Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT) đź“–
- Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
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other side into the trough as lightly as a bird.
I began after a little to grow very bold and sat up to
try my skill at paddling. But even a small change in
the disposition of the weight will produce violent changes
in the behaviour of a coracle. And I had hardly moved
before the boat, giving up at once her gentle dancing
movement, ran straight down a slope of water so steep
that it made me giddy, and struck her nose, with a spout
of spray, deep into the side of the next wave.
I was drenched and terrified, and fell instantly back
into my old position, whereupon the coracle seemed to
find her head again and led me as softly as before
among the billows. It was plain she was not to be
interfered with, and at that rate, since I could in no
way influence her course, what hope had I left of
reaching land?
I began to be horribly frightened, but I kept my head, for
all that. First, moving with all care, I gradually baled
out the coracle with my sea-cap; then, getting my eye once
more above the gunwale, I set myself to study how it was
she managed to slip so quietly through the rollers.
I found each wave, instead of the big, smooth glossy
mountain it looks from shore or from a vessel’s deck,
was for all the world like any range of hills on dry
land, full of peaks and smooth places and valleys. The
coracle, left to herself, turning from side to side,
threaded, so to speak, her way through these lower
parts and avoided the steep slopes and higher, toppling
summits of the wave.
“Well, now,” thought I to myself, “it is plain I must
lie where I am and not disturb the balance; but it is
plain also that I can put the paddle over the side and
from time to time, in smooth places, give her a shove
or two towards land.” No sooner thought upon than
done. There I lay on my elbows in the most trying
attitude, and every now and again gave a weak stroke or
two to turn her head to shore.
It was very tiring and slow work, yet I did visibly
gain ground; and as we drew near the Cape of the Woods,
though I saw I must infallibly miss that point, I had
still made some hundred yards of easting. I was,
indeed, close in. I could see the cool green tree-tops
swaying together in the breeze, and I felt sure I
should make the next promontory without fail.
It was high time, for I now began to be tortured with
thirst. The glow of the sun from above, its
thousandfold reflection from the waves, the sea-water
that fell and dried upon me, caking my very lips with
salt, combined to make my throat burn and my brain
ache. The sight of the trees so near at hand had
almost made me sick with longing, but the current had
soon carried me past the point, and as the next reach
of sea opened out, I beheld a sight that changed the
nature of my thoughts.
Right in front of me, not half a mile away, I beheld
the HISPANIOLA under sail. I made sure, of course,
that I should be taken; but I was so distressed for
want of water that I scarce knew whether to be glad or
sorry at the thought, and long before I had come to a
conclusion, surprise had taken entire possession of my
mind and I could do nothing but stare and wonder.
The HISPANIOLA was under her main-sail and two
jibs, and the beautiful white canvas shone in the sun
like snow or silver. When I first sighted her, all her
sails were drawing; she was lying a course about north-west, and I presumed the men on board were going round
the island on their way back to the anchorage.
Presently she began to fetch more and more to the
westward, so that I thought they had sighted me and
were going about in chase. At last, however, she fell
right into the wind’s eye, was taken dead aback, and
stood there awhile helpless, with her sails shivering.
“Clumsy fellows,” said I; “they must still be drunk as
owls.” And I thought how Captain Smollett would have
set them skipping.
Meanwhile the schooner gradually fell off and filled
again upon another tack, sailed swiftly for a minute or
so, and brought up once more dead in the wind’s eye.
Again and again was this repeated. To and fro, up and
down, north, south, east, and west, the HISPANIOLA
sailed by swoops and dashes, and at each repetition
ended as she had begun, with idly flapping canvas. It
became plain to me that nobody was steering. And if
so, where were the men? Either they were dead drunk or
had deserted her, I thought, and perhaps if I could get
on board I might return the vessel to her captain.
The current was bearing coracle and schooner southward
at an equal rate. As for the latter’s sailing, it was
so wild and intermittent, and she hung each time so
long in irons, that she certainly gained nothing, if
she did not even lose. If only I dared to sit up and
paddle, I made sure that I could overhaul her. The
scheme had an air of adventure that inspired me, and
the thought of the water breaker beside the fore
companion doubled my growing courage.
Up I got, was welcomed almost instantly by another
cloud of spray, but this time stuck to my purpose and
set myself, with all my strength and caution, to paddle
after the unsteered HISPANIOLA. Once I shipped a
sea so heavy that I had to stop and bail, with my heart
fluttering like a bird, but gradually I got into the
way of the thing and guided my coracle among the waves,
with only now and then a blow upon her bows and a dash
of foam in my face.
