14

The First Blow

I WAS so pleased at having given the slip to Long John

that I began to enjoy myself and look around me

with some interest on the strange land that I was in.

I had crossed a marshy tract full of willows, bulrushes,

and odd, outlandish, swampy trees; and I had now come out

upon the skirts of an open piece of undulating, sandy country,

about a mile long, dotted with a few pines and a great number

of contorted trees, not unlike the oak in growth, but pale

in the foliage, like willows. On the far side of the open

stood one of the hills, with two quaint, craggy peaks shining

vividly in the sun.

I now felt for the first time the joy of exploration.

The isle was uninhabited; my shipmates I had left behind,

and nothing lived in front of me but dumb brutes and fowls.

I turned hither and thither among the trees. Here and there were

flowering plants, unknown to me; here and there I saw snakes,

and one raised his head from a ledge of rock and hissed at me

with a noise not unlike the spinning of a top. Little did I suppose

that he was a deadly enemy and that the noise was the famous

rattle.

Then I came to a long thicket of these oaklike trees--

live, or evergreen, oaks, I heard afterwards they should be called--

which grew low along the sand like brambles,

the boughs curiously twisted, the foliage compact, like thatch.

The thicket stretched down from the top of one of the sandy knolls,

spreading and growing taller as it went, until it reached the margin

of the broad, reedy fen, through which the nearest of the little

rivers soaked its way into the anchorage. The marsh was steaming

in the strong sun, and the outline of the Spy-glass trembled

through the haze.

All at once there began to go a sort of bustle among the bulrushes;

a wild duck flew up with a quack, another followed, and soon

over the whole surface of the marsh a great cloud of birds hung

screaming and circling in the air. I judged at once that some

of my shipmates must be drawing near along the borders

of the fen. Nor was I deceived, for soon I heard the very distant

and low tones of a human voice, which, as I continued to give ear,

grew steadily louder and nearer.

This put me in a great fear, and I crawled under cover

of the nearest live-oak and squatted there, hearkening,

as silent as a mouse.

Another voice answered, and then the first voice, which I now

recognized to be Silver's, once more took up the story

and ran on for a long while in a stream, only now and again

interrupted by the other. By the sound they must have been

talking earnestly, and almost fiercely; but no distinct word

came to my hearing.

At last the speakers seemed to have paused and perhaps to have

sat down, for not only did they cease to draw any nearer,

but the birds themselves began to grow more quiet and

to settle again to their places in the swamp.

And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my business,

that since I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with

these desperadoes, the least I could do was to overhear them

at their councils, and that my plain and obvious duty was

to draw as close as I could manage, under the favourable ambush

of the crouching trees.

I could tell the direction of the speakers pretty exactly, not only

by the sound of their voices but by the behaviour of the few birds

that still hung in alarm above the heads of the intruders.

Crawling on all fours, I made steadily but slowly towards them,

till at last, raising my head to an aperture among the leaves,

I could see clear down into a little green dell beside the marsh,

and closely set about with trees, where Long John Silver and

another of the crew stood face to face in conversation.

The sun beat full upon them. Silver had thrown his hat beside him

on the ground, and his great, smooth, blond face, all shining

with heat, was lifted to the other man's in a kind of appeal.

"Mate," he was saying, "it's because I thinks gold dust of you--

gold dust, and you may lay to that! If I hadn't took to you

like pitch, do you think I'd have been here a-warning of you?

All's up--you can't make nor mend; it's to save your neck

that I'm a-speaking, and if one of the wild uns knew it,

where'd I be, Tom--now, tell me, where'd I be?"

"Silver," said the other man--and I observed he was

not only red in the face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow,

and his voice shook too, like a taut rope--"Silver," says he,

"you're old, and you're honest, or has the name for it;

and you've money too, which lots of poor sailors hasn't;

and you're brave, or I'm mistook. And will you tell me

you'll let yourself be led away with that kind of a mess of swabs?

Not you! As sure as God sees me, I'd sooner lose my hand.

If I turn agin my dooty--"

And then all of a sudden he was interrupted by a noise.

I had found one of the honest hands--well, here, at that same

moment, came news of another. Far away out in the marsh

there arose, all of a sudden, a sound like the cry of anger,

then another on the back of it; and then one horrid,

long-drawn scream. The rocks of the Spy-glass re-echoed it

a score of times; the whole troop of marsh-birds rose again,

darkening heaven, with a simultaneous whirr; and long after

that death yell was still ringing in my brain, silence had re-

established its empire, and only the rustle of the redescending birds

and the boom of the distant surges disturbed the languor of the

afternoon.

