Twenty-eight

IN THE ENEMY'S CAMP

The yellow glow of the lamp showed me that the worst of my fears had come true. The pirates possessed the log-house and the stores. There was the meat and bread as before, and—what ten times increased my terror—not a sign of any prisoner. I could only judge that all had been killed, and my heart was grieved that I had not been there to die with them.

There were six of the pirates in all; not another man was left alive. Five of them were on their feet, their faces still red with sleep. The sixth had only risen upon his arm: his face was very white, and the bloody cloth round his head told that he had been wounded not many hours ago. I remembered the man who had been shot and had run back among the woods in the great attack, and guessed that this was he.

The parrot sat on Long John's shoulder. She, herself, I thought, looked rather more solemn than before, and her feathers were dirty and torn.

"So," said Silver, "here's Jim Hawkins! dropped in on a visit, eh? Well, come, I take that friendly."

And he sat down across the barrel, and began to fill a pipe.

"Give me a light for my pipe, Dick," said he. "You need not stand up for Mr. Hawkins, gentlemen. Well, here you are, Jim: quite a pleasant surprise for poor old John. I saw that you were a bright lad when first I set eyes on you, but this takes my breath away, it does."

To all this, as may be well supposed, I made no answer. They had set me with my back against the wall; and I stood there, looking Silver in the face, bravely enough, I hope, to all outward appearance; but with black despair in my heart.

Silver went on smoking his pipe.

"Now, Jim, I've always liked you. I always wanted you to join us, and take your share, and die like a gentleman—and now, my lad, you've got to! Captain Smollett is a hard man about obeying orders: 'Duty is duty,' he says. The doctor is right against you. So there's how it is; you can't go back to your own people. So, unless you start a ship's company all by yourself, you'll have to join Cap'n Silver."

So far so good. My friends, then, were still alive, though I partly believed the truth of Silver's story, that they were angry with me.

"I don't say anything as to your being in our power," continued Silver, "though there you are. But I've never seen good come out of force. If you like the service, well, you'll join; and if you don't, Jim, why, you're free to answer no—free and welcome; and that's as fair as anything can be."

"Am I to answer, then?" I asked, with a shaking voice. Through all this talk, I was made to feel the shadow of death that hung over me, and my cheeks burned and my heart beat painfully in my breast.

"Lad," said Silver, "no one's pressing you. Think it over. None of us will hurry you; time goes so pleasantly in your company, you see."

"Well," said I, growing a bit bolder, "if I'm to choose, I declare I have a right to know what's what, and why you're here, and where my friends are."

"What's what?" repeated one of the pirates in a deep voice. "Ah, he'd be a fortunate fellow who knew that!"

"You'll perhaps shut your face until you're spoken to, friend," cried Silver angrily. Then in his smooth voice he replied to me: "Yesterday morning Dr. Livesey came down with a white flag. Said he, 'Ship's gone.' We looked out, and, by thunder, the old ship was gone. I never saw a set of fools look sillier. 'Well,' said the doctor, 'let's make a bargain.' We bargained, he and I, and here we are, stores, log-house, and the firewood you were thoughtful enough to cut for us. As for them, they've marched off; I don't know where they are."

Silver drew again quietly at his pipe.

"And lest you should take it into that head of yours," he went on, "that you were thought of in the bargain, here's the last word that was said: 'How many are you,' said I, 'to leave?' 'Four,' said he—'four, and one of us wounded. As for that boy, I don't know where he is, curse him,' he said, 'and I don't much care. We're about tired of him.' These were his words."

"Is that all?" I asked.

"Well, it's all that you're to hear, my son," replied Silver.

"And now I am to choose?"

"And now you are to choose, and you may make up your mind to that," said Silver.

"Well," said I, "I am not such a fool, but I know pretty well what I have to look for. Let the worst come to the worst, it's little I care. I've seen too many die since I met you. But there's a thing or two I have to tell you," I said, and by this time I was quite excited; "and the first is this: here you are, in a bad way: ship lost, treasure lost, men lost; your whole business gone to wreck; and if you want to know who did it—it was I! I was in the apple barrel the night we came in sight of land, and I heard you, John, and you, Dick Johnson, and Hands, who is now at the bottom of the sea; and I told every word you said before the hour was out. And as for the ship, it was I who cut her loose, and it was I that killed the men you had on board of her, and it was I who brought her where you'll never see her again, not one of you. The laugh's on my side; I've had the top of this business from the first; I no more fear you than I fear a fly. Kill me, if you like, or spare me. But one thing I'll say, and no more; if you spare me, I'll forgive the past, and, when you fellows are being tried as pirates, I'll save you, if I can. It is for you to choose. Kill another, and do yourselves no good, or spare me and keep me to save you from hanging."

I stopped, for, I tell you, I was out of breath, and to my wonder, not a man of them moved, but all sat gazing at me like so many sheep. And while they were still gazing, I broke out again.

"And now, Mr. Silver," I said, "I believe you're the best man here, and if things go the worst, I'll take it kind of you to let the doctor know the way I took it."

"I'll bear it in mind," said Silver, with a voice so curious that I could not, for the life of me, decide whether he were laughing at me, or had been moved by my courage.

