Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  CHAPTER XX

  SILVER’S EMBASSY

  Sure enough, there were two men just outside the stockade, one of them waving a white cloth; the other, no less a person than Silver himself, standing placidly by.

  It was still quite early, and the coldest morning that I think I ever was abroad in; a chill that pierced into the marrow. The sky was bright and cloudless overhead, and the tops of the trees shone rosily in the sun. But where Silver stood with his lieutenant all was still in shadow, and they waded knee-deep in a low, white vapor that had crawled during the night out of the morass. The chill and the vapor taken together told a poor tale of the island. It was plainly a damp, feverish, unhealthy spot.

  “Keep indoors, men,” said the captain. “Ten to one this is a trick.”

  Then he hailed the buccaneer.

  “Who goes? Stand, or we fire.”

  “Flag of truce!” cried Silver.

  The captain was in the porch, keeping himself carefully out of the way of a treacherous shot, should any be intended. He turned and spoke to us.

  “Doctor’s watch on the lookout. Doctor Livesey, take the north side, if you please; Jim the east; Gray, west. The watch below, all hands to load muskets. Lively, men, and careful.”

  And then he turned again to the mutineers.

  “And what do you want with your flag of truce?” he cried.

  This time it was the other man who replied.

  “Cap’n Silver, sir, to come on board and make terms,” he shouted.

  “Cap’n Silver! Don’t know him. Who’s he?” cried the captain. And we could hear him adding to himself: “Cap’n, is it? My heart, and here’s promotion!”

  Long John answered for himself.

  “Me, sir. These poor lads have chosen me cap’n, after your desertion, sir” — laying a particular emphasis upon the word “desertion.” “We’re willing to submit, if we can come to terms, and no bones about it. All I ask is your word, Cap’n Smollett, to let me safe and sound out of this here stockade, and one minute to get out o’ shot before a gun is fired.”

  “My man,” said Captain Smollett, “I have not the slightest desire to talk to you. If you wish to talk to me, you can come, that’s all. If there’s any treachery, it’ll be on your side, and the Lord help you.”

  “That’s enough, cap’n,” shouted Long John cheerily. “A word from you’s enough. I know a gentleman, and you may lay to that.”

  We could see the man who carried the flag of truce attempting to hold Silver back. Nor was that wonderful, seeing how cavalier had been the captain’s answer. But Silver laughed at him aloud, and slapped him on the back, as if the idea of alarm had been absurd. Then he advanced to the stockade, threw over his crutch, got a leg up, and with great vigor and skill succeeded in surmounting the fence and dropping safely to the other side.

  I will confess that I was far too much taken up with what was going on to be of the slightest use as sentry; indeed, I had already deserted my eastern loophole and crept up behind the captain, who had now seated himself on the threshold, with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and his eyes fixed on the water as it bubbled out of the old iron kettle in the sand. He was whistling to himself, “Come, Lasses and Lads.”

  Silver had terrible hard work getting up the knoll. What with the steepness of the incline, the thick tree-stumps, and the soft sand, he and his crutch were as helpless as a ship in stays. But he stuck to it like a man, in silence, and at last arrived before the captain, whom he saluted in the handsomest style. He was tricked out in his best; an immense blue coat, thick with brass buttons, hung as low as to his knees, and a fine laced hat was set on the back of his head.

  “Here you are, my man,” said the captain, raising his head. “You had better sit down.”

  “You ain’t a-going to let me inside, cap’n?” complained Long John. “It’s a main cold morning, to be sure, sir, to sit outside upon the sand.”

  “Why, Silver,” said the captain, “if you had pleased to be an honest man you might have been sitting in your galley. It’s your own doing. You’re either my ship’s cook — and then you were treated handsome — or Cap’n Silver, a common mutineer and pirate, and then you can go hang!”

  “Well, well, cap’n,” returned the sea-cook, sitting down as he was bidden on the sand, “you’ll have to give me a hand up again, that’s all. A sweet, pretty place you have of it here. Ah, there’s Jim! The top of the morning to you, Jim. Doctor, here’s my service. Why, there you all are together like a happy family, in a manner of speaking.”

