33

The Fall of a Chieftain

THERE never was such an overturn in this world. Each of these

six men was as though he had been struck. But with Silver

the blow passed almost instantly. Every thought of his soul

had been set full-stretch, like a racer, on that money;

well, he was brought up, in a single second, dead;

and he kept his head, found his temper, and changed his plan

before the others had had time to realize the disappointment.

"Jim," he whispered, "take that, and stand by for trouble."

And he passed me a double-barrelled pistol.

At the same time, he began quietly moving northward, and in a

few steps had put the hollow between us two and the other five.

Then he looked at me and nodded, as much as to say,

"Here is a narrow corner," as, indeed, I thought it was.

His looks were not quite friendly, and I was so revolted

at these constant changes that I could not forbear whispering,

"So you've changed sides again."

There was no time left for him to answer in. The buccaneers,

with oaths and cries, began to leap, one after another, into the pit

and to dig with their fingers, throwing the boards aside

as they did so. Morgan found a piece of gold. He held it up

with a perfect spout of oaths. It was a two-guinea piece,

and it went from hand to hand among them for a quarter of a

minute.

"Two guineas!" roared Merry, shaking it at Silver.

"That's your seven hundred thousand pounds, is it?

You're the man for bargains, ain't you? You're him

that never bungled nothing, you wooden-headed lubber!"

"Dig away, boys," said Silver with the coolest insolence;

"you'll find some pig-nuts and I shouldn't wonder."

"Pig-nuts!" repeated Merry, in a scream. "Mates, do you hear that?

I tell you now, that man there knew it all along. Look in the face

of him and you'll see it wrote there."

"Ah, Merry," remarked Silver, "standing for cap'n again?

You're a pushing lad, to be sure."

But this time everyone was entirely in Merry's favour.

They began to scramble out of the excavation, darting

furious glances behind them. One thing I observed,

which looked well for us: they all got out upon the opposite side

from Silver.

Well, there we stood, two on one side, five on the other,

the pit between us, and nobody screwed up high enough

to offer the first blow. Silver never moved; he watched them,

very upright on his crutch, and looked as cool as ever I saw him.

He was brave, and no mistake.

At last Merry seemed to think a speech might help matters.

"Mates," says he, "there's two of them alone there;

one's the old cripple that brought us all here and

blundered us down to this; the other's that cub

that I mean to have the heart of. Now, mates--"

He was raising his arm and his voice, and plainly meant

to lead a charge. But just then--crack! crack! crack!--

three musket-shots flashed out of the thicket. Merry tumbled

head foremost into the excavation; the man with the bandage

spun round like a teetotum and fell all his length upon his side,

where he lay dead, but still twitching; and the other three

turned and ran for it with all their might.

Before you could wink, Long John had fired two barrels of a pistol

into the struggling Merry, and as the man rolled up his eyes at him

in the last agony, "George," said he, "I reckon I settled you."

At the same moment, the doctor, Gray, and Ben Gunn joined us,

with smoking muskets, from among the nutmeg-trees.

"Forward!" cried the doctor. "Double quick, my lads.

We must head 'em off the boats."

And we set off at a great pace, sometimes plunging

through the bushes to the chest.

I tell you, but Silver was anxious to keep up with us.

The work that man went through, leaping on his crutch

till the muscles of his chest were fit to burst, was work

no sound man ever equalled; and so thinks the doctor.

As it was, he was already thirty yards behind us and on the verge

of strangling when we reached the brow of the slope.

"Doctor," he hailed, "see there! No hurry!"

Sure enough there was no hurry. In a more open part of the plateau,

we could see the three survivors still running in the same direction

as they had started, right for Mizzen-mast Hill. We were already

between them and the boats; and so we four sat down to breathe,

while Long John, mopping his face, came slowly up with us.

"Thank ye kindly, doctor," says he. "You came in in about the

nick, I guess, for me and Hawkins. And so it's you, Ben Gunn!"

he added. "Well, you're a nice one, to be sure."

"I'm Ben Gunn, I am," replied the maroon, wriggling like an eel

in his embarrassment. "And," he added, after a long pause,

"how do, Mr. Silver? Pretty well, I thank ye, says you."

"Ben, Ben," murmured Silver, "to think as you've done me!"

The doctor sent back Gray for one of the pick-axes deserted,

in their flight, by the mutineers, and then as we proceeded

leisurely downhill to where the boats were lying, related in a few

words what had taken place. It was a story that profoundly

interested Silver; and Ben Gunn, the half-idiot maroon,

was the hero from beginning to end.

Ben, in his long, lonely wanderings about the island,

had found the skeleton--it was he that had rifled it;

he had found the treasure; he had dug it up (it was the haft

of his pick-axe that lay broken in the excavation);

he had carried it on his back, in many weary journeys,

from the foot of the tall pine to a cave he had

on the two-pointed hill at the north-east angle of the island,

and there it had lain stored in safety since two months

before the arrival of the HISPANIOLA.

