I took a deep breath and stepped toward her myself, with the shoreline opening giddily below me, and the Nightingale like a toy, and the waves scratching around her, and the scavengers scurrying over the stones.
“Why, Natty?” I said as gently as possible, looking away from the fall and into her face. “What are you doing?”
She blinked at me. “Surely you know the answer to that, Jim?” she said.
She was right; I understood perfectly well. She had put her life in the balance to keep herself safe. It was a way of saying “I choose; I am still myself.”
“Very well,” I answered, still softly. “But Natty, be careful.”
“Oh, Jim,” she said, with a curious drifting note in her voice, as if she was falling asleep. “How I count on you—I do! You are always here to rescue me. You are always…”
Her voice trailed off, then wandered back again.
“Do you love me, Jim?” she said. She had never asked before, not straight out like this.
“I do love you, Natty,” I told her. “You know that. I’ve loved you from the beginning.”
She gave a long sigh and the wind blustering up the cliff tore it away from her like smoke. “From the beginning,” she repeated. “The beginning’s a long time ago now, isn’t it.”
I thought she was trying to bewitch me and make me tumble alongside her down through the buffeting air. But I would not be tempted. “Come away now, Natty,” I said, “this is enough—” and reached out a hand.
Her expression changed at once, her dreaminess vanishing completely. “Jim!” she hissed, turning away from me and pointing down to the beach. “Look!”
I took a quarter-step forward, thinking a demon had broken into her mind and made her begin to imagine things—until I peered beyond, over the edge of the cliff, and saw what she meant. She had noticed another body on the black stones below. A lifeless body. And then, as the wave that brought it ashore drained away over the pebbles again, not lifeless. I saw a leg straighten and thrash in the undertow. I saw the body convulse and roll onto hands and knees. I saw it shake like a dog and stand.
It was Mr. Stevenson, our watchman from the Nightingale. I had last seen him hours before with an ingot of the silver clutched to his chest, plunging toward the seabed as our ship foundered; now he was breathing again, and gasping, and wiping the hair from his eyes.
Our guards saw as well and they crept up beside us, nervous at first then suddenly careless, jumping about and chopping the air with their spears. What did they mean? To catch him, of course. To tell the scavengers to catch him.
“Mr. Stevenson!” I shouted, but he could not have heard; the wind had risen again and the distance was too great.
Natty said nothing but seized my hand and gripped it tight. She wanted me to see that while the currents had stripped shoes and clothes from most of the bodies already washed ashore, Mr. Stevenson was still wearing his blue sailor’s jacket.
The mob swarmed toward him, all naked as the day they were born, and Mr. Stevenson began to run, tugging at the pocket of his jacket with both hands. A pocket I now saw was bulging with something hidden.
A weight.
He tugged it clear and threw it behind him.
A bar of silver.
It thumped on the stones gleaming bright as a fish and the mob surged forward. “Ooooh! Ooooh! Ooooh!” they cried, their voices soaring across the cliff-face, then they rushed together and seized it and passed it from hand to hand in quick flashes and glimpses. Only when they had petted it like this for a while, crooning and ogling, did they remember to look up.
“Plata,” they sang out. “Plata. Plata. Plata.”
Whatever this meant I thought it would please the guards, but not in the slightest. They jabbed their spears toward Mr. Stevenson on the beach below, hacking at the air.
I shall describe what followed very quickly, because I hate to remember it. After choosing one man to stay and protect the treasure (which he did by placing it reverently on the black stones, then standing directly above), the rest of the pack began sprinting along the shore, where Mr. Stevenson was still struggling to escape. At this time I suppose he was a hundred yards away from them, limping and hopping with his blue coat flapping around his legs, and no idea where he might go, only that he must be as far away as possible. This made me think he was very brave when he turned to confront his enemies. When he heard them panting close behind him and dropped onto his knees to face them.
Mr. Stevenson. I saw him then as I had seen him first on the Nightingale at her quay in Wapping, climbing into his crow’s-nest to take a view toward the river Thames. For the next many days after that, in the rain as we blew along the south coast of England toward Start Point, then as we crossed the flowing green hills of the Atlantic and reached the calmer and warmer pastures of the Caribbean, I had heard him calling down to me—about the weather to come, about the weather we had avoided, about the chance of this landmark or that being our target. In particular, I could not forget the soft Scottish accent that colored his verdict “All’s well, all’s clear” as we came into the safety of our cove on the Island.
This good man had been the voice of our adventure as well as its eyes. Now the savages had bunched around him and set their bows and fired their arrows into him, all the while howling and yelping as if it was themselves they hurt. Mr. Stevenson never made a sound, not even when most of these arrows pierced him in the chest and stomach, and a few punctured his hands, and more injured his face and head.
A single shaft, if it had been well aimed, would have been enough to dispatch him. This assault made him into a kind of hedgehog, which the savages then turned into a man again by all stepping forward to pluck out their arrows and wipe them on their bare skin and return them to their quivers. Once this was done they turned round and tramped along the beach to rejoin the guard they had left standing over the silver.