  “If you have anything to say, my man, better say it,” said the captain.

  “Right you are, Cap’n Smollett,” replied Silver. “Dooty is dooty, to be sure. Well, now, you look here, that was a good lay of yours last night. I don’t deny it was a good lay. Some of you pretty handy with a handspike-end. And I’ll not deny neither but what some of my people was shook — maybe all was shook; maybe I was shook myself; maybe that’s why I’m here for terms. But you mark me, cap’n, it won’t do twice, by thunder! We’ll have to do sentry-go, and ease off a point or so on the rum. Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind’s eye. But I’ll tell you I was sober; I was on’y dog tired; and if I’d awoke a second sooner I’d ‘a’ caught you at the act, I would. He wasn’t dead when I got round to him, not he.”

  “Well?” says Captain Smollett, as cool as can be.

  All that Silver said was a riddle to him, but you would never have guessed it from his tone. As for me, I began to have an inkling. Ben Gunn’s last words came back to my mind. I began to suppose that he had paid the buccaneers a visit while they all lay drunk together round their fire, and I reckoned up with glee that we had only fourteen enemies to deal with.

  “Well, here it is,” said Silver. “We want that treasure, and we’ll have it — that’s our point! You would just as soon save your lives, I reckon; and that’s yours. You have a chart, haven’t you?”

  “That’s as may be,” replied the captain.

  “Oh, well, you have, I know that,” returned Long John. “You needn’t be so husky with a man; there ain’t a particle of service in that, and you may lay to it. What I mean is, we want your chart. Now, I never meant you no harm, myself.”

  “That won’t do with me, my man,” interrupted the captain. “We know exactly what you meant to do, and we don’t care; for now, you see, you can’t do it.”

  And the captain looked at him calmly, and proceeded to fill a pipe.

  “If Abe Gray — ” Silver broke out.

  “Avast there!” cried Mr. Smollett. “Gray told me nothing, and I asked him nothing; and what’s more, I would see you and him and this whole island blown clean out of the water into blazes first. So there’s my mind for you, my man, on that.”

  This little whiff of temper seemed to cool Silver down. He had been growing nettled before, but now he pulled himself together.

  “Like enough,” said he. “I would set no limits to what gentlemen might consider shipshape, or might not, as the case were. And, seein’ as how you are about to take a pipe, cap’n, I’ll make so free as do likewise.”

  And he filled a pipe and lighted it; and the two men sat silently smoking for quite a while, now looking each other in the face, now stopping their tobacco, now leaning forward to spit. It was as good as the play to see them.

  “Now,” resumed Silver, “here it is. You give us the chart to get the treasure by, and drop shooting poor seamen, and stoving of their heads in while asleep. You do that and we’ll offer you a choice. Either you come aboard along of us, once the treasure shipped, and then I’ll give you my affy-davy, upon my word of honor, to clap you somewhere safe ashore. Or, if that ain’t to your fancy, some of my hands being rough, and having old scores, on account of hazing, then you can stay here, you can. We’ll divide stores with you, man for man; and I’ll give my affy-davy, as before, to speak the first ship I sight, and send ‘em here to pick you up. Now you’ll own that’s talking. Handsomer yo
u couldn’t look to get, not you. And I hope” — raising his voice — ”that all hands in this here blockhouse will overhaul my words, for what is spoke to one is spoke to all.”

  Captain Smollett rose from his seat and knocked out the ashes of his pipe in the palm of his left hand.

  “Is that all?” he asked.

  “Every last word, by thunder!” answered John. “Refuse that and you’ve seen the last of me but musket-balls.”

  “Very good,” said the captain. “Now you’ll hear me. If you’ll come up one by one, unarmed, I’ll engage to clap you all in irons, and to take you home to a fair trial in England. If you won’t, my name is Alexander Smollett, I’ve flown my sovereign’s colours, and I’ll see you all to Davy Jones. You can’t find the treasure. You can’t sail the ship — there’s not a man among you fit to sail the ship. You can’t fight us — Gray, there, got away from five of you. Your ship’s in irons, Master Silver; you’re on a lee shore, and so you’ll find. I stand here and tell you so, and they’re the last good words you’ll get from me; for, in the name of heaven, I’ll put a bullet in your back when next I meet you. Tramp, my lad. Bundle out of this, please, hand over hand, and double quick.”

