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Treasure Island
Chapter 33. The Fall of a Chieftain
There never was such an overturn in this world.
Each of these six men looked 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's a narrow corner," as, indeed, I thought it was.
His looks weren't quite friendly, and I was so upset by these constant changes that I couldn't help whispering, "So you've changed sides again."
There was no time left for him to answer.
The buccaneers, with oaths and cries, leaped one after another into the pit and dug with their fingers, throwing the boards aside.
Morgan found a piece of gold, he held it up with a perfect stream 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, aren't you? You're him that never messed up nothing, you wooden-headed fool!"
"Dig away, boys," said Silver with the coolest confidence.
"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 written there."
"Ah, Merry," remarked Silver, "standing for captain again? You're a pushing lad, to be sure."
But this time everyone was entirely in Merry's favor.
They began to scramble out of the hole, throwing furious glances behind them.
One thing I observed, which looked well for us, they all got out on the opposite side from Silver.
Well, there we stood, two on one side, five on the other, the pit between us, and nobody brave 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, beyond doubt, and no mistake in his courage at all.
At last Merry seemed to think a speech might help matters.
"Mates," says he.
"Mates," says he, "there's two of them alone there, one's the old cripple that brought us here and led us down to this."
"The other's that boy 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 fell head first into the hole.
The man with the bandage spun around like a top and fell full length on 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 blink, 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 pain, "George," said he, "I reckon I've 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 them off from 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 he did, leaping on his crutch until his chest muscles nearly burst, no sound man ever equaled.
And so thinks the doctor, after watching Silver's tireless effort on his crutch.
As it was, he was already thirty yards behind us and nearly choking when we reached the top of the slope.
"Doctor," he called, "see there! No hurry!"
Sure enough, there was no hurry at all, so we sat down to rest.
In a more open part of the plateau we saw the three survivors running toward Mizzenmast Hill.
We were already between them and the boats.
And so we four sat down to breathe, while Long John, wiping his face, came slowly up with us.
"Thank you kindly, doctor," says he.
"You came in about the right time, 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'm," replied the maroon, wriggling like an eel in his embarrassment.
"And," he added, after a long pause, "how do you do, Mr. Silver? Pretty well, I thank you, says you."
"Ben, Ben," murmured Silver, "to think that you've done me!"
The doctor sent back Gray for one of the pick-axes left behind, in their flight, by the mutineers.
Then as we went slowly downhill to where the boats were lying, he told us in a few words what had happened.
It was a story that deeply 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 robbed it.
He had found the treasure, he had dug it up.
It was the handle of his pick-axe that lay broken in the hole.
He carried it on his back in many weary journeys from the foot of the tall pine.
He carried it to a cave he had on the two-pointed hill at the north-east corner of the island.
And there it had lain stored safely since two months before the arrival of the Hispaniola.
When the doctor learned this secret that afternoon and saw the anchorage empty next morning, he went to Silver.
He gave him the chart, which was now useless.
He gave him the stores, for Ben Gunn's cave was well supplied with goat's meat salted by himself.
He gave anything and everything to get a chance of moving safely from the stockade to the two-pointed hill.
There he hoped to be free of malaria and to keep a guard on 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."
"He added, "And if you weren't one of these, whose fault was it?
That morning, learning I would be caught up in the terrible trick he had prepared for the mutineers, he ran to the cave.
Leaving the squire to guard the captain, he took Gray and the maroon and crossed the island diagonally to the pine.
Soon, however, he saw that our party had the start of him.
And Ben Gunn, being fast on his feet, had been sent ahead to do his best alone.
Then it had occurred to him to work on the superstitions of his former shipmates.
And he was so far successful that Gray and the doctor had come up and were already hidden before the arrival of the treasure-hunters.
"Ah," said Silver.
"It was lucky for me that I had Hawkins here. You'd have let old John be cut to pieces, and never given it a thought, doctor."
"Not a thought," replied Dr. Livesey cheerfully.
And by this time we had reached the gigs.
The doctor, with the pick-axe, destroyed one of them.
Then we all got on board the other and set out to go around by sea for North Inlet.
This was a run of eight or nine miles.
Silver, though he was almost dead with tiredness, was set to an oar, like the rest of us.
And we were soon moving quickly over a smooth sea.
Soon we passed out of the straits and went around the south-east corner of the island, around 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 who met us at the cave, warm and kindly towards me.
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, sailing by herself?
The last flood had lifted her off the sand and set her afloat again.
If there had been strong wind or tide, as in the southern anchorage, we'd never have found her or found her stuck.
As it was, there was little wrong beyond the wreck of the main-sail.
Another anchor was got ready and dropped in a fathom and a half of water.
We all rowed around again to Rum Cove, the nearest point for Ben Gunn's treasure-house.
And then Gray, alone, returned with the gig to the Hispaniola, where he was to spend 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 warm and kind, saying nothing of my adventure either in the way of blame or praise.
At Silver's polite greeting he got a little red.
"John Silver," he said, "you're a huge villain and imposter, a monstrous imposter, sir."
"I'm told not to take you to court, so I won't, but the dead men, sir, hang around your neck like mill-stones".
"Thank you kindly, sir," replied Long John, again greeting him.
"I dare you to thank me!" cried the squire.
"It's a great failure of my duty. Stand back."
And then 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 dimly lit by the fire, I saw great piles of coins and square blocks built of bars of gold.
That was Flint's treasure that we had come so far to find and that had already cost the lives of seventeen men from the Hispaniola.
No man alive could tell how much it had cost in the gathering.
There was blood and sorrow, good ships sunk on the deep, and brave men walking the plank blindfold.
There was shot of cannon, shame, lies, and cruelty.
Yet there were still three upon that island.
Silver, old Morgan, and Ben Gunn, who had each taken part in these crimes and each hoped in vain to share 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 favorite for me."
"Is that you, John Silver?"
"What brings you here, man?"
"Come back to my duty, sir," replied 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 treats and a bottle of old wine from the Hispaniola.
Never, I'm sure, were people gayer or happier.
And there was Silver, seated near the firelight, eating heartily, quick to help when needed, and joining our laughter.
The same smooth, polite, obedient seaman of the voyage out.