When the doctor had wormed this secret from him on the afternoon

of the attack, and when next morning he saw the anchorage

deserted, he had gone to Silver, given him the chart,

which was now useless--given him the stores, for Ben Gunn's cave

was well supplied with goats' meat salted by himself--

given anything and everything to get a chance of moving in safety

from the stockade to the two-pointed hill, there to be clear

of malaria and keep a guard upon the money.

"As for you, Jim," he said, "it went against my heart,

but I did what I thought best for those who had stood by their duty;

and if you were not one of these, whose fault was it?"

That morning, finding that I was to be involved in the horrid

disappointment he had prepared for the mutineers, he had run

all the way to the cave, and leaving the squire to guard the captain,

had taken Gray and the maroon and started, making the diagonal

across the island to be at hand beside the pine. Soon, however,

he saw that our party had the start of him; and Ben Gunn, being

fleet of foot, had been dispatched in front to do his best alone.

Then it had occurred to him to work upon the superstitions

of his former shipmates, and he was so far successful

that Gray and the doctor had come up and were already ambushed

before the arrival of the treasure-hunters.

"Ah," said Silver, "it were fortunate for me that I had Hawkins

here. You would have let old John be cut to bits, and never

given it a thought, doctor."

"Not a thought," replied Dr. Livesey cheerily.

And by this time we had reached the gigs. The doctor,

with the pick-axe, demolished one of them, and then we all

got aboard the other and set out to go round by sea for North Inlet.

This was a run of eight or nine miles. Silver, though he was almost

killed already with fatigue, was set to an oar, like the rest of us,

and we were soon skimming swiftly over a smooth sea.

Soon we passed out of the straits and doubled the south-east corner

of the island, round which, four days ago, we had towed the

HISPANIOLA.

As we passed the two-pointed hill, we could see the black mouth

of Ben Gunn's cave and a figure standing by it, leaning on a musket.

It was the squire, and we waved a handkerchief and gave him

three cheers, in which the voice of Silver joined as heartily as any.

Three miles farther, just inside the mouth of North Inlet,

what should we meet but the HISPANIOLA, cruising by herself?

The last flood had lifted her, and had there been much wind

or a strong tide current, as in the southern anchorage,

we should never have found her more, or found her stranded

beyond help. As it was, there was little amiss beyond the wreck

of the main-sail. Another anchor was got ready and dropped

in a fathom and a half of water. We all pulled round again

to Rum Cove, the nearest point for Ben Gunn's treasure-house;

and then Gray, single-handed, returned with the gig to the

HISPANIOLA, where he was to pass the night on guard.

A gentle slope ran up from the beach to the entrance of the cave.

At the top, the squire met us. To me he was cordial and kind,

saying nothing of my escapade either in the way of blame

or praise. At Silver's polite salute he somewhat flushed.

"John Silver," he said, "you're a prodigious villain and imposter--

a monstrous imposter, sir. I am told I am not to prosecute you.

Well, then, I will not. But the dead men, sir, hang about your neck

like mill-stones."

"Thank you kindly, sir," replied Long John, again saluting.

"I dare you to thank me!" cried the squire. "It is a gross dereliction

of my duty. Stand back."

And thereupon we all entered the cave. It was a large, airy place,

with a little spring and a pool of clear water, overhung with ferns.

The floor was sand. Before a big fire lay Captain Smollett;

and in a far corner, only duskily flickered over by the blaze,

I beheld great heaps of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of gold.

That was Flint's treasure that we had come so far to seek

and that had cost already the lives of seventeen men from the

HISPANIOLA. How many it had cost in the amassing,

what blood and sorrow, what good ships scuttled on the deep,

what brave men walking the plank blindfold, what shot of cannon,

what shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell.

Yet there were still three upon that island--Silver, and old Morgan,

and Ben Gunn--who had each taken his share in these crimes,

as each had hoped in vain to share in the reward.

"Come in, Jim," said the captain. "You're a good boy in your line,

Jim, but I don't think you and me'll go to sea again.

You're too much of the born favourite for me.

Is that you, John Silver? What brings you here, man?"

"Come back to my dooty, sir," returned Silver.

"Ah!" said the captain, and that was all he said.

What a supper I had of it that night, with all my friends around me;

and what a meal it was, with Ben Gunn's salted goat and some

delicacies and a bottle of old wine from the HISPANIOLA.

Never, I am sure, were people gayer or happier. And there was

Silver, sitting back almost out of the firelight, but eating heartily,

prompt to spring forward when anything was wanted,

even joining quietly in our laughter--the same bland, polite,

obsequious seaman of the voyage out.

****

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