  Silver’s face was a picture; his eyes started in his head with wrath. He shook the fire out of his pipe.

  “Give me a hand up!” he cried.

  “Not I,” returned the captain.

  “Who’ll give me a hand up?” he roared.

  Not a man among us moved. Growling the foulest imprecations, he crawled along the sand till he got hold of the porch and could hoist himself again upon his crutch. Then he spat into the spring.

  “There!” he cried, “that’s what I think of ye. Before an hour’s out, I’ll stove in your old blockhouse like a rum puncheon. Laugh, by thunder, laugh! Before an hour’s out, ye’ll laugh upon the other side. Them that die’ll be the lucky ones.”

  And with a dreadful oath he stumbled off, plowed down the sand, was helped across the stockade, after four or five failures, by the man with the flag of truce, and disappeared in an instant afterward among the trees.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE ATTACK

  As soon as Silver disappeared, the captain, who had been closely watching him, turned toward the interior of the house, and found not a man of us at his post but Gray. It was the first time we had ever seen him angry.

  “Quarters!” he roared. And then, as we slunk back to our places, “Gray,” he said, “I’ll put your name in the log; you’ve stood by your duty like a seaman. Mr. Trelawney, I’m surprised at you, sir. Doctor, I thought you had worn the king’s coat! If that was how you served at Fontenoy, sir, you’d have been better in your berth.”

  The doctor’s watch were all back at their loopholes, the rest were busy loading the spare muskets, and everyone with a red face, you may be certain, and a flea in his ear, as the saying is.

  The captain looked on for a while in silence. Then he spoke.

  “My lads,” he said, “I’ve given Silver a broadside. I pitched it in red-hot on purpose; and before the hour’s out, as he said, we shall be boarded. We’re outnumbered, I needn’t tell you that, but we fight in shelter; and, a minute ago, I should have said we fought with discipline. I’ve no manner of doubt that we can drub them, if you choose.”

  Then he went the rounds, and saw, as he said, that all was clear.

  On the two short sides of the house, east and west, there were only two loopholes; on the south side where the porch was, two again; and on the north side, five. There was a round score of muskets for the seven of us; the firewood had been built into four piles — tables, you might say — one about the middle of each side, and on each of these tables some ammunition and four loaded muskets were laid ready to the hand of the defenders. In the middle, the cutlasses lay ranged.

  “Toss out the fire,” said the captain; “the chill is past, and we mustn’t have smoke in our eyes.”

  The iron fire basket was carried bodily out by Mr. Trelawney, and the embers smothered among sand.

  “Hawkins hasn’t had his breakfast. Hawkins, help yourself, and back to your post to eat it,” continued Captain Smollett. “Lively, now, my lad; you’ll want it before you’ve done. Hunter, serve out a round of brandy to all hands.”

  And while this was going on the captain completed, in his own mind, the plan of the defense.

  “Doctor, you will take the door,” he resumed. “See and don’t expose yourself; keep within, and fire through the porch. Hunter, take the east side, there. Joyce, you stand by the west, my man. Mr. Trelawney, you are the best shot — you and Gray will take this long north side, with the five loopholes; it’s there the danger is. If they can get up to it, and fire in upon us through our own ports, things would begin to look dirty. Hawkins, neither you nor I are much account at the shooting; we’ll stand by to load and bear a hand.”

  As the captain had said, the chill was past. As soon as the sun had climbed above our girdle of trees, it fell with all its force upon the clearing, and drank up the vapors at a draught. Soon the sand was baking, and the resin melting in the logs of the blockhouse. Jackets and coats were flung aside; shirts were thrown open at the neck, and rolled up to the shoulders; and we stood there, each at his post, in a fever of heat and anxiety.

  An hour passed away.

  “Hang them!” said the captain. “This is as dull as the doldrums. Gray, whistle for a wind.”

