27

"Pieces of Eight"

OWING to the cant of the vessel, the masts hung far out

over the water, and from my perch on the cross-trees

I had nothing below me but the surface of the bay.

Hands, who was not so far up, was in consequence

nearer to the ship and fell between me and the bulwarks.

He rose once to the surface in a lather of foam and blood

and then sank again for good. As the water settled,

I could see him lying huddled together on the clean,

bright sand in the shadow of the vessel's sides.

A fish or two whipped past his body. Sometimes,

by the quivering of the water, he appeared to move a little,

as if he were trying to rise. But he was dead enough,

for all that, being both shot and drowned, and was food for fish

in the very place where he had designed my slaughter.

I was no sooner certain of this than I began to feel sick,

faint, and terrified. The hot blood was running over my back

and chest. The dirk, where it had pinned my shoulder to the mast,

seemed to burn like a hot iron; yet it was not so much these

real sufferings that distressed me, for these, it seemed to me,

I could bear without a murmur; it was the horror I had

upon my mind of falling from the cross-trees into that still green

water, beside the body of the coxswain.

I clung with both hands till my nails ached, and I shut my eyes

as if to cover up the peril. Gradually my mind came back again,

my pulses quieted down to a more natural time, and I was

once more in possession of myself.

It was my first thought to pluck forth the dirk, but either it stuck

too hard or my nerve failed me, and I desisted with a violent

shudder. Oddly enough, that very shudder did the business.

The knife, in fact, had come the nearest in the world

to missing me altogether; it held me by a mere pinch of skin,

and this the shudder tore away. The blood ran down the faster,

to be sure, but I was my own master again and only tacked

to the mast by my coat and shirt.

These last I broke through with a sudden jerk, and then regained

the deck by the starboard shrouds. For nothing in the world

would I have again ventured, shaken as I was, upon the

overhanging port shrouds from which Israel had so lately fallen.

I went below and did what I could for my wound; it pained me

a good deal and still bled freely, but it was neither deep

nor dangerous, nor did it greatly gall me when I used my arm.

Then I looked around me, and as the ship was now, in a sense,

my own, I began to think of clearing it from its last passenger--

the dead man, O'Brien.

He had pitched, as I have said, against the bulwarks,

where he lay like some horrible, ungainly sort of puppet,

life-size, indeed, but how different from life's colour

or life's comeliness! In that position I could easily have my way

with him, and as the habit of tragical adventures had worn off

almost all my terror for the dead, I took him by the waist

as if he had been a sack of bran and with one good heave,

tumbled him overboard. He went in with a sounding plunge;

the red cap came off and remained floating on the surface;

and as soon as the splash subsided, I could see him and Israel

lying side by side, both wavering with the tremulous movement

of the water. O'Brien, though still quite a young man,

was very bald. There he lay, with that bald head across the knees

of the man who had killed him and the quick fishes steering

to and fro over both.

I was now alone upon the ship; the tide had just turned. The sun

was within so few degrees of setting that already the shadow

of the pines upon the western shore began to reach right across

the anchorage and fall in patterns on the deck. The evening breeze

had sprung up, and though it was well warded off by the hill

with the two peaks upon the east, the cordage had begun to sing

a little softly to itself and the idle sails to rattle to and fro.

I began to see a danger to the ship. The jibs I speedily doused

and brought tumbling to the deck, but the main-sail was

a harder matter. Of course, when the schooner canted over,

the boom had swung out-board, and the cap of it and a foot or two

of sail hung even under water. I thought this made it still more

dangerous; yet the strain was so heavy that I half feared to meddle.

At last I got my knife and cut the halyards. The peak dropped

instantly, a great belly of loose canvas floated broad upon the

water, and since, pull as I liked, I could not budge the downhall,

that was the extent of what I could accomplish. For the rest,

the HISPANIOLA must trust to luck, like myself.

By this time the whole anchorage had fallen into shadow--

the last rays, I remember, falling through a glade of the wood

and shining bright as jewels on the flowery mantle of the wreck.

It began to be chill; the tide was rapidly fleeting seaward,

the schooner settling more and more on her beam-ends.

I scrambled forward and looked over. It seemed shallow enough,

and holding the cut hawser in both hands for a last security,

I let myself drop softly overboard. The water scarcely reached

my waist; the sand was firm and covered with ripple marks,

and I waded ashore in great spirits, leaving the HISPANIOLA

on her side, with her main-sail trailing wide upon the surface

of the bay. About the same time, the sun went fairly down

and the breeze whistled low in the dusk among the tossing pines.

At least, and at last, I was off the sea, nor had I returned

thence empty-handed. There lay the schooner, clear at last

from buccaneers and ready for our own men to board

and get to sea again. I had nothing nearer my fancy

than to get home to the stockade and boast of my achievements.

Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truantry,

but the recapture of the HISPANIOLA was a clenching answer,

and I hoped that even Captain Smollett would confess

I had not lost my time.

So thinking, and in famous spirits, I began to set my face

homeward for the block house and my companions. I remembered

that the most easterly of the rivers which drain into Captain Kidd's

anchorage ran from the two-peaked hill upon my left, and I bent

my course in that direction that I might pass the stream

while it was small. The wood was pretty open, and keeping along

the lower spurs, I had soon turned the corner of that hill,

and not long after waded to the mid-calf across the watercourse.

This brought me near to where I had encountered Ben Gunn,

the maroon; and I walked more circumspectly, keeping an eye

on every side. The dusk had come nigh hand completely,

and as I opened out the cleft between the two peaks,

I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky, where,

as I judged, the man of the island was cooking his supper

before a roaring fire. And yet I wondered, in my heart, that he

should show himself so careless. For if I could see this radiance,

might it not reach the eyes of Silver himself where he camped

upon the shore among the marshes?

Gradually the night fell blacker; it was all I could do

to guide myself even roughly towards my destination;

the double hill behind me and the Spy-glass on my right hand

loomed faint and fainter; the stars were few and pale;

and in the low ground where I wandered I kept tripping

among bushes and rolling into sandy pits.

Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me. I looked up;

a pale glimmer of moonbeams had alighted on the summit

of the Spy-glass, and soon after I saw something broad and silvery

moving low down behind the trees, and knew the moon had risen.

With this to help me, I passed rapidly over what remained to me

of my journey, and sometimes walking, sometimes running,

impatiently drew near to the stockade. Yet, as I began to thread

the grove that lies before it, I was not so thoughtless but that

I slacked my pace and went a trifle warily. It would have been

a poor end of my adventures to get shot down by my own party

in mistake.

The moon was climbing higher and higher, its light began

to fall here and there in masses through the more open districts

of the wood, and right in front of me a glow of a different colour

appeared among the trees. It was red and hot, and now and again

it was a little darkened--as it were, the embers of a bonfire

smouldering.

For the life of me I could not think what it might be.

At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing.

The western end was already steeped in moon-shine;

the rest, and the block house itself, still lay in a black shadow

chequered with long silvery streaks of light. On the other side

of the house an immense fire had burned itself into clear embers

and shed a steady, red reverberation, contrasted strongly

with the mellow paleness of the moon. There was not

a soul stirring nor a sound beside the noises of the breeze.

I stopped, with much wonder in my heart, and perhaps

a little terror also. It had not been our way to build great fires;

we were, indeed, by the captain's orders, somewhat niggardly

of firewood, and I began to fear that something had gone wrong

while I was absent.

I stole round by the eastern end, keeping close in shadow,

and at a convenient place, where the darkness was thickest,

crossed the palisade.

To make assurance surer, I got upon my hands and knees

and crawled, without a sound, towards the corner of the house.

As I drew nearer, my heart was suddenly and greatly lightened.

It is not a pleasant noise in itself, and I have often complained of it

at other times, but just then it was like music to hear my friends

snoring together so loud and peaceful in their sleep.

The sea-cry of the watch, that beautiful "All's well," never fell

more reassuringly on my ear.

In the meantime, there was no doubt of one thing; they kept

an infamous bad watch. If it had been Silver and his lads

that were now creeping in on them, not a soul would have seen

daybreak. That was what it was, thought I, to have the captain

wounded; and again I blamed myself sharply for leaving them

in that danger with so few to mount guard.

By this time I had got to the door and stood up. All was dark

within, so that I could distinguish nothing by the eye.

As for sounds, there was the steady drone of the snorers

and a small occasional noise, a flickering or pecking

that I could in no way account for.

With my arms before me I walked steadily in. I should lie down

in my own place (I thought with a silent chuckle) and enjoy

their faces when they found me in the morning.

My foot struck something yielding--it was a sleeper's leg;

and he turned and groaned, but without awaking.

And then, all of a sudden, a shrill voice broke forth out of the

darkness:

"Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!

Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! and so forth, without

pause or change, like the clacking of a tiny mill.

Silver's green parrot, Captain Flint! It was she whom I had heard

pecking at a piece of bark; it was she, keeping better watch

than any human being, who thus announced my arrival

with her wearisome refrain.

I had no time left me to recover. At the sharp, clipping tone of the

parrot, the sleepers awoke and sprang up; and with a mighty oath,

the voice of Silver cried, "Who goes?"

I turned to run, struck violently against one person, recoiled,

and ran full into the arms of a second, who for his part

closed upon and held me tight.

"Bring a torch, Dick," said Silver when my capture was

thus assured.

And one of the men left the log-house and presently returned

with a lighted brand.

****

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