Tom had leaped at the sound, like a horse at the spur,

but Silver had not winked an eye. He stood where he was,

resting lightly on his crutch, watching his companion

like a snake about to spring.

"John!" said the sailor, stretching out his hand.

"Hands off!" cried Silver, leaping back a yard, as it seemed to me,

with the speed and security of a trained gymnast.

"Hands off, if you like, John Silver," said the other.

"It's a black conscience that can make you feared of me.

But in heaven's name, tell me, what was that?"

"That?" returned Silver, smiling away, but warier than ever,

his eye a mere pin-point in his big face, but gleaming

like a crumb of glass. "That? Oh, I reckon that'll be Alan."

And at this point Tom flashed out like a hero.

"Alan!" he cried. "Then rest his soul for a true seaman!

And as for you, John Silver, long you've been a mate of mine,

but you're mate of mine no more. If I die like a dog,

I'll die in my dooty. You've killed Alan, have you?

Kill me too, if you can. But I defies you."

And with that, this brave fellow turned his back

directly on the cook and set off walking for the beach.

But he was not destined to go far. With a cry John seized

the branch of a tree, whipped the crutch out of his armpit,

and sent that uncouth missile hurtling through the air.

It struck poor Tom, point foremost, and with stunning violence,

right between the shoulders in the middle of his back.

His hands flew up, he gave a sort of gasp, and fell.

Whether he were injured much or little, none could ever tell.

Like enough, to judge from the sound, his back was broken

on the spot. But he had no time given him to recover.

Silver, agile as a monkey even without leg or crutch,

was on the top of him next moment and had twice buried his knife

up to the hilt in that defenceless body. From my place of ambush,

I could hear him pant aloud as he struck the blows.

I do not know what it rightly is to faint, but I do know

that for the next little while the whole world swam away

from before me in a whirling mist; Silver and the birds,

and the tall Spy-glass hilltop, going round and round and

topsy-turvy before my eyes, and all manner of bells ringing

and distant voices shouting in my ear.

When I came again to myself the monster had pulled

himself together, his crutch under his arm, his hat upon his head.

Just before him Tom lay motionless upon the sward;

but the murderer minded him not a whit, cleansing his

blood-stained knife the while upon a wisp of grass.

Everything else was unchanged, the sun still shining mercilessly

on the steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the mountain, and

I could scarce persuade myself that murder had been actually done

and a human life cruelly cut short a moment since before my eyes.

But now John put his hand into his pocket, brought out a whistle,

and blew upon it several modulated blasts that rang

far across the heated air. I could not tell, of course,

the meaning of the signal, but it instantly awoke my fears.

More men would be coming. I might be discovered.

They had already slain two of the honest people;

after Tom and Alan, might not I come next?

Instantly I began to extricate myself and crawl back again,

with what speed and silence I could manage, to the

more open portion of the wood. As I did so, I could hear hails

coming and going between the old buccaneer and his comrades,

and this sound of danger lent me wings. As soon as I was

clear of the thicket, I ran as I never ran before, scarce minding

the direction of my flight, so long as it led me from the murderers;

and as I ran, fear grew and grew upon me until it turned

into a kind of frenzy.

Indeed, could anyone be more entirely lost than I?

When the gun fired, how should I dare to go down to the boats

among those fiends, still smoking from their crime?

Would not the first of them who saw me wring my neck

like a snipe's? Would not my absence itself be an evidence to them

of my alarm, and therefore of my fatal knowledge?

It was all over, I thought. Good-bye to the HISPANIOLA;

good-bye to the squire, the doctor, and the captain!

There was nothing left for me but death by starvation

or death by the hands of the mutineers.

All this while, as I say, I was still running, and without

taking any notice, I had drawn near to the foot of the

little hill with the two peaks and had got into a part of the island

where the live-oaks grew more widely apart and seemed more like

forest trees in their bearing and dimensions. Mingled with these

were a few scattered pines, some fifty, some nearer seventy,

feet high. The air too smelt more freshly than down beside

the marsh.

And here a fresh alarm brought me to a standstill with

a thumping heart.

****

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