I was now gaining rapidly on the schooner; I could see
the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about, and
still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not
choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men
were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down,
perhaps, and do what I chose with the ship.
For some time she had been doing the worse thing
possible for me—standing still. She headed nearly due
south, yawing, of course, all the time. Each time she
fell off, her sails partly filled, and these brought
her in a moment right to the wind again. I have said
this was the worst thing possible for me, for helpless
as she looked in this situation, with the canvas cracking
like cannon and the blocks trundling and banging on the
deck, she still continued to run away from me, not only
with the speed of the current, but by the whole amount
of her leeway, which was naturally great.
But now, at last, I had my chance. The breeze fell for
some seconds, very low, and the current gradually
turning her, the HISPANIOLA revolved slowly round
her centre and at last presented me her stern, with the
cabin window still gaping open and the lamp over the
table still burning on into the day. The main-sail
hung drooped like a banner. She was stock-still but
for the current.
For the last little while I had even lost, but now
redoubling my efforts, I began once more to overhaul
the chase.
I was not a hundred yards from her when the wind came
again in a clap; she filled on the port tack and was
off again, stooping and skimming like a swallow.
My first impulse was one of despair, but my second was
towards joy. Round she came, till she was broadside on
to me—round still till she had covered a half and then
two thirds and then three quarters of the distance that
separated us. I could see the waves boiling white
under her forefoot. Immensely tall she looked to me
from my low station in the coracle.
And then, of a sudden, I began to comprehend. I had
scarce time to think—scarce time to act and save
myself. I was on the summit of one swell when the
schooner came stooping over the next. The bowsprit was
over my head. I sprang to my feet and leaped, stamping
the coracle under water. With one hand I caught the
jib-boom, while my foot was lodged between the stay and
the brace; and as I still clung there panting, a dull
blow told me that the schooner had charged down upon
and struck the coracle and that I was left without
retreat on the HISPANIOLA.
25
I Strike the Jolly Roger
I HAD scarce gained a position on the bowsprit when the
flying jib flapped and filled upon the other tack, with
a report like a gun. The schooner trembled to her keel
under the reverse, but next moment, the other sails still
drawing, the jib flapped back again and hung idle.
This had nearly tossed me off into the sea; and now I
lost no time, crawled back along the bowsprit, and
tumbled head foremost on the deck.
I was on the lee side of the forecastle, and the main-sail, which was still drawing, concealed from me a
certain portion of the after-deck. Not a soul was to
be seen. The planks, which had not been swabbed since
the mutiny, bore the print of many feet, and an empty
bottle, broken by the neck, tumbled to and fro like a
live thing in the scuppers.
Suddenly the HISPANIOLA came right into the wind. The
jibs behind me cracked aloud, the rudder slammed to, the
whole ship gave a sickening heave and shudder, and at the
same moment the main-boom swung inboard, the sheet groaning
in the blocks, and showed me the lee after-deck.
There were the two watchmen, sure enough: red-cap on
his back, as stiff as a handspike, with his arms
stretched out like those of a crucifix and his teeth
showing through his open lips; Israel Hands propped
against the bulwarks, his chin on his chest, his hands
lying open before him on the deck, his face as white,
under its tan, as a tallow candle.
For a while the ship kept bucking and sidling like a
vicious horse, the sails filling, now on one tack, now
on another, and the boom swinging to and fro till the
mast groaned aloud under the strain. Now and again too
there would come a cloud of light sprays over the
bulwark and a heavy blow of the ship’s bows against the
swell; so much heavier weather was made of it by this
great rigged ship than by my home-made, lop-sided
coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea.
At every jump of the schooner, red-cap slipped to and
fro, but—what was ghastly to behold—neither his
attitude nor his fixed teeth-disclosing grin was anyway
disturbed by this rough usage. At every jump too,
Hands appeared still more to sink into himself and
settle down upon the deck, his feet sliding ever the
farther out, and the whole body canting towards the
stern, so that his face became, little by little, hid
from me; and at last I could see nothing beyond his ear
and the frayed ringlet of one whisker.
At the same time, I observed, around both of them,
splashes of dark blood upon the planks and began to
feel sure that they had killed each other in their
drunken wrath.
While I
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