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Treasure Island
Chapter 14. The First Blow
Pleased to have escaped Long John, I began to enjoy myself and look around the strange land I was in.
I had crossed a marshy area full of willows, bulrushes, and odd, swampy trees.
Now I came out onto the edge of an open, sandy piece of land, about a mile long.
It had a few pines and many twisted trees that looked like oaks in shape but had pale leaves like willows.
On the far side of the open space stood one of the hills, with two strange, rocky peaks shining brightly in the sun.
For the first time, I felt the joy of exploration.
The island was uninhabited, I had left my shipmates behind, and nothing lived in front of me but dumb animals and birds.
I turned here and there among the trees.
I saw flowering plants I didn't know.
I saw snakes, and one raised its head from a rock and hissed at me with a noise like a spinning top.
Little did I know that it was a deadly enemy and that the noise was the famous rattle.
Then I came to a long thicket of these oak-like trees.
I later heard they were called live oaks or evergreen oaks.
They grew low along the sand like bushes, with twisted branches and thick leaves like thatch.
The thicket stretched down from the top of a sandy hill, spreading and growing taller until it reached the edge of the wide, reedy marsh.
Through the marsh, the nearest little river flowed into the anchorage.
The marsh was steaming in the strong sun, and the outline of the Spy-glass hill trembled through the haze.
All at once, a bustle began among the bulrushes.
A wild duck flew up with a quack, another followed, and soon a great cloud of birds hung screaming and circling over the whole marsh.
I judged at once that some of my shipmates must be coming near along the edges of the fen.
I wasn't wrong, for soon I heard the very distant and low tones of a human voice.
As I listened, it grew steadily louder and nearer.
This put me in great fear, and my heart began to beat very fast.
I crawled under cover of the nearest live oak and squatted there, listening, as silent as a mouse.
Another voice answered, quieter this time, speaking in a low, cautious tone.
Then the first voice, which I now recognized as Silver's, took up the story again and ran on for a long while without stopping.
The other voice interrupted only now and then.
By the sound, they must have been talking earnestly and almost fiercely, but I couldn't hear any clear words.
At last, the speakers seemed to have paused and perhaps sat down.
Not only did they stop coming nearer, but the birds themselves began to grow quieter and settle back into the swamp.
And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my duty.
Since I had been so foolish as to come ashore with these dangerous men, the least I could do was to overhear their plans.
My plain and obvious duty was to get as close as I could, using the cover of the low trees.
I could tell the direction of the speakers pretty exactly by the sound of their voices.
I could also tell it by the behavior of the few birds still hanging in alarm above the intruders.
Crawling on all fours, I moved steadily but slowly toward them.
At last, I raised my head to an opening among the leaves and could see clearly down into a little green valley beside the marsh.
It was closely surrounded by trees, there Long John Silver and another crew member stood face to face in conversation.
The sun beat fully on them, Silver had thrown his hat beside him on the ground.
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 think gold dust of you."
"Gold dust, and you can be sure of that! If I hadn't taken to you like glue, do you think I'd be here warning you?"
"It's all over, you can't fix it, and I'm speaking to save your neck, if one of the wild ones knew, where would I be, Tom"?
"Silver," said the other man.
I noticed he wasn't only red in the face but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook too, like a tight rope.
"Silver," he said, "you're old, and you're honest, or you have the name for it, and you have money too, which lots of poor sailors don't have."
"And you're brave, or I'm mistaken, will you let yourself be led away by that kind of worthless crew? Not you!"
"As sure as God sees me, I'd rather lose my hand than turn against my duty".
And then all of a sudden, he was interrupted by a noise.
I had found one of the honest men.
Well, here, at that same moment, came news of another.
Far away in the marsh, there arose all of a sudden a sound like a cry of anger.
Then another followed it, and then one horrible, long scream.
The rocks of the Spy-glass echoed it many times.
The whole group of marsh birds rose again, darkening the sky with a loud whirr.
Long after that death yell was still ringing in my brain, silence had returned.
Only the rustle of the birds coming back down and the boom of the distant waves disturbed the quiet of the afternoon.
Tom had jumped at the sound, like a horse at the spur, but Silver hadn't blinked 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 steadiness of a trained gymnast.
"Hands off, if you like, John Silver," said the other.
"It's a black conscience that makes you afraid of me. But in heaven's name, tell me, what was that?"
"That?" replied Silver, smiling but warier than ever.
His eye was a mere pin-point in his big face, but it gleamed like a piece of glass.
"That? Oh, I think 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, you've been a mate of mine for a long time, but you're my mate no more."
"If I die like a dog, I'll die in my duty."
"You've killed Alan, have you?"
"Kill me too, if you can."
"But I defy you."
And with that, this brave fellow turned his back directly on the cook and set off walking for the beach.
But he wasn't meant to go far.
With a cry, John seized a tree branch, pulled the crutch from under his arm, and sent that ugly weapon flying.
It struck poor Tom, point first, with stunning force, right between the shoulders in the middle of his back.
His hands flew up, he gave a sort of gasp, and fell.
Whether he was hurt much or little, no one could ever tell.
From the sound, it seemed his back was broken on the spot.
But he had no time given to recover.
Silver, as quick as a monkey even without a leg or crutch, was on top of him the next moment.
He had twice buried his knife up to the handle in that defenseless body.
From my hiding place, I could hear him panting aloud as he struck the blows.
I don't know what it really means to faint.
But I know that for the next little while, the whole world swam away from me in a whirling mist.
Silver and the birds and the tall Spy-glass hilltop went round and round and upside down before my eyes.
All kinds of bells rang and distant voices shouted in my ear.
When I came to myself again, the monster had pulled himself together.
His crutch was under his arm, his hat on his head.
Just in front of him, Tom lay motionless on the grass.
But the murderer didn't mind him at all.
He was cleaning his blood-stained knife on a piece of grass.
Everything else was unchanged, the sun still shone mercilessly on the steaming marsh and the tall peak of the mountain.
I could hardly believe that murder had actually been done and a human life cruelly cut short a moment ago before my eyes.
But now John put his hand into his pocket, took out a whistle, and blew several short blasts that rang far across the hot air.
I couldn't tell the meaning of the signal, of course, but it instantly woke my fears.
More men would be coming, I might be discovered.
They had already killed two of the honest men.
After Tom and Alan, might I not come next?
I scrambled free and crawled back as fast and silent as I could to the more open part of the wood.
As I did so, I could hear shouts going back and forth between the old pirate and his comrades.
This sound of danger gave me wings.
As soon as I was clear of the thicket, I ran as I had never run before.
I hardly cared about the direction of my flight, as long as it led me away from the murderers.
And as I ran, fear grew and grew upon me until it turned into a kind of madness.
Indeed, could anyone be more completely lost than I?
When the gun fired, how could I dare to go down to the boats among those fiends, still smoking from their crime?
Wouldn't the first one who saw me wring my neck like a bird's?
Wouldn't my absence itself be proof to them of my fear, and therefore of my deadly knowledge?
It was all over, I thought, Goodbye to the Hispaniola.
Goodbye 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.
Without noticing, I had drawn near to the foot of the little hill with the two peaks.
I had reached a part of the island where live oaks grew farther apart and looked more like forest trees.
Mixed with them were a few scattered pines, some fifty, some nearly seventy feet high.
The air too smelled fresher than down beside the marsh.
And here a new alarm brought me to a stop with a thumping heart.