hey  asked him where the treasure  was. 'Ah,' says  he,
'you can go ashore, if  you  like, and stay,' he says; 'but as for the ship,
she'll beat up for more, by thunder!' That's what he said.
     "Well, I  was  in another ship  three years back, and  we  sighted this
island. 'Boys,' said I, 'here's  Flint's treasure;  let's land and find it.'
The  cap'n was displeased  at that, but my messmates were all of a  mind and
landed. Twelve days they looked for it, and  every day they  had  the  worse
word  for  me, until  one fine morning all  hands went aboard.  'As for you,
Benjamin Gunn,'  says  they, 'here's a musket,' they says, 'and a spade, and
pick-axe. You can stay here and find Flint's money for yourself,' they says.
     "Well, Jim, three years have I  been here, and not  a bite of Christian
diet  from that  day to this.  But now, you look here; look at me. Do I look
like  a man before  the mast? No, says you. Nor I weren't, neither, I says."
And with that he winked and pinched me hard.
     "Just you mention them  words to your squire, Jim," he went on. "Nor he
weren't, neither -  that's the words. Three  years he were  the  man of this
island, light and dark, fair and  rain; and sometimes he  would maybe  think
upon a  prayer  (says you),  and  sometimes he would maybe think of  his old
mother,  so be as she's alive (you'll say); but the most part of Gunn's time
(this is  what you'll say) -  the  most  part of his  time was took up  with
another matter. And then you'll give him a nip, like I do."
     And he pinched me again in the  most  confidential  manner.  "Then," he
continued, "then  you'll up, and you'll say this: Gunn is a good man (you'll
say),  and he puts a precious sight more confidence - a precious sight, mind
that - in a  gen'leman born than in  these gen'leman of fortune, having been
one hisself."
     "Well," I said, "I don't understand one word that  you've  been saying.
But that's neither here nor there; for how am I to get on board?"
     "Ah," said he, "that's the hitch, for sure. Well, there's my boat, that
I made with my two hands. I keep her under the white rock. If the worst come
to  the  worst, we  might  try  that after dark. Hi!" he broke out.  "What's
that?"
     For  just then,  although the sun had still an hour  or two to run, all
the echoes of the island awoke and bellowed to the thunder of a cannon.
     "They have begun to fight!" I cried. "Follow me."
     And I  began to run  towards the anchorage, my terrors  all  forgotten,
while close at my side the  marooned man in his goatskins trotted easily and
lightly.
     "Left,  left," says he;  "keep to your left  hand,  mate Jim! Under the
trees with  you! Theer's where I killed my first goat. They don't come  down
here  now; they're all mastheaded on them mountings for the fear of Benjamin
Gunn. Ah! And there's the cetemery" - cemetery, he must have meant. "You see
the mounds? I  come here and prayed, nows and  thens, when I thought maybe a
Sunday would be about  doo.  It  weren't quite a chapel, but  it seemed more
solemn like; and then, says  you,  Ben Gunn was  short-handed - no chapling,
nor so much as a Bible and a flag, you says."
     So he  kept talking  as  I  ran, neither  expecting  nor  receiving any
answer.
     The cannon-shot was followed after a considerable interval  by a volley
of small arms.
     Another  pause,  and  then, not a quarter of a  mile in front  of me, I
beheld the Union Jack flutter in the air above a wood.
     =======================================================================

     PART FOUR The Stockade
     -----------------------------------------------------------------------
     16. Narrative Continued by the Doctor: How the Ship Was Abandoned
     IT  was about half past one - three bells in the  sea phrase - that the
two boats  went  ashore from  the HISPANIOLA. The captain, the squire, and I
were talking matters over in the cabin. Had there been  a breath of wind, we
should have  fallen  on  the  six  mutineers who  were left aboard  with us,
slipped  our cable,  and  away  to sea. But  the  wind  was  wanting; and to
complete our helplessness, down came  Hunter with the news  that Jim Hawkins
had slipped into a boat and was gone ashore with the rest.
     It never occurred to  us to  doubt Jim Hawkins, but we were alarmed for
his  safety. With  the  men  in the temper they  were in,  it seemed an even
chance  if we  should  see  the lad again. We  ran  on  deck.  The pitch was
bubbling in the seams; the nasty stench of the place turned me sick; if ever
a man smelt fever and dysentery,  it was in that  abominable  anchorage. The
six scoundrels were sitting grumbling under a sail in the forecastle; ashore
we could see the gigs made fast and a man sitting in each, hard by where the
river runs in. One of them was whistling "Lillibullero."