As I watched them go I realized I was still holding Natty by the hand, holding her so hard I thought I must be hurting her—and I loosened my grip. But I did not let her go. I was thinking one of the savages might suddenly remember some unfinished business, and return to Mr. Stevenson to desecrate his poor body in the same way we had seen the bo’sun desecrated. In the event, after more rejoicing around the silver, only one brute went back to him—slapping his head like a forgetful schoolboy, then manhandling Mr. Stevenson to remove his blue coat. When he had done this, and held it up to the sky, and seen it was spoiled with arrow-holes and blood, he put it on back to front.
Our guards watched this like the audience at a play, nodding approvingly from time to time and grunting, but otherwise in silence. Only when it was finished and the scavengers were all together again, fawning and gloating over their treasure, did they resume their shouting. Calling down orders to search the carcass of the Nightingale very thoroughly now, to see if it contained more of the same kind.
At last I let Natty go and heard myself breathing again, turning toward her to hold her in my arms. But now our guards had finished their entertainment they were impatient again, dancing along the cliff-edge without so much as another glance at the beach, and poking with their spears until we were back in single file. A few moments later we had marched off the high ground, and come to the edge of the plain that would take us to the interior of the country.
As we heard the air quieten around us, and felt its dampness and warmth, I gathered my wits enough to feel thankful the smooth ground made for easy walking in bare feet; it meant I was able to keep my head high and look about me, no matter what barbarous scenes continued to run in my head. Mr. Stevenson on his knees. Mr. Stevenson toppling forward onto his ruined face.
For the first two or three miles we tramped west along a narrow strip of sand that twisted between the coast and a shallow lake. The effect was very desolate, as the wind drooped around us in sickly swoops and plunges, and plucked at the debris our hurricane had left in its wake: boughs torn off trees and blown here from miles away; stinking clumps
of seaweed buzzing with flies; mysterious root-clumps bleached as white as bone; and sometimes bones themselves—of birds, mainly, but also some larger skeletons of creatures that might once have been dogs or wild cats.
Even when this track ended we still walked easily enough, passing through stagnant marshes, then reaching sand-dunes covered in sea-lavender, where flocks of finches and sparrows sprang up like chaff, then fell down like grain.
Our guards paid no attention to any of these things, which they doubtless saw every day and thought quite ordinary; to my eyes they seemed almost miraculous, and for the first time since our capture I felt my spirits rally.
“They won’t hurt us,” I told Natty, suddenly filling with hope.
There was a pause while she swallowed. “You’re a fool, Jim Hawkins,” she said at last, her voice cracking. “If you believe that you’re a complete fool.”
CHAPTER 6
The March Inland
Natty’s reply hurt my pride but I knew it was fair.
I had deceived myself; I had let the earth deceive me.
For the next part of our journey, although the walking remained easy, and the wreckage of the storm fell behind us, and the clouds began to break up, and the deep blue sky reappeared, and clammy heat turned into dry heat, and our clothes dried out and became more comfortable, I would not be so foolish. I would accept things as they were. I would admit to strangeness and danger. And thirst. And hunger. I would see we had no authority over our own lives; no influence over where we went, or when, or how.
This was the lowest I had fallen since our wreck, because for the first time I accepted how much we had lost. “Father,” I whispered to myself at one point, meaning not the Almighty but my own flesh and blood. “Forgive me.” I had allowed myself to think of him once or twice since reaching dry land, but never before had I wanted his company so much.
At the same time there was Natty, and I knew we must cheat our fate together or not at all.
“Why is there no one here?” I said, just to make conversation. Our guards did not mind, but continued marching at the same steady pace, their moccasins pattering on the dry earth.
“Why should there be?” Although Natty remained out of sight behind me, it was clear she was not in the least interested. She touched me on the shoulder and pointed ahead, where our track now cut into different country again, sprinkled with small oaks and walnuts.
“You see?” she sighed. “There’s nothing here—just trees and grass. Nothing.”
I nattered on regardless. “Where are their houses?” I asked. “Where do they live?”
Natty sighed. “Why are you thinking about houses, Jim? This is the wilderness. We’re not in London now. We’re not in England.”
“Very well,” I said; I knew I was making a fool of myself. “Not houses, then. Whatever they make instead. Tents. Or whatever they find. Caves.”
There was no answer, just scuffling footsteps and another weary sigh.
“All right,” I continued, more wildly than ever. “Not caves, then—I don’t know, Natty. People must live somewhere, that’s all I’m saying. There must be people here and they must live somewhere. People are everywhere.”
This provoked her so much she tried to laugh, a dry croak that made the guard ahead of me spin round and put a finger to his lips.
For once I was glad to obey him and fall silent; I had done my best and it had come to nothing. I had failed. For the next two or three miles I therefore kept my mouth shut and my eyes blank. I refused even to take an interest in my guard, let alone the seed heads that popped in the grasses as the heat of the day increased, or anything else in the country on either side.
In this vacancy I soon slipped back to childhood again and my father, who now appeared in a thousand scenes of kindness: showing me his winding tracks through the marshes near our home in the Hispaniola, asking me to help serve his customers in the taproom there, bringing me food when I was unwell, pointing out the boats and shipping that worked on the river, teaching me their names.