  And just at that moment came the first news of the attack.

  “If you please, sir,” said Joyce, “if I see anyone, am I to fire?”

  “I told you so!” cried the captain.

  “Thank you, sir,” returned Joyce, with the same quiet civility.

  Nothing followed for a time, but the remark had set us all on the alert, straining ears and eyes — the musketeers with their pieces balanced in their hands, the captain out in the middle of the blockhouse, with his mouth very tight and a frown on his face.

  So some seconds passed, till suddenly Joyce whipped up his musket and fired. The report had scarcely died away ere it was repeated and repeated from without in a scattering volley, shot behind shot, like a string of geese, from every side of the inclosure. Several bullets struck the log-house, but not one entered; and, as the smoke cleared away and vanished, the stockade and the woods around it looked as quiet and empty as before. Not a bough waved, not the gleam of a musket-barrel betrayed the presence of our foes.

  “Did you hit your man?” asked the captain.

  “No, sir,” replied Joyce. “I believe not, sir.”

  “Next best thing to tell the truth,” muttered Captain Smollett. “Load his gun, Hawkins. How many should you say there were on your side, doctor?”

  “I know precisely,” said Doctor Livesey. “Three shots were fired on this side. I saw the three flashes — two close together — one farther to the west.”

  “Three!” repeated the captain. “And how many on yours, Mr. Trelawney?”

  But this was not so easily answered. There had come many from the north — seven, by the squire’s computation; eight or nine, according to Gray. From the east and west only a single shot had been fired. It was plain, therefore, that the attack would be developed from the north, and that on the other three sides we were only to be annoyed by a show of hostilities. But Captain Smollett made no change in his arrangements. If the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, he argued, they would take possession of any unprotected loophole, and shoot us down like rats in our own stronghold.

  Nor had we much time left to us for thought. Suddenly, with a loud huzza, a little cloud of pirates leaped from the woods on the north side, and ran straight on the stockade. At the same moment, the fire was once more opened from the woods, and a rifle-ball sang through the doorway, and knocked the doctor’s musket into bits.

  The boarders swarmed over the fence, like monkeys. Squire and Gray fired again and yet again; three men fell, one forward into the inclosure, two back on the
outside. But of these, one was evidently more frightened than hurt, for he was on his feet again in a crack, and instantly disappeared among the trees.

  Two had bit the dust, one had fled, four had made good their footing inside our defenses; while from the shelter of the woods seven or eight men, each evidently supplied with several muskets, kept up a hot though useless fire on the log-house.

  In a moment the four pirates had swarmed up the mound and were upon us

  The four who had boarded made straight before them for the building, shouting as they ran, and the men among the trees shouted back to encourage them. Several shots were fired, but such was the hurry of the marksmen, that not one appeared to have taken effect. In a moment the four pirates had swarmed up the mound and were upon us.

  The head of Job Anderson, the boatswain, appeared at the middle loophole.

  “At ‘em, all hands — all hands!” he roared, in a voice of thunder.

  At the same moment another pirate grasped Hunter’s musket by the muzzle, wrenched it from his hands, plucked it through the loophole, and, with one stunning blow, laid the poor fellow senseless on the floor. Meanwhile a third, running unharmed all round the house, appeared suddenly in the doorway, and fell with his cutlass on the doctor.

  Our position was utterly reversed. A moment since we were firing, under cover, at an exposed enemy; now it was we who lay uncovered, and could not return a blow.

  The log-house was full of smoke, to which we owed our comparative safety. Cries and confusion, the flashes and reports of pistol-shots, and one loud groan, rang in my ears.

  “Out, lads, out and fight ‘em in the open! Cutlasses!” cried the captain.

  I snatched a cutlass from the pile, and someone, at the same time snatching another, gave me a cut across the knuckles which I hardly felt. I dashed out of the door into the clear sunlight. Someone was close behind, I knew not whom. Right in front, the doctor was pursuing his assailant down the hill, and, just as my eyes fell upon him, beat down his guard, and sent him sprawling on his back, with a great slash across his face.