     Waiting was a strain, and it was  decided that  Hunter and  I should go
ashore with the jolly-boat in quest of information.
     The gigs  had  leaned to  their right, but Hunter and I pulled straight
in, in  the direction of the stockade upon the chart. The two who were  left
guarding  their boats seemed  in a bustle at  our appearance; "Lillibullero"
stopped off, and I could see the  pair discussing what they ought to do. Had
they  gone and told Silver, all might have turned out differently;  but they
had their orders, I suppose, and decided to sit quietly where  they were and
hark back again to "Lillibullero."
     There was a  slight bend in  the coast, and I  steered so as  to put it
between us; even  before we landed we  had thus  lost  sight of the gigs.  I
jumped out and came as near running as I durst, with a big silk handkerchief
under my hat for  coolness'  sake  and a brace of pistols  ready  primed for
safety.
     I  had  not gone a hundred yards when  I reached the stockade. This was
how it was: a spring of clear water rose almost at the top of a knoll. Well,
on the knoll, and enclosing  the spring, they had clapped  a stout log-house
fit to hold two  score  of people on  a pinch and loopholed for musketry  on
either  side. All round this they had  cleared a  wide  space, and  then the
thing was completed by a paling  six feet high, without door or opening, too
strong to pull  down  without  time and labour and  too open to  shelter the
besiegers. The  people in the log-house had  them  in every way; they  stood
quiet in shelter and shot the others like partridges.  All they wanted was a
good watch and food; for, short of a complete surprise, they might have held
the place against a regiment.
     What particularly took my fancy was the spring.  For though  we  had  a
good enough place of  it in the cabin of the HISPANIOLA, with plenty of arms
and ammunition, and things to eat,  and  excellent wines, there had been one
thing overlooked - we had no water. I was thinking this over when there came
ringing  over the island  the cry of a man at the point of death.  I was not
new  to violent death -  I  have  served  his  Royal  Highness  the  Duke of
Cumberland, and  got a wound myself at Fontenoy - but I  know my pulse  went
dot and carry one. "Jim Hawkins is gone," was my first thought.
     It is something to have  been an  old soldier,  but more still  to have
been a doctor. There  is  no time to dilly-dally in  our work.  And so now I
made up my mind instantly, and  with no time lost returned to the shore  and
jumped on board the jolly-boat.
     By  good fortune  Hunter pulled a good oar. We made the water fly,  and
the boat was soon alongside and I aboard the schooner.
     I found  them all shaken, as  was natural. The squire was sitting down,
as white as a sheet, thinking of the harm  he had led us  to, the good soul!
And one of the six forecastle hands was little better.
     "There's  a man,"  says Captain Smollett, nodding  towards him, "new to
this  work.  He  came  nigh-hand fainting, doctor, when he  heard  the  cry.
Another touch of the rudder and that man would join us."
     I told my plan to the captain, and between us we settled on the details
of its accomplishment.
     We put old Redruth in the gallery between the cabin and the forecastle,
with three  or  four loaded muskets  and a  mattress for  protection. Hunter
brought  the  boat  round under the stern-port, and Joyce and I  set to work
loading her with powder  tins, muskets, bags of  biscuits, kegs  of pork,  a
cask of cognac, and my invaluable medicine chest.
     In the meantime,  the  squire  and the captain stayed on  deck, and the
latter hailed the coxswain, who was the principal man aboard.
     "Mr. Hands," he said, "here are two of us with a brace of pistols each.
If any one of you six make a signal of any description, that man's dead."
     They were a  good deal taken aback, and after a little consultation one
and all tumbled down the fore companion, thinking no doubt to take us on the
rear. But when they saw Redruth waiting for them in the sparred galley, they
went about ship at once, and a head popped out again on deck.
     "Down, dog!" cries the captain.
     And the head popped back again; and we  heard no more, for the time, of
these six very  faint-hearted  seamen. By  this time, tumbling  things in as
they came, we had the jolly-boat loaded as much as we dared. Joyce and I got
out  through the stern-port, and we  made for  shore  again  as fast as oars
could take us.
     This   second  trip   fairly   aroused   the   watchers   along  shore.
"Lillibullero" was  dropped  again; and just before  we  lost sight of  them
behind the little point, one of them whipped  ashore  and disappeared. I had
half a  mind to  change  my plan  and destroy their boats, but I feared that
Silver and the others  might be close at hand, and  all might  very well  be
lost  by trying for too much. We had soon touched land in  the same place as
before and set  to  provision the  block  house.  All  three made  the first
journey, heavily  laden,  and  tossed our  stores  over the  palisade. Then,
leaving Joyce to guard  them - one  man,  to be sure, but with half a  dozen
muskets - Hunter and I returned to the jolly-boat and loaded ourselves  once
more. So we proceeded without pausing to  take breath,  till the whole cargo
was  bestowed, when  the  two  servants took up  their position in the block
house, and I, with all my power, sculled back to the HISPANIOLA.
