Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson (beach read book TXT) 📖

“No, not I,” said Silver. “Flint was cap’n; I was quartermaster, along of my timber leg. The same broadside I lost my leg, old Pew lost his deadlights. It was a master surgeon, him that ampytated me⁠—out of college and all⁠—Latin by the bucket, and whatnot; but he was hanged like a dog, and sun-dried like the rest, at Corso Castle. That was Roberts’ men, that was, and comed of changing names to their ships⁠—Royal Fortune and so on. Now, what a ship was christened, so let her stay, I says. So it was with the Cassandra, as brought us all safe home from Malabar, after England took the Viceroy of the Indies; so it was with the old Walrus, Flint’s old ship, as I’ve seen amuck with the red blood and fit to sink with gold.”

“Ah!” cried another voice, that of the youngest hand on board, and evidently full of admiration, “he was the flower of the flock, was Flint!”

“Davis was a man, too, by all accounts,” said Silver. “I never sailed along of him; first with England, then with Flint, that’s my story; and now here on my own account, in a manner of speaking. I laid by nine hundred safe, from England, and two thousand after Flint. That ain’t bad for a man before the mast⁠—all safe in bank. ’Tain’t earning now, it’s saving does it, you may lay to that. Where’s all England’s men now? I dunno. Where’s Flint’s? Why, most of ’em aboard here, and glad to get the duff⁠—been begging before that, some of ’em. Old Pew, as had lost his sight, and might have thought shame, spends twelve hundred pounds in a year, like a lord in Parliament. Where is he now? Well, he’s dead now and under hatches; but for two years before that, shiver my timbers! the man was starving. He begged, and he stole, and he cut throats, and starved at that, by the powers!”

“Well, it ain’t much use, after all,” said the young seaman.

“ ‘Tain’t much use for fools, you may lay to it⁠—that, nor nothing,” cried Silver. “But now, you look here; you’re young, you are, but you’re as smart as paint. I see that when I set my eyes on you, and I’ll talk to you like a man.”

You can imagine how I felt when I heard this abominable old rogue addressing another in the very same words of flattery as he had used to myself. I think, if I had been able, that I would have killed him through the barrel. Meantime he ran on, little supposing he was overheard.

“Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They lives rough, and they risk swinging, but they eat and drink like fighting-cocks, and when a cruise is done, why it’s hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings in their pockets. Now, the most goes for rum and a good fling, and to sea again in their shirts. But that’s not the course I lay. I puts it all away, some here, some there, and none too much anywheres, by reason of suspicion. I’m fifty, mark you; once back from this cruise I set up gentleman in earnest. Time enough, too, says you. Ah, but I’ve lived easy in the meantime; never denied myself o’ nothing heart desires, and slept soft and ate dainty all my days, but when at sea. And how did I begin? Before the mast, like you!”

“Well,” said the other, “but all the other money’s gone now, ain’t it? You daren’t show face in Bristol after this.”

“Why, where might you suppose it was?” asked Silver, derisively.

“At Bristol, in banks and places,” answered his companion.

“It were,” said the cook; “it were when we weighed anchor. But my old missis has it all by now. And the Spy-glass is sold, lease and good will and rigging; and the old girl’s off to meet me. I would tell you where, for I trust you; but it ’ud make jealousy among the mates.”

“And you can trust your missis?” asked the other.

“Gentlemen of fortune,” returned the cook, “usually trust little among themselves, and right they are, you may lay to it. But I have a way with me, I have. When a mate brings a slip on his cable⁠—one as knows me, I mean⁠—it won’t be in the same world with old John. There was some that was feared of Pew, and some that was feared of Flint; but Flint his own self was feared of me. Feared he was, and proud. They was the roughest crew afloat, was Flint’s; the devil himself would have been feared to go to sea with them. Well, now, I tell you, I’m not a boasting man, and you seen yourself how easy I keep company; but when I was quartermaster, lambs wasn’t the word for Flint’s old buccaneers. Ah, you may be sure of yourself in old John’s ship.”

“Well, I tell you now,” replied the lad, “I didn’t half a quarter like the job till I had this talk with you, John, but there’s my hand on it now.”

“And a brave lad you were, and smart, too,” answered Silver, shaking hands so heartily that all the barrel shook, “and a finer figurehead for a gentleman of fortune I never clapped my eyes on.”

By this time I had begun to understand the meaning of their terms. By a “gentleman of fortune” they plainly meant neither more nor less than a common pirate, and the little scene that I had overheard was the last act in the corruption of one of the honest hands⁠—perhaps of the last one left aboard. But on this point I was soon to be relieved, for, Silver giving a little whistle, a third man strolled up and sat down by the party.

“Dick’s square,” said Silver.

“Oh, I know’d Dick was square,” returned the voice of the coxswain, Israel Hands. “He’s no fool, is Dick.” And he turned his quid and spat.