Captain Silver

“ Indeed, at one time she started like a bloodhound straining at the leash towards the south, believing that her services were needed, when Captain Silver reluctantly signalled, "Sorry, permission cannot be given; we have to rest content in the knowledge that by remaining we are doing our duty." ”

“ It was as plain as day. Silver was the captain, and a mighty rebellious crew he had of it. The honest hands—and I was soon to see it proved that there were such on board—must have been very stupid fellows. Or, rather, I suppose the truth was this, that all hands were disaffected by the example of the ringleaders—only 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. ”

“ There was no crew on deck, however, no living soul to be seen except a woman who implored help with frantic gestures. Running down close, Captain Silver made out the vessel to be the Kilmars of Glasgow, and he sent a boat aboard to pick off the lone woman. She proved to be a girl, only eighteen years old, wife of the master of the bark, almost out of her wits with hysteria and exhaustion. She said that the Kilmars had sailed from Batavia two months previously with a cargo of sugar for Europe. ”

“ Well, if I speak back, pikes will be going in two shakes; if I don’t, Silver will see there’s something under that, and the game’s up. Now, we’ve only one man to rely on.”
“And who is that?” asked the squire.
“Silver, sir,” returned the captain; “he’s as anxious as you and I to smother things up. This is a tiff; he’d soon talk ’em out of it if he had the chance, and what I propose to do is to give him the chance. Let’s allow the men an afternoon ashore. If they all go, why we’ll fight the ship. If they none of them go, well then, we hold the cabin, and God defend the right. ”

“ I challenged. "Can not you trust your own people?"
"I trust nobody farther than I must," he retorted.
And without another word he produced a patent folding spyglass from his pocket and clapped it to his eye. Silver, who had been an interested witness to the scene from his aerie atop of the cabin skylight, hopped across the deck to my great-uncle's side.
"Beggin' your pardon, captain," he said. "But I'd make oath that tops'l is the canvas you took out o' the Mogul's ship off Pondicherry. Mind it, sir? 'Twas uncommon bleached and looked whiter'n our cloth."
Murray handed him the glass. ”

“ I was almost alone at Hill's, but took a canoe, paddled down Black Bayou to the gunboat Price, and there, luckily, found the Silver wave with a load of men just arrived from twin's plantation. Taking some of the parties who were at work along the bayou into an empty coal-barge, we tugged it up by a navy-tug, followed by the Silver Wave, crashing through the trees, carrying away pilot-house, smoke-stacks, and every thing above-deck; but the captain (McMillan, of Pittsburg) was a brave fellow, and realized the necessity. ”

“ A dark stream appeared beneath the bandage and trickled down his forehead, while he lay, gasping for breath, upon the bit of sailcloth which served him for a bed.
“What did you do with the diamonds?” the mate asked, when the dying man had again become calm.
“I—I have written a letter to Brandon, telling him all about it,” gasped the captain. “That is what I wrote the second day we were on the raft. I dared not take them with me from the brig, and they are hidden in the cabin. I know now that we made a grave mistake in leaving the Silver Swan at all, for she may hold together for months. ”

“ Baker. Mr. Snow was surly and irritable, and getting worse. He was on bad terms with his crew, and seemed determined to haze Silver, who had been subjected to that process ever since leaving Cape Town.
I was sorry for Silver, but I could do nothing. None of the men could do anything for him. Captain Nelson could have stopped it, but he did not, for some reason or other. Silver was getting more and more desperate and morose, and was looking for a chance to get away. The Seychelles might have offered him a chance, but we did not enter a port there, nor send a boat ashore. ”

“ Jump! One jump, and you’re out, and we’ll run for it like antelopes.”
“No,” I replied, “you know right well you wouldn’t do the thing yourself; neither you, nor squire, nor captain; and no more will I. Silver trusted me; I passed my word, and back I go. But, doctor, you did not let me finish. If they come to torture me, I might let slip a word of where the ship is; for I got the ship, part by luck and part by risking, and she lies in North Inlet, on the southern beach, and just below high water. At half-tide she must be high and dry.” ”