     That we should have risked a second boat load seems more daring than it
really was.  They  had the advantage  of numbers, of course, but we had  the
advantage of arms.  Not one  of the men ashore had a musket, and before they
could get within range for pistol shooting, we flattered ourselves we should
be able to give a good account of a half-dozen at least.
     The  squire  was waiting for me at the  stern window, all his faintness
gone  from him. He caught the  painter  and  made it  fast, and  we fell  to
loading  the boat  for our  very lives.  Pork,  powder, and biscuit  was the
cargo,  with  only a musket and a cutlass  apiece for  the squire and me and
Redruth  and  the  captain.  The  rest  of the  arms  and powder we  dropped
overboard  in two fathoms  and  a  half of water,  so that we could  see the
bright steel shining far below us in the sun, on the clean, sandy bottom. By
this  time the tide was beginning to ebb, and the ship was swinging round to
her anchor.  Voices were heard faintly halloaing in the direction of the two
gigs;  and though this reassured us for Joyce  and  Hunter, who were well to
the eastward, it warned our party to be off.
     Redruth retreated from his place in  the gallery and dropped  into  the
boat, which we then  brought round  to the ship's counter, to be handier for
Captain Smollett.
     "Now, men," said he, "do you hear me?"
     There was no answer from the forecastle.
     "It's to you, Abraham Gray - it's to you I am speaking."
     Still no reply.
     "Gray," resumed Mr. Smollett, a little louder, "I am leaving this ship,
and I order you to follow your captain. I know you are a good man at bottom,
and I dare say not one of the lot of you's as bad as he makes out. I have my
watch here in my hand; I give you thirty seconds to join me in."
     There was a pause.
     "Come, my  fine fellow,"  continued the captain; "don't hang so long in
stays.  I'm  risking  my life and the lives of  these good  gentlemen  every
second."
     There was a  sudden scuffle, a sound of blows,  and out  burst  Abraham
Gray  with a knife  cut on the side of  the cheek, and came  running to  the
captain like a dog to the whistle.
     "I'm with you, sir," said he.
     And the next moment he and the captain had dropped aboard of us, and we
had shoved  off and given way. We  were clear out of  the ship,  but not yet
ashore in our stockade.
     -----------------------------------------------------------------------
     17. Narrative Continued by the Doctor: The Jolly-boat's Last Trip
     THIS  fifth trip was quite different from any  of  the others.  In  the
first  place, the  little gallipot  of a boat  that we were  in  was gravely
overloaded. Five grown  men, and three of them - Trelawney, Redruth, and the
captain -  over six feet high, was already more than she was meant to carry.
Add  to  that  the  powder,  pork, and  bread-bags. The gunwale  was lipping
astern.  Several times we shipped a little water,  and  my breeches and  the
tails of my coat were all soaking wet before we had gone a hundred yards.
     The captain made us trim the boat, and we got her  to lie a little more
evenly. All the same, we were afraid to breathe.
     In the second place, the ebb was now making - a strong rippling current
running westward through the basin, and then south'ard and seaward down  the
straits  by which we had  entered  in the  morning. Even the ripples  were a
danger to our  overloaded craft, but the worst of it was that we were  swept
out of our  true course and  away from our  proper landing-place  behind the
point. If we let the current have its way we should come ashore  beside  the
gigs, where the pirates might appear at any moment.
     "I cannot keep her head for  the stockade, sir," said I to the captain.
I was  steering, while he and Redruth, two fresh men, were at the oars. "The
tide keeps washing her down. Could you pull a little stronger?"
     "Not without swamping  the  boat," said he. "You must bear up, sir,  if
you please - bear up until you see you're gaining."
     I tried and found by experiment that the tide kept sweeping us westward
until I had laid her head due east, or just about right angles to the way we
ought to go.
     "We'll never get ashore at this rate," said I.
     "If it's  the only  course that  we can lie, sir, we must even lie it,"
returned the captain. "We must keep upstream. You see, sir," he went on, "if
once we dropped to leeward of the landing-place, it's  hard to say where  we
should get ashore, besides the chance of being boarded by the gigs; whereas,
the way we go the current must slacken, and then we can dodge back along the
shore."
     "The current's  less a'ready, sir," said the man  Gray, who was sitting
in the fore-sheets; "you can ease her off a bit."