At another time these memories would have been delightful; now the weight of them made my chin drop onto my chest as if I had no more will to live. I felt the earth opening before me, and saw the darkness boiling at the center; I decided I did not care any more if I toppled in.
What saved me was very surprising. We came to a hill-crest, a sluggish wave that rippled through the whole landscape, and when I looked ahead I found the earth suddenly opening into a valley. But not a valley like any we had seen before. This was very neatly shaped, and the central ground had been cleared to make fields, where rows of corn were growing between brushwood fences.
Our guards were certainly pleased to see it, and made us pause while they pointed out features they thought were especially admirable: the oaks that grew at regular intervals along the middle of the valley; the piles of stones that had been removed from the fields and rolled into heaps; and the smooth path (whitened by feet meandering to and fro) that led from where we stood and ended in a village.
A village. Not a collection of houses arranged as a street, such as we know in England, but twenty-five or thirty triangular tents—tepees, I soon learned to call them—which sprouted wherever their occupants had chosen to build them. Some looked like unlit bonfires made of sticks and logs; some had a framework of long poles covered with different kinds of skin; and some were shabby, with rubbish heaped around their entrances.
Beyond these tents, at the head of the valley, stood the greatest surprise of all: a large low house built of stones taken from the fields, with a shaded veranda in front and outbuildings to left and right. I knew at once it must be the home of their chieftain. Now, I thought, with my heart pounding; now he will appear to us and we will hear our sentence.
But nothing happened. Our guards continued their chattering; cloud-shadows swilled over the fields and darkened their yellow to gold; Natty touched my shoulder again, to show she understood what I was thinking, then her hand fell away. And that was all. The house was deserted. There was no smoke rising from the chimney, and no movement in the windows.
Was the chieftain dead or was he hunting perhaps, or fighting? I had no way of knowing, and therefore no reason to feel we were any safer than before. Yet at the same time I told myself we would not be killed at once, because the chieftain was not here to give the order.
The idea was soon knocked aside—by Natty, first, suddenly gesturing in front of us at a group of women working in the fields, then by the women themselves, who set up a great hollering when they saw us, and so brought everyone else in the village streaming out from their tents and up the slope toward us.
Very soon about sixty people had collected, all pointing and murmuring. Women with babies strapped to their backs in flimsy knapsacks. Children. Leathery old grandfathers and grandmothers. And all very inquisitive—darting forward, then back again, pointing and staring. And very suspicious as well. When one group of young boys ran up carrying bows and arrows which they fired into the ground at our feet, the rest of the crowd applauded them, because they could not decide whether we were humans or monsters.
Our guards did not like the idea that we might be hurt in this way and hurried us forward, but this only made the crowd surge around us more wildly than ever. The little children were the least afraid, often laughing at us behind their hands. The women were as scornful as the young men though more decorous, being dressed in animal hides that were stuck over with pieces of shell. I noticed that some of them had trophies dangling from their belts—hair, and wrinkled pieces of skin. And all of them, regardless of age and sex, had decorations painted on their arms and hands and faces—rusty reds and greens, the same as our guards.
The crush was so great we soon came to a standstill, whereupon a young child stepped forward, a boy of seven or eight; he approached very boldly, stretching out his hand with the fist clenched—and then, just when I thought he might be about to punch me, he pinched me, a sting like a mosquito, before breaking into a gr
in and stooping above the mark he had made, to see the whiteness in my skin before he scampered off again.
It was nothing in itself, a game, but I could not help feeling a little spurt of elation. I thought if the children of the village could make us likeable, our strangeness would be forgiven by the others and we might soon become friends. For this reason I then began to encourage them as much as possible, smiling and laughing when three or four others approached me, daring one another to pinch not just my hands and legs, but my nose, my face, and anywhere else they could reach.
Our guards soon tired of this and shouted at us to move again, which made the children scatter as quickly as they had appeared. It was a disappointment, I admit, and I felt it sharply—as though I had been banished from the company of friends—but I kept my chin up as we made our way forward, catching an eye here and there to prove I was made of the same flesh and blood, and showing as much curiosity as possible about their clothes and their tents and the whole arrangement of their village—until suddenly I found myself looking at things I wished I had never seen. Human heads, severed and sewn into a kind of necklace, that hung around the entrance to one of the largest tepees; and farther off, a large circular area with a pit dug in the center. The mouth of this hole was filthy with the wreckage of bonfires, and close by, collapsed between two stakes, lay a naked body, the skin so blistered it hardly resembled a body at all.
Our guards laughed aloud when they saw me noticing this, prodding me with their spears and seeming to congratulate one another. Only when we reached the chieftain’s house did they become more somber again, showing us we must stop here a moment, and admire the magnificent thing before us.
To tell the truth, the house was a very ramshackle affair when seen close up, with draughty holes in the roof and gaps between the stones of the walls. Yet it was also very mysterious and threatening. The shadows sprawling across the veranda looked heavy as marble, and the windows were empty squares of darkness. A curtain draped over the entrance dragged its hem in the dust as the breeze blew; it was dyed the color of blood.
The New World Page 3