The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 6. Robert Louis Stevenson
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captain,” said the squire, “you were right, and I was wrong. I own myself an ass, and I await your orders.”
“No more an ass than I, sir,” returned the captain. “I never heard of a crew that meant to mutiny but what showed signs before, for any man that had an eye in his head to see the mischief and take steps according. But this crew,” he added, “beats me.”
“Captain,” said the doctor, “with your permission, that’s Silver. A very remarkable man.”
“He’d look remarkably well from a yard-arm, sir,” returned the captain. “But this is talk; this don’t lead to anything. I see three or four points, and with Mr. Trelawney’s permission, I’ll name them.”
“You, sir, are the captain. It is for you to speak,” says Mr. Trelawney grandly.
“First point,” began Mr. Smollett: “we must go on, because we can’t turn back. If I gave the word to go about, they would rise at once. Second point: we have time before us – at least, until this treasure’s found. Third point: there are faithful hands. Now, sir, it’s got to come to blows sooner or later; and what I propose is, to take time by the forelock, as the saying is, and come to blows some fine day when they least expect it. We can count, I take it, on your own home servants, Mr. Trelawney?”
“As upon myself,” declared the squire.
“Three,” reckoned the captain, “ourselves make seven, counting Hawkins, here. Now, about the honest hands?”
“Most likely Trelawney’s own men,” said the doctor; “those he had picked up for himself, before he lit on Silver.”
“Nay,” replied the squire, “Hands was one of mine.”
“I did think I could have trusted Hands,” added the captain.
“And to think that they’re all Englishmen!” broke out the squire. “Sir, I could find it in my heart to blow the ship up.”
“Well, gentlemen,” said the captain, “the best that I can say is not much. We must lay-to, if you please, and keep a bright look-out. It’s trying on a man, I know. It would be pleasanter to come to blows. But there’s no help for it till we know our men. Lay-to, and whistle for a wind, that’s my view.”
“Jim here,” said the doctor, “can help us more than any one. The men are not shy with him, and Jim is a noticing lad.”
“Hawkins, I put prodigious faith in you,” added the squire.
I began to feel pretty desperate at this, for I felt altogether helpless; and yet, by an odd train of circumstances, it was indeed through me that safety came. In the meantime, talk as we pleased, there were only seven out of the twenty-six on whom we knew we could rely; and out of these seven one was a boy, so that the grown men on our side were six to their nineteen.
PART III
MY SHORE ADVENTURE
CHAPTER XIII
HOW I BEGAN MY SHORE ADVENTURE
The appearance of the island when I came on deck next morning was altogether changed. Although the breeze had now utterly failed, we had made a great deal of way during the night, and were now lying becalmed about half a mile to the south-east of the low eastern coast. Grey-coloured woods covered a large part of the surface. This even tint was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sandbreak in the lower lands, and by many tall trees of the pine family, out-topping the others – some singly, some in clumps; but the general colouring was uniform and sad. The hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock. All were strangely shaped, and the Spy-glass, which was by three or four hundred feet the tallest on the island, was likewise the strangest in configuration, running up sheer from almost every side, and then suddenly cut off at the top like a pedestal to put a statue on.
The Hispaniola was rolling scuppers under in the ocean swell. The booms were tearing at the blocks, the rudder was banging to and fro, and the whole ship creaking, groaning, and jumping like a manufactory. I had to cling tight to the backstay, and the world turned giddily before my eyes; for though I was a good enough sailor when there was way on, this standing still and being rolled about like a bottle was a thing I never learned to stand without a qualm or so, above all in the morning, on an empty stomach.
Perhaps it was this – perhaps it was the look of the island, with its grey, melancholy woods, and wild stone spires, and the surf that we could both see and hear foaming and thundering on the steep beach – at least, although the sun shone bright and hot, and the shore-birds were fishing and crying all around us, and you would have thought any one would have been glad to get to land after being so long at sea, my heart sank, as the saying is, into my boots; and from that first look onward I hated the very thought of Treasure Island.
We had a dreary morning’s work before us, for there was no sign of any wind, and the boats had to be got out and manned, and the ship warped three or four miles round the corner of the island, and up the narrow passage to the haven behind Skeleton Island. I volunteered for one of the boats, where I had, of course, no business. The heat was sweltering, and the men grumbled fiercely over their work. Anderson was in command of my boat, and instead of keeping the crew in order, he grumbled as loud as the worst.
“Well,” he said, with an oath, “it’s not for ever.”
I thought this was a very bad sign; for, up to that day, the men had gone briskly and willingly about their business; but the very sight of the island had relaxed the cords of discipline.
All the way in, Long John stood by the steersman and conned the ship. He knew the passage like the palm of his hand; and though the man in the chains got everywhere more water than was down in the chart, John never hesitated once.
“There’s a strong scour with the ebb,” he said, “and this here passage has been dug out, in a manner of speaking, with a spade.”
We brought up just where the anchor was in the chart, about a third of a mile from either shore, the mainland on one side, and Skeleton Island on the other. The bottom was clean sand. The plunge of our anchor sent up clouds of birds wheeling and crying over the woods; but in less than a minute they were down again, and all was once more silent.
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