     "Thank you, my man," said I,  quite as if nothing had  happened, for we
had all quietly made up our minds to treat him like one of ourselves.
     Suddenly  the  captain spoke  up again, and I thought  his voice  was a
little changed.
     "The gun!" said he.
     "I have  thought of that," said I, for I made sure he was thinking of a
bombardment of  the fort. "They could  never get the gun ashore, and if they
did, they could never haul it through the woods."
     "Look astern, doctor," replied the captain.
     We had entirely forgotten the long nine; and there, to our horror, were
the five rogues busy about  her, getting  off her jacket, as they called the
stout tarpaulin cover under  which she sailed. Not only that, but it flashed
into my  mind  at the same moment that the round-shot and the powder for the
gun had been left behind, and a stroke with an axe would put it all into the
possession of the evil ones abroad.
     "Israel was Flint's gunner," said Gray hoarsely.
     At  any  risk, we put  the boat's head direct for the landing-place. By
this  time we  had  got so far out of the  run of  the current that we  kept
steerage way even at our necessarily gentle rate of rowing, and I could keep
her steady for the goal. But  the worst of it was that with the course I now
held  we turned our broadside  instead  of our stern to the  HISPANIOLA  and
offered a target like a barn door.
     I could  hear  as  well  as  see that brandy-faced rascal Israel  Hands
plumping down a round-shot on the deck.
     "Who's the best shot?" asked the captain.
     "Mr. Trelawney, out and away," said I.
     "Mr.  Trelawney, will you  please pick  me off one of these  men,  sir?
Hands, if possible," said the captain.
     Trelawney was as cool as steel. He looked to the priming of his gun.
     "Now," cried the captain, "easy with that gun, sir, or you'll swamp the
boat. All hands stand by to trim her when he aims."
     The squire raised his gun, the rowing ceased, and we leaned over to the
other side  to keep the balance, and all was so nicely contrived that we did
not ship a drop.
     They  had the gun,  by  this  time, slewed round  upon the swivel,  and
Hands, who was at the  muzzle with the rammer,  was in consequence the  most
exposed. However, we had  no  luck, for  just  as Trelawney fired,  down  he
stooped, the  ball whistled over him, and it  was one  of the other four who
fell.
     The cry he gave was echoed not only by his companions on board but by a
great number of  voices from the shore, and looking  in that direction I saw
the other pirates trooping out from among the trees and tumbling  into their
places in the boats.
     "Here come the gigs, sir," said I.
     "Give way,  then," cried the captain. "We mustn't  mind if we swamp her
now. If we can't get ashore, all's up."
     "Only one of the gigs is being manned, sir," I  added; "the crew of the
other most likely going round by shore to cut us off."
     "They'll have a hot run, sir," returned the captain.
     "Jack ashore,  you know.  It's not them I mind;  it's  the  round-shot.
Carpet bowls! My lady's maid  couldn't miss.  Tell us, squire, when  you see
the match, and we'll hold water."
     In the meanwhile we had been making  headway at a  good pace for a boat
so  overloaded, and  we had shipped but little water in the process. We were
now close in; thirty or  forty  strokes and we should beach her, for the ebb
had already disclosed a narrow belt  of sand below the clustering trees. The
gig was no longer  to be feared; the  little point had  already concealed it
from our eyes. The ebb-tide, which had so cruelly delayed us, was now making
reparation and delaying  our assailants.  The one  source of  danger was the
gun.
     "If I durst," said the captain, "I'd stop and pick off another man."
     But it was plain that they meant  nothing should delay their shot. They
had never so much as looked at their fallen comrade, though he was not dead,
and I could see him trying to crawl away.
     "Ready!" cried the squire.
     "Hold!" cried the captain, quick as an echo.
     And he and Redruth backed with a great heave that sent her stern bodily
under water. The  report fell in  at  the same instant of time. This was the
first that Jim heard, the sound of the squire's shot not having reached him.
Where the ball  passed, not  one  of us precisely  knew, but I fancy it must
have been over our heads and that the wind of it may have contributed to our
disaster.
     At any rate, the boat sank by the stern, quite gently, in three feet of
water, leaving the captain and myself,  facing each other,  on our feet. The
other  three took complete headers, and came up again drenched and bubbling.
So far there was no great harm. No lives were lost, and we could wade ashore
in safety. But  there were all our stores at the bottom, and to  make things
worse, only two guns out of five remained in a state for service. Mine I had
snatched from my  knees and held over my head, by a sort of instinct. As for
the captain, he had carried his over his shoulder by a bandoleer, and like a
wise man, lock uppermost. The other three had gone down with the boat.
