far forward from his
position on the keg, with his pipe still glowing in his
right hand. "Put a name on what you're at; you ain't
dumb, I reckon. Him that wants shall get it. Have I
lived this many years, and a son of a rum puncheon cock
his hat athwart my hawse at the latter end of it? You
know the way; you're all gentlemen o' fortune, by your
account. Well, I'm ready. Take a cutlass, him that
dares, and I'll see the colour of his inside, crutch
and all, before that pipe's empty."

Not a man stirred; not a man answered.

"That's your sort, is it?" he added, returning his pipe
to his mouth. "Well, you're a gay lot to look at,
anyway. Not much worth to fight, you ain't. P'r'aps
you can understand King George's English. I'm cap'n
here by 'lection. I'm cap'n here because I'm the best
man by a long sea-mile. You won't fight, as gentlemen
o' fortune should; then, by thunder, you'll obey, and
you may lay to it! I like that boy, now; I never seen
a better boy than that. He's more a man than any pair
of rats of you in this here house, and what I say is
this: let me see him that'll lay a hand on him--that's
what I say, and you may lay to it."

There was a long pause after this. I stood straight up
against the wall, my heart still going like a sledge-
hammer, but with a ray of hope now shining in my bosom.
Silver leant back against the wall, his arms crossed, his
pipe in the corner of his mouth, as calm as though he had
been in church; yet his eye kept wandering furtively, and
he kept the tail of it on his unruly followers. They, on
their part, drew gradually together towards the far end of
the block house, and the low hiss of their whispering sounded
in my ear continuously, like a stream. One after another,
they would look up, and the red light of the torch would
fall for a second on their nervous faces; but it was not
towards me, it was towards Silver that they turned their eyes.

"You seem to have a lot to say," remarked Silver,
spitting far into the air. "Pipe up and let me hear
it, or lay to."

"Ax your pardon, sir," returned one of the men; "you're
pretty free with some of the rules; maybe you'll kindly
keep an eye upon the rest. This crew's dissatisfied;
this crew don't vally bullying a marlin-spike; this
crew has its rights like other crews, I'll make so free
as that; and by your own rules, I take it we can talk
together. I ax your pardon, sir, acknowledging you for
to be captaing at this present; but I claim my right,
and steps outside for a council."

And with an elaborate sea-salute, this fellow, a long,
ill-looking, yellow-eyed man of five and thirty,
stepped coolly towards the door and disappeared out of
the house. One after another the rest followed his
example, each making a salute as he passed, each adding
some apology. "According to rules," said one.
"Forecastle council," said Morgan. And so with one
remark or another all marched out and left Silver and
me alone with the torch.

The sea-cook instantly removed his pipe.

"Now, look you here, Jim Hawkins," he said in a steady
whisper that was no more than audible, "you're within
half a plank of death, and what's a long sight worse,
of torture. They're going to throw me off. But, you
mark, I stand by you through thick and thin. I didn't
mean to; no, not till you spoke up. I was about
desperate to lose that much blunt, and be hanged into
the bargain. But I see you was the right sort. I says
to myself, you stand by Hawkins, John, and Hawkins'll
stand by you. You're his last card, and by the living
thunder, John, he's yours! Back to back, says I. You
save your witness, and he'll save your neck!"

I began dimly to understand.

"You mean all's lost?" I asked.

"Aye, by gum, I do!" he answered. "Ship gone, neck gone
--that's the size of it. Once I looked into that bay, Jim
Hawkins, and seen no schooner--well, I'm tough, but I gave
out. As for that lot and their council, mark me, they're
outright fools and cowards. I'll save your life--if so be
as I can--from them. But, see here, Jim--tit for tat--you
save Long John from swinging."

I was bewildered; it seemed a thing so hopeless he was
asking--he, the old buccaneer, the ringleader throughout.

"What I can do, that I'll do," I said.

"It's a bargain!" cried Long John. "You speak up
plucky, and by thunder, I've a chance!"

He hobbled to the torch, where it stood propped among
the firewood, and took a fresh light to his pipe.

"Understand me, Jim," he said, returning. "I've a head
on my shoulders, I have. I'm on squire's side now. I
know you've got that ship safe somewheres. How you
done it, I don't know, but safe it is. I guess Hands
and O'Brien turned soft. I never much believed in
neither of THEM. Now you mark me. I ask no questions,
nor I won't let others. I know when a game's up, I do;
and I know a lad that's staunch. Ah, you that's young--
you and me might have done a power of good together!"

He drew some cognac from the cask into a tin cannikin.

"Will you taste, messmate?" he asked; and when I had
refused: "Well, I'll take a drain myself, Jim," said
he. "I need a caulker, for there's trouble on hand.
And talking o' trouble, why did that doctor give me the
chart, Jim?"

My face expressed a wonder so unaffected that he saw
the needlessness of further questions.

"Ah, well, he did, though," said he. "And there's
something under that, no doubt--something, surely,
under that, Jim--bad or good."

And he took another swallow of the brandy, shaking his
great fair head like a man who looks forward to the worst.