"I'll put one to that," cried the old brown-faced seaman—Morgan by name—whom I had seen in Long John's inn at Bristol. "It was he that knew Black Dog."

"Well, and see here," added Silver, "I'll put another again to that, by thunder! for it was this same boy that stole the map from Billy Bones. First and last, we've been wrecked upon Jim Hawkins!"

"Then here goes!" said Morgan, with a foul word.

And he sprang up, drawing his knife.

"Get back there!" cried Silver. "Who are you, Tom Morgan? Maybe you thought you were cap'n here, perhaps. By the powers, but I'll teach you better! Cross me, and you'll go where many a good man's gone before you, some by hanging, and some to feed the fishes. There's never a man looked me between the eyes and saw a good day afterwards, Tom Morgan."

Morgan paused; but a murmur rose from the others.

"Tom's right," said one.

"I've had enough ordering about," added another. "I'll be hanged if I'll be ordered by you, John Silver."

"Did any of you gentlemen want to have it out with me?" roared Silver, bending far forward from his place on the barrel, with his pipe still glowing in his right hand. "Put a name on what you're at. Speak up; him that wants shall get it. You know the way; you're all gentlemen o' fortune—or say you are. Well, I'm ready. Take a knife, him that dares, and I'll see the colour of his inside before that pipe's empty."

Not a man moved; not a man answered.

"That's your sort, is it?" he added, returning his pipe to his mouth. "Well, you're a gay lot to look at, anyway. Not much worth to fight, you aren't. P'r'aps you can understand King George's English. I'm cap'n here, by election. I'm cap'n here because I'm the best man by a long sea-mile. You won't fight, as gentlemen o' fortune should; then, by thunder, you'll obey! I like that boy, now; I never seen a better boy than that. He's more a man than any pair of rats of you in this here house, and what I say is this: let me see him that'll lay a hand on him—that's what I say."

There was a long pause after this. I stood straight up against the wall, my heart still madly beating, but with a glimmer of hope now shining in my breast. Silver leant back against the wall, his arms crossed, his pipe in the corner of his mouth, as calm as though he had been in church; yet his eye kept wandering and he kept the tail of it on his followers. They, on their part, drew together towards the far end of the log-house, and the low sound of their whispering sounded in my ear unceasingly like a stream. One after another they would look up, and the light of the lamp would fall for a moment on their anxious faces; but it was not towards me, it was towards Silver that they turned their eyes.

"You seem to have a lot to say," said Silver. "Let me hear it, or stop talking."

"Ask your pardon, sir," replied one of the men, "but this crew is dissatisfied. This crew has its rights like other crews, and by your own rules we can talk together. I claim my right and step outside to talk there."

And so saying, this fellow, a long, ill-looking, yellow-eyed man of five-and-thirty, stepped coolly towards the door and disappeared out of the house. One after another, the rest followed his example, and left Silver and me alone with the lamp.

The sea-cook instantly removed his pipe.

"Now, look you here, Jim Hawkins," he said in a steady whisper, that could only just be heard, "you're within half an inch of death, and what's a great deal worse than death. They're going to throw me off from being their captain. But, remember I stand by you through everything. I didn't mean to; no, not till you spoke up. I was in despair at losing all that treasure, and being hanged into the bargain. But I saw you were the right sort. I said to myself: 'You stand by Hawkins, and Hawkins'll stand by you. You're his last hope, and, by the living thunder, John, he's yours! Back to back,' said I. 'You save him to say a word for you at the trial, and he'll save your neck!'"

I began dimly to understand.

"You mean all's lost?" I asked.

"Ay, by God, I do!" he answered. "Ship gone, neck gone—that's the size of it. Once I looked into that bay, Jim Hawkins, and saw no ship—well, I'm brave enough, but I gave out. As for that lot and their talk, believe me, they're utter fools. I'll save your life—if so be as I can—from them. But, see here, Jim—it's a bargain—you save Long John from hanging."

I did not know what to think; it seemed a thing so hopeless he was asking—he, the old pirate, the leader all through.

"What I can do, that I'll do," I said.

"It's a bargain!" cried Long John. "You speak up bravely, and, by thunder! I have a chance."

Silver took a fresh light to his pipe.

"Understand me, Jim," he said. "I've a head on my shoulders, I have. I'm on Mr. Trelawney's side now. I know you've got that ship safe somewhere. How you did it, I don't know, but safe it is. I guess Hands and O'Brien turned soft. I never much believed in either of them. Now you listen to me. I ask no questions, nor I won't let others. I know when a game's up, I do, and I know a lad that is honest and will stand by a fellow."

He drew some rum from the barrel into a tin pot.

"Will you taste?" he asked; and when I had refused: "Well, I'll take a drop myself, Jim," said he. "I need it, for there's trouble on hand. And, talking of trouble, why did that doctor give me that map, Jim?"

My face expressed such wonder that he saw the needlessness of further questions.

"Ah, well, he did, though," said he. "And there's something under that, no doubt—something surely under that, Jim—bad or good."

And he took another swallow of the rum, shaking his great fair head like a man who looks forward to the worst.