Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT) š
- Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
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donāt, Silver will see thereās something under that, and
the gameās up. Now, weāve only one man to rely on.ā
āAnd who is that?ā asked the squire.
āSilver, sir,ā returned the captain; āheās as anxious
as you and I to smother things up. This is a tiff;
heād soon talk āem out of it if he had the chance, and
what I propose to do is to give him the chance. Letās
allow the men an afternoon ashore. If they all go, why
weāll fight the ship. If they none of them go, well
then, we hold the cabin, and God defend the right. If
some go, you mark my words, sir, Silverāll bring āem
aboard again as mild as lambs.ā
It was so decided; loaded pistols were served out to all
the sure men; Hunter, Joyce, and Redruth were taken into
our confidence and received the news with less surprise
and a better spirit than we had looked for, and then the
captain went on deck and addressed the crew.
āMy lads,ā said he, āweāve had a hot day and are all
tired and out of sorts. A turn ashoreāll hurt nobodyā
the boats are still in the water; you can take the gigs,
and as many as please may go ashore for the afternoon.
Iāll fire a gun half an hour before sundown.ā
I believe the silly fellows must have thought they
would break their shins over treasure as soon as they
were landed, for they all came out of their sulks in a
moment and gave a cheer that started the echo in a far-away hill and sent the birds once more flying and
squalling round the anchorage.
The captain was too bright to be in the way. He
whipped out of sight in a moment, leaving Silver to
arrange the party, and I fancy it was as well he did
so. Had he been on deck, he could no longer so much as
have pretended not to understand the situation. It was
as plain as day. Silver was the captain, and a mighty
rebellious crew he had of it. The honest handsāand I
was soon to see it proved that there were such on
boardāmust have been very stupid fellows. Or rather,
I suppose the truth was this, that all hands were
disaffected by the example of the ringleadersāonly
some more, some less; and a few, being good fellows in
the main, could neither be led nor driven any further.
It is one thing to be idle and skulk and quite another
to take a ship and murder a number of innocent men.
At last, however, the party was made up. Six fellows
were to stay on board, and the remaining thirteen,
including Silver, began to embark.
Then it was that there came into my head the first of
the mad notions that contributed so much to save our
lives. If six men were left by Silver, it was plain
our party could not take and fight the ship; and since
only six were left, it was equally plain that the cabin
party had no present need of my assistance. It occurred
to me at once to go ashore. In a jiffy I had slipped over
the side and curled up in the fore-sheets of the nearest
boat, and almost at the same moment she shoved off.
No one took notice of me, only the bow oar saying, āIs
that you, Jim? Keep your head down.ā But Silver, from
the other boat, looked sharply over and called out to
know if that were me; and from that moment I began to
regret what I had done.
The crews raced for the beach, but the boat I was in,
having some start and being at once the lighter and the
better manned, shot far ahead of her consort, and the
bow had struck among the shore-side trees and I had
caught a branch and swung myself out and plunged into
the nearest thicket while Silver and the rest were
still a hundred yards behind.
āJim, Jim!ā I heard him shouting.
But you may suppose I paid no heed; jumping, ducking,
and breaking through, I ran straight before my nose
till I could run no longer.
14
The First Blow
I WAS so pleased at having given the slip to Long John
that I began to enjoy myself and look around me with
some interest on the strange land that I was in.
I had crossed a marshy tract full of willows,
bulrushes, and odd, outlandish, swampy trees; and I had
now come out upon the skirts of an open piece of
undulating, sandy country, about a mile long, dotted
with a few pines and a great number of contorted trees,
not unlike the oak in growth, but pale in the foliage,
like willows. On the far side of the open stood one of
the hills, with two quaint, craggy peaks shining
vividly in the sun.
I now felt for the first time the joy of exploration.
The isle was uninhabited; my shipmates I had left
behind, and nothing lived in front of me but dumb
brutes and fowls. I turned hither and thither among
the trees. Here and there were flowering plants,
unknown to me; here and there I saw snakes, and one
raised his head from a ledge of rock and hissed at me
with a noise not unlike the spinning of a top. Little
did I suppose that he was a deadly enemy and that the
noise was the famous rattle.
Then I came to a long thicket of these oaklike treesā
live, or evergreen, oaks, I heard afterwards they
should be calledāwhich grew low along the sand like
brambles, the boughs curiously twisted, the foliage
compact, like thatch. The thicket stretched down from
the top of one of the sandy knolls, spreading and
growing taller as it went, until it reached the margin
of the broad, reedy fen, through which the nearest of
the little rivers soaked its way into the anchorage.
