Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT) 📖

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