     To  add to  our concern, we heard voices already drawing near us in the
woods along shore, and we had  not only the danger of being cut off from the
stockade  in  our  half-crippled state but the fear before  us  whether,  if
Hunter and Joyce were  attacked by  half a dozen, they would  have the sense
and conduct to stand firm.  Hunter was  steady,  that we knew;  Joyce  was a
doubtful  case  - a  pleasant, polite man  for  a valet  and to  brush one's
clothes, but not entirely fitted for a man of war.
     With all  this  in  our minds,  we  waded ashore as fast as  we  could,
leaving behind us the poor  jolly-boat and a good half of all our powder and
provisions.
     -----------------------------------------------------------------------
     18. Narrative Continued by the Doctor:
     End of the First Day's Fighting
     WE made our  best speed  across the strip  of wood  that now divided us
from  the stockade, and  at  every step we took the voices of the buccaneers
rang nearer. Soon we could hear their footfalls as they ran and the cracking
of the branches as they breasted across a bit  of thicket. I began to see we
should have a brush for it in earnest and looked to my priming.
     "Captain," said I, "Trelawney is  the dead shot. Give him your gun; his
own is useless."
     They exchanged guns, and  Trelawney,  silent  and cool as  he  had been
since the beginning of the bustle, hung a moment on his heel to see that all
was fit for service.  At  the same  time,  observing  Gray  to be unarmed, I
handed him my cutlass. It  did all our hearts good to  see  him spit in  his
hand, knit his brows, and make the blade sing through the air. It  was plain
from every line of his body that our new hand was worth his salt.
     Forty paces  farther  we came  to  the  edge of  the  wood and  saw the
stockade in front  of us.  We  struck the  enclosure about the middle of the
south side, and almost at the same time, seven mutineers - Job Anderson, the
boatswain, at their head - appeared in full cry at the southwestern corner.
     They paused as if taken aback, and before they recovered, not only  the
squire and I, but Hunter and Joyce  from the block  house, had time to fire.
The  four  shots  came  in  rather  a  scattering  volley, but they did  the
business: one of  the enemy actually fell, and the rest, without hesitation,
turned  and  plunged  into the trees.  After  reloading, we walked  down the
outside of the palisade to see to the fallen enemy. He was stone dead - shot
through the heart.
     We  began to  rejoice over our good success when  just at that moment a
pistol cracked in  the bush, a ball whistled close past my ear, and poor Tom
Redruth  stumbled and fell his length on the ground.  Both  the squire and I
returned the shot, but as we had nothing  to  aim at, it is probable we only
wasted powder. Then we  reloaded  and turned our attention to poor  Tom. The
captain and Gray were already examining him, and I saw with half an eye that
all was over.
     I  believe  the  readiness  of our  return  volley  had  scattered  the
mutineers once more, for we were suffered without further molestation to get
the poor old gamekeeper hoisted over the stockade and carried, groaning  and
bleeding, into the log-house.
     Poor  old fellow, he had  not uttered one word of  surprise, complaint,
fear, or even acquiescence from the very beginning of our troubles till now,
when we had laid him down in the log-house to die. He had lain like a Trojan
behind his mattress in the  gallery; he  had followed every order  silently,
doggedly, and well; he was the oldest of our party by a score  of years; and
now, sullen, old, serviceable servant, it was he that was to die. The squire
dropped down beside  him on his knees  and kissed  his hand, crying  like  a
child.
     "Be I going, doctor?" he asked.
     "Tom, my man," said I, "you're going home."
     "I wish I had had a lick at them with the gun first," he replied.
     "Tom," said the squire, "say you forgive me, won't you?"
     "Would  that  be  respectful like,  from  me to  you, squire?" was  the
answer. "Howsoever, so be it, amen!"
     After a little while of silence, he said he thought somebody might read
a  prayer.  "It's  the custom, sir," he added apologetically. And  not  long
after, without another word, he passed away.
     In the meantime  the captain, whom I  had  observed  to  be wonderfully
swollen about  the chest  and pockets, had  turned out  a great many various
stores  -  the British colours, a Bible,  a coil of stoutish rope, pen, ink,
the log-book, and pounds  of  tobacco. He had found a longish fir-tree lying
felled and trimmed in the  enclosure, and with the help of Hunter he had set
it up at the corner of the log-house  where the  trunks crossed  and made an
angle. Then, climbing on the roof, he had with his own hand  bent and run up
the colours.
     This  seemed mightily  to relieve him. He  re-entered the log-house and
set about counting up the stores as  if nothing else existed.  But he had an
eye on Tom's passage for all that, and as soon as all was over, came forward
with another flag and reverently spread it on the body.