The marsh was steaming in the strong sun, and the
outline of the Spy-glass trembled through the haze.
All at once there began to go a sort of bustle among
the bulrushes; a wild duck flew up with a quack,
another followed, and soon over the whole surface of
the marsh a great cloud of birds hung screaming and
circling in the air. I judged at once that some of my
shipmates must be drawing near along the borders of the
fen. Nor was I deceived, for soon I heard the very
distant and low tones of a human voice, which, as I
continued to give ear, grew steadily louder and nearer.
This put me in a great fear, and I crawled under cover
of the nearest live-oak and squatted there, hearkening,
as silent as a mouse.
Another voice answered, and then the first voice, which
I now recognized to be Silverās, once more took up the
story and ran on for a long while in a stream, only now
and again interrupted by the other. By the sound they
must have been talking earnestly, and almost fiercely;
but no distinct word came to my hearing.
At last the speakers seemed to have paused and perhaps
to have sat down, for not only did they cease to draw
any nearer, but the birds themselves began to grow more
quiet and to settle again to their places in the swamp.
And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my business,
that since I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with
these desperadoes, the least I could do was to overhear
them at their councils, and that my plain and obvious duty
was to draw as close as I could manage, under the favourable
ambush of the crouching trees.
I could tell the direction of the speakers pretty
exactly, not only by the sound of their voices but by
the behaviour of the few birds that still hung in alarm
above the heads of the intruders.
Crawling on all fours, I made steadily but slowly
towards them, till at last, raising my head to an
aperture among the leaves, I could see clear down into
a little green dell beside the marsh, and closely set
about with trees, where Long John Silver and another of
the crew stood face to face in conversation.
The sun beat full upon them. Silver had thrown his hat
beside him on the ground, and his great, smooth, blond
face, all shining with heat, was lifted to the other
manās in a kind of appeal.
āMate,ā he was saying, āitās because I thinks gold dust
of youāgold dust, and you may lay to that! If I
hadnāt took to you like pitch, do you think Iād have
been here a-warning of you? Allās upāyou canāt make
nor mend; itās to save your neck that Iām a-speaking,
and if one of the wild uns knew it, whereād I be, Tomā
now, tell me, whereād I be?ā
āSilver,ā said the other manāand I observed he was not
only red in the face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and
his voice shook too, like a taut ropeāāSilver,ā says he,
āyouāre old, and youāre honest, or has the name for it;
and youāve money too, which lots of poor sailors hasnāt;
and youāre brave, or Iām mistook. And will you tell me
youāll let yourself be led away with that kind of a mess
of swabs? Not you! As sure as God sees me, Iād sooner
lose my hand. If I turn agin my dootyāā
And then all of a sudden he was interrupted by a noise.
I had found one of the honest handsāwell, here, at
that same moment, came news of another. Far away out
in the marsh there arose, all of a sudden, a sound like
the cry of anger, then another on the back of it; and
then one horrid, long-drawn scream. The rocks of the
Spy-glass re-echoed it a score of times; the whole
troop of marsh-birds rose again, darkening heaven, with
a simultaneous whirr; and long after that death yell
was still ringing in my brain, silence had re-established its empire, and only the rustle of the
redescending birds and the boom of the distant surges
disturbed the languor of the afternoon.
Tom had leaped at the sound, like a horse at the spur,
but Silver had not winked an eye. He stood where he
was, resting lightly on his crutch, watching his
companion like a snake about to spring.
āJohn!ā said the sailor, stretching out his hand.
āHands off!ā cried Silver, leaping back a yard, as it seemed
to me, with the speed and security of a trained gymnast.
āHands off, if you like, John Silver,ā said the other.
āItās a black conscience that can make you feared of
me. But in heavenās name, tell me, what was that?ā
āThat?ā returned Silver, smiling away, but warier than
ever, his eye a mere pin-point in his big face, but
gleaming like a crumb of glass. āThat? Oh, I reckon
thatāll be Alan.ā
And at this point Tom flashed out like a hero.
āAlan!ā he cried. āThen rest his soul for a true seaman!
And as for you, John Silver, long youāve been a mate of
mine, but youāre mate of mine no more. If I die like a
dog, Iāll die in my dooty. Youāve killed Alan, have you?
Kill me too, if you can. But I defies you.ā
And with that, this brave fellow turned his back
directly on the cook and set off walking for the beach.
But he was not
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