“ But, confidently as the captain had hoped to find the Spanish wreck, yet, now that it was really found, the news seemed too good to be true. He could not believe it till the sailors showed him the lump of silver.
"Thanks be to God!" then cried Captain Phipps. "We shall every man of us make our fortunes!"
Hereupon the captain and all the crew set to work with iron rakes and great hooks and lines fishing for gold and silver at the bottom of the sea. Up came the treasure in abundance. Now they beheld a table of solid silver, once the property of an old Spanish grandee. ”

“ I could hear their feet shuffling along the planks overhead; heard the barking, "One! Two! Three! An' heave!" as they swung their burden, and then the sullen splash as the body struck the water. Captain Silvera's harsh voice roused me from the terror of my thoughts at this unfeeling piece of desecration.
"Your room's ready for ye, Mister Dixon, but afore ye turn in. I'd like ye t' fix up our course. I want t' shape for th' Western Islands. Here's th' chart, dividers, rulers an' pencil."
I gave him the course in a few seconds, and he shouted it up the open companionway to the deck officer. ”

“ It was plainly a damp, feverish, unhealthy spot.
"Keep indoors, men," said the captain. "Ten to one this is a trick."
Then he hailed the buccaneer.
"Who goes? Stand, or we fire."
"Flag of truce," cried Silver.
The captain was in the porch, keeping himself carefully out of the way of a treacherous shot, should any be intended. He turned and spoke to us:—
"Doctor's watch on the lookout. Dr. Livesey take the north side, if you please; Jim, the east; Gray, west. The watch below, all hands to load muskets. ”

“ I don’t believe it’s worth much—old silver like that.”
“Oh, indeed, it is worth a lot of money!” said Mrs. Brown. “It is very beautiful and old. Dealers will give a lot for that.”
“Well, we’ll have it put on board the Beacon and kept safely for Mr. Pott,” said Captain Ward. “And now I think we had better get back to the ship, for there may be another storm or a fog and I don’t want to get caught on the sand-bar again.”
[Pg 244]
A little later the castaways, including Harry Pott and his chest of silver, were rowed out to the Beacon and soon the vessel was steaming on her way again. ”

“ I'll have him cleared out now so's ye kin take aholt an' start right in."
He arose and clambered up the companionway steps, and I could hear him calling to the watch on deck. When he came below again, four ragged-looking, unkempt ruffians followed him.
"Git that stiff outa his bunk an' heave him over th' rail——"
"Sew him up, sir?" inquired one of the men.
"Heave him over, I said," snapped Captain Silvera sharply. "I've got no canvas to waste on that beach-comber. Ye kin lash somethin' to his heels as a sinker— No, blast him, jest shove him over as he is. Go ahead, now!" ”

“ I'm a seaman, I am. Give me sun and stars, and I'll steer ye a course. Give me sight o' tops'ls, and I'll fetch ye 'longside o' a prize. I'm no man for fuss, I'm not. Ye can ha' all the rum ye want, so be ye sail the ship and fight her.
"Now, what ha' ye to say? Speak up, any o' you swabs as is for trouble!"
Long John Silver spoke from the shadows, his words flowing smoothly with an insinuating, oily inflection.
"We better make it all reg'lar, Bill. You're mate, and you say as how Flint give you the treasure-map and says you was to be cap'n a'ter him ”

“ 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." ”

“ Up you go! All the sensations as come to a poor, honest pirate as is hung in chains at Execution Dock."
The rope tautened; the unseen block whined louder; and I rose involuntarily from my position across Peter's belly. My feet were jerked from a thwart, and I kicked the air. The grunts of men hauling in unison floated from the brig's deck, and as I rose faster I commenced to swing like a pendulum.
And now I understood Silver's warning as to my head, for I came into violent collision with the brig's hull and by mere luck escaped with a bruised shoulder instead of a broken skull. ”