     "Don't you  take on, sir," he said, shaking  the squire's hand.  "All's
well with him;  no  fear  for a hand that's been shot  down  in  his duty to
captain and owner. It mayn't be good divinity, but it's a fact."
     Then he pulled me aside.
     "Dr. Livesey," he said, "in how many weeks do you and squire expect the
consort?"
     I told him it was a question  not of weeks but  of  months,  that if we
were  not back by the end of  August Blandly was  to  send  to find us,  but
neither sooner nor later. "You can calculate for yourself," I said.
     "Why,  yes,"  returned the captain, scratching his head;  "and making a
large allowance, sir, for all the  gifts of Providence, I should say we were
pretty close hauled."
     "How do you mean?" I asked.
     "It's a pity, sir, we lost  that  second load.  That's  what  I  mean,"
replied the captain. "As for powder and shot,  we'll do. But the rations are
short,  very  short  -  so short, Dr.  Livesey, that  we're perhaps as  well
without that extra mouth."
     And he pointed to the dead body under the flag. Just then, with  a roar
and a  whistle, a round-shot passed high above the roof of the log-house and
plumped far beyond us in the wood.
     "Oho!"  said the  captain. "Blaze  away!  You've  little  enough powder
already, my lads."
     At the  second trial, the aim was better, and the ball descended inside
the stockade, scattering a cloud of sand but doing no further damage.
     "Captain,"  said  the  squire, "the  house is quite  invisible from the
ship. It must be the  flag they are aiming at. Would it not be wiser to take
it in?"
     "Strike my colours!" cried the captain.  "No, sir, not I"; and as  soon
as  he had said  the words,  I think we  all agreed with him. For it was not
only  a piece of  stout, seamanly, good feeling; it was good policy  besides
and showed our enemies that we despised their cannonade.
     All through the evening they kept thundering away. Ball after ball flew
over or fell  short  or kicked up the sand in the enclosure, but they had to
fire so high that the  shot fell dead and buried itself in the soft sand. We
had  no ricochet to fear, and though one popped in through the  roof of  the
log-house and out again through  the floor, we soon got used to that sort of
horse-play  and minded  it no  more  than cricket. "There  is one good thing
about all this," observed the captain; "the  wood in front of  us  is likely
clear.  The  ebb  has made  a  good while;  our stores should be  uncovered.
Volunteers to go and  bring in pork." Gray and Hunter were the first to come
forward. Well armed, they stole out of the stockade, but it proved a useless
mission. The mutineers were bolder than we fancied or they put more trust in
Israel's gunnery. For four or five of them were busy carrying off our stores
and wading out with them  to one of the gigs that lay  close  by, pulling an
oar  or  so  to  hold  her steady against  the  current.  Silver was  in the
stern-sheets  in command; and  every  man of  them was now  provided with  a
musket from some secret magazine of  their own. The captain sat down  to his
log, and here is the beginning of the entry:
     Alexander Smollett, master; David Livesey, ship's doctor; Abraham Gray,
carpenter's  mate;  John  Trelawney, owner;  John  Hunter and Richard Joyce,
owner's servants,  landsmen - being all that is left faithful  of the ship's
company  - with stores for ten days at  short rations, came ashore this  day
and  flew  British  colours  on the  log-house  in  Treasure  Island. Thomas
Redruth, owner's  servant, landsman, shot  by the mutineers; James  Hawkins,
cabin-boy -
     And at the same time, I was wondering over poor Jim Hawkins' fate.
     A hail on the land side.
     "Somebody hailing us," said Hunter, who was on guard.
     "Doctor! Squire! Captain! Hullo, Hunter, is that you?" came the cries.
     And I ran to the  door in time to see Jim Hawkins, safe and sound, come
climbing over the stockade.
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     19. Narrative Resumed by Jim Hawkins:
     The Garrison in the Stockade
     AS soon as Ben  Gunn saw the colours he  came  to a halt, stopped me by
the arm, and sat down.
     "Now," said he, "there's your friends, sure enough."
     "Far more likely it's the mutineers," I answered.
     "That!" he cried. "Why, in a place like this,  where nobody puts in but
gen'lemen of  fortune, Silver would fly the  Jolly Roger,  you don't make no
doubt of that. No, that's your friends. There's been blows too, and I reckon
your friends has had the best  of it;  and  here they are ashore in  the old
stockade, as was made years and years  ago by Flint. Ah, he  was the  man to
have a headpiece, was Flint! Barring rum, his match were never seen. He were
afraid of none, not he; on'y Silver - Silver was that genteel."
     "Well," said I, "that may be so, and so be it; all the more reason that
I should hurry on and join my friends."
     "Nay, mate," returned Ben, "not you. You're a good boy, or I'm mistook;
but you're on'y a boy, all told. Now, Ben Gunn is fly. Rum wouldn't bring me
there, where you're going - not rum wouldn't, till I see your born gen'leman
and  gets  it  on  his  word  of honour.  And you won't forget my words;  'A
precious sight (that's what you'll say), a precious sight more confidence' -
and then nips him."
     And he pinched me the third time with the same air of cleverness.
     "And  when Ben  Gunn is wanted, you  know where to find  him, Jim. Just
where you found him today. And him that comes  is to have a  white  thing in
his hand, and he's to come alone. Oh! And you'll say this: 'Ben  Gunn,' says
you, 'has reasons of his own.'"
     "Well," said I, "I believe I understand. You have something to propose,
and you wish to see the squire or the doctor, and you're to be found where I
found you. Is that all?"
     "And when? says you," he  added. "Why, from about  noon observation  to
about six bells."
     "Good," said I, "and now may I go?"
     "You won't forget?" he inquired anxiously. "Precious sight, and reasons
of  his own,  says you.  Reasons of his own; that's the mainstay; as between
man  and man. Well,  then"  -  still holding me - "I reckon you can go, Jim.
And, Jim, if you was to see  Silver, you wouldn't go for to sell  Ben  Gunn?
Wild  horses  wouldn't draw it  from you? No, says you. And if  them pirates
camp ashore, Jim, what would you say but there'd be widders in the morning?"
     Here he was interrupted by a loud report, and a cannonball came tearing
through the trees  and pitched in the sand not a hundred yards from where we
two  were talking. The next moment each  of us had taken to his  heels in  a
different direction.
     For  a good hour to come frequent reports  shook  the island, and balls
kept crashing through the woods. I moved from hiding-place  to hiding-place,
always  pursued, or so  it seemed  to me, by  these terrifying missiles. But
towards the end of the bombardment, though still I durst not venture  in the
direction of the stockade, where the balls fell oftenest, I  had begun, in a
manner, to pluck up  my  heart again, and after a long  detour to  the east,
crept down among the shore-side trees.
     The sun had just  set, the sea  breeze was rustling and tumbling in the
woods and ruffling the grey surface of the anchorage; the tide, too, was far
out, and  great tracts of sand lay uncovered; the air, after the heat of the
day, chilled me through my jacket.
     The HISPANIOLA still lay  where she  had anchored;  but,  sure  enough,
there was the Jolly Roger - the black flag of piracy - flying from her peak.
Even  as I looked, there came another red flash and another report that sent
the echoes clattering, and one more round-shot whistled through the  air. It
was the last of the cannonade.
     I lay for some time watching the bustle which succeeded the attack. Men
were demolishing  something with axes on the beach near  the stockade -  the
poor jolly-boat, I afterwards discovered. Away, near the mouth of the river,
a great  fire was  glowing among the trees, and between that  point and  the
ship one of the gigs  kept  coming  and going, the men, whom  I had seen  so
gloomy, shouting at the oars like children. But there  was a sound in  their
voices which suggested rum.
     At length I thought I might  return towards the  stockade. I was pretty
far down on the low, sandy spit that encloses the anchorage to the east, and
is joined at half-water to Skeleton Island; and now, as I rose to my feet, I
saw, some distance further down the  spit and rising from  among low bushes,
an  isolated rock, pretty  high, and peculiarly white in colour. It occurred
to  me  that this might  be  the white rock of which Ben Gunn had spoken and
that  some  day or other a  boat might be wanted and I should know  where to
look for one. Then I skirted among the  woods until I had regained the rear,
or shoreward  side, of the  stockade,  and  was soon warmly welcomed  by the
faithful party.
     I  had soon told my story and began to look about me. The log-house was
made of unsquared  trunks of pine - roof, walls, and floor. The latter stood
in several places as much  as a foot  or a foot and a half above the surface
of the sand. There was a porch at  the door, and under this porch the little
spring welled  up into an artificial basin of a rather odd kind -  no  other
than  a great ship's kettle of iron,  with the  bottom knocked out, and sunk
"to her bearings," as the captain said, among the sand.
     Little had  been left  besides the  framework of  the house, but in one
corner there was a stone slab  laid  down by way of hearth  and an old rusty
iron basket to contain the fire.
     The  slopes of the  knoll and all the inside  of  the stockade had been
cleared of timber to build the house, and  we could see by the stumps what a
fine  and  lofty grove had been destroyed. Most  of the soil had been washed
away  or buried in  drift after the  removal of  the trees;  only where  the
streamlet  ran down from the kettle a thick bed of moss  and  some ferns and
little creeping bushes were still green among  the sand.  Very  close around
the stockade  - too close for defence, they said - the wood still flourished
high  and  dense,  all of fir on  the land side,  but towards the sea with a
large admixture of live-oaks.
     The cold evening breeze, of which I have spoken, whistled through every
chink of the  rude building and sprinkled the floor with a continual rain of
fine sand.  There was  sand in our  eyes, sand in  our  teeth,  sand  in our
suppers, sand dancing in the spring at the bottom of the kettle, for all the
world like porridge beginning to boil. Our chimney was  a square hole in the
roof; it was but a little part of the smoke that found its way out, and  the
rest eddied about the house and kept us coughing and piping the eye.
     Add to this that Gray,  the new man, had his face tied up  in a bandage
for a cut he had got in  breaking away from the mutineers and that  poor old
Tom Redruth, still unburied, lay along the wall,  stiff and stark, under the
Union Jack.
     If we had been  allowed to sit idle,  we should  all have fallen in the
blues, but  Captain Smollett was  never  the  man for  that. All  hands were
called up  before  him, and he divided us into watches. The doctor and  Gray
and I for one; the squire, Hunter, and Joyce upon the other. Tired though we
all were, two were sent out for firewood; two more were set to  dig a  grave
for  Redruth; the doctor was named  cook;  I was put sentry at the door; and
the  captain  himself  went  from one to another, keeping up our spirits and
lending a hand wherever it was wanted.
     From time to time the doctor came to the door  for a  little air and to
rest his eyes, which were almost smoked out of his head, and whenever he did
so, he  had a word for me.  "That  man Smollett," he said once, "is a better
man than I am.  And when I say that it  means a deal,  Jim." Another time he
came and was  silent  for a while. Then he  put  his  head  on one side, and
looked at me.
     "Is this Ben Gunn a man?" he asked.
     "I do not know, sir," said I. "I am not very sure whether he's sane."
     "If there's any doubt about the matter, he is," returned the doctor. "A
man who has been three years biting his nails on a desert island, Jim, can't
expect  to appear as sane as you  or me. It doesn't lie in human nature. Was
it cheese you said he had a fancy for?"
     "Yes, sir, cheese," I answered.
     "Well, Jim," says he,  "just see the good that comes of being dainty in
your food. You've seen my snuff-box, haven't you? And  you never saw me take
snuff, the reason  being that in my snuff-box I carry  a piece  of  Parmesan
cheese - a  cheese made in  Italy,  very  nutritious.  Well,  that's for Ben
Gunn!"
     Before supper was eaten we  buried old Tom in the sand  and stood round
him for a  while bare-headed in the breeze. A good deal of firewood had been
got in, but not  enough for  the captain's fancy, and he shook his head over
it  and told us we  "must get back  to this tomorrow rather livelier." Then,
when we had eaten our  pork and each had a good stiff glass of  brandy grog,
the three chiefs got together in a corner to discuss our prospects.
     It appears they were at their wits' end what to do, the stores being so
low that we must have been starved into surrender long before help came. But
our best hope,  it was decided, was to kill off  the  buccaneers  until they
either hauled down their flag or ran away with the HISPANIOLA. From nineteen
they were already reduced  to  fifteen,  two others were wounded, and one at
least - the man shot beside the gun - severely wounded, if he were not dead.
Every time we had a crack at them, we were to take it, saving our own lives,
with the extremest care. And besides that,  we had two able allies - rum and
the climate.
     As for the first, though we were  about half a mile away, we could hear
them roaring  and  singing late into the  night;  and as for the second, the
doctor  staked  his  wig  that,  camped where  they were  in  the marsh  and
unprovided with remedies, the half of them would be  on their backs before a
week.
     "So," he added,  "if we are not all shot down  first they'll be glad to
be  packing  in  the  schooner.  It's  always  a ship,  and they can  get to
buccaneering again, I suppose."
     "First ship that ever I lost," said Captain Smollett.
     I was dead tired, as you may fancy;  and when I got to sleep, which was
not till after a great deal of tossing, I slept like a log of wood.
     The rest had long been up and had already breakfasted and increased the
pile of firewood by about half as much again  when I was wakened by a bustle
and the sound of voices.
     "Flag of truce!" I heard someone say; and then, immediately after, with
a cry of surprise, "Silver himself!"
     And at that, up I jumped, and rubbing my eyes, ran to a loophole in the
wall.
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     20. 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  himsel