“ Just you keep clear of the cap’n. The doctor himself is gone dead again you—‘ungrateful scamp’ was what he said; and the short and the long of the whole story is about here: you can’t go back to your own lot, for they won’t have you; and without you start a third ship’s company all by yourself, which might be lonely, you’ll have to jine with Cap’n Silver.”
So far so good. My friends, then, were still alive, and though I partly believed the truth of Silver’s statement, that the cabin party were incensed at me for my desertion, I was more relieved than distressed by what I heard. ”

“ It was as if you could see the trail of bloodshed and suffering Silver would blaze to possess that ship and to exploit her to advantage.
"And why not?" returned Silver vigorously. "We'll name no names, Ezra, but captains can't live for ever. Some is aged and some soaks theirselves in rum. You never know! You never know!"
"There's Bill Bones, as has ideas on the subjeck," remarked Pew.
And he contrived to make me feel the horror of a long-drawn-out feud and rivalry.
"Yes, there's Bill," ruminated Silver. "Flint's mate, is Bill. Flint's best pal, is Bill. ”

“ John Silver is certainly something very different, but then when Mr. Stevenson drew the commanding figure in Treasure Island he was not making a portrait of a pirate, but was only making play with the well-established puppet of boys' books. Yet, after all, the pirate, if he was not such an agreeable rascal as John Silver, was not always the greedy, spiritless rogue drawn in the Master of Ballantrae. ”

“ Nine o’clock; fifteen minutes past; and then—three long blasts from the city’s sirens sent men, women and children rushing for vantage points. Traffic came spontaneously to an end.
She had come; the silver ship, the Moonbeam! Her engines roaring, her silver gray sides gleaming in the searchlights, she appeared suddenly as she dropped through a floor of mist, and hung so low over the city that it was easy to see the passengers crowded at the windows of the cabin. The usual calm of the Japanese disappeared, and wild shouts of “Banzai!” rent the air. ”

“ And he filled a pipe and lighted it; and the two men sat silently smoking for quite a while, now looking each other in the face, now stopping their tobacco, now leaning forward to spit. It was as good as the play to see them.
"Now," resumed Silver, "here it is. You give us the chart to get the treasure by, and drop shooting poor seamen, and stoving of their heads in while asleep. You do that and we'll offer you a choice. Either you come aboard along of us, once the treasure shipped, and then I'll give you my affy-davy, upon my word of honor, to clap you [147] somewhere safe ashore. ”

“ Also and likewise, an ear for canvas. Lastly and leastwise, an eye for the course.
"Any man can read a compass, young gentleman; but not every sailorman can feel how his ship takes the wind and meet his rudder quick when she wants meetin'. Pew can. Give him some one like me to play eyes for him, and he'll steer as straight a course as a packet-boat wi' a bonus on the voyage."
"Are there many cripples in your crew?" I asked curiously.
"Cripples?" repeated Silver. "It all depends on what you might mean. There's cripples and cripples. Me and Pew now, we got ours in the same broadside. ”

“ But he never had Murray's head to plan—and he knows that as well as me. Aye, for I've heard him say it.
"'Curse me if I like to bob and prance for the old hellion, Bill,' says he; 'but he has the skill o' the Fiend at our lay. He's lasted twice as long as me or any other.'"
"Skill is right," admitted Silver. "D'ye mind, when we was overhaulin' the brig, he ran up alongside the Walrus wi' his speakin'-trumpet out and hailed?
"'Ahoy, Walrus!' says he. 'Don't touch her spars or riggin'. Give her a couple o' round shot across her decks. We've got to get rid of her crew, anyway." ”

“ My ship had been bought by a firm in Sydney, and while I was waiting out there I went for a little run on a schooner among the islands. This Don Silvio was aboard of her as a passenger. She went to pieces in a gale, and we were the only two saved. The others were washed overboard, but we got ashore in the boat, and I thought from the trouble he was taking over his bag that the danger had turned his brain."
"Ah!" said the keenly-interested Mr. Chalk.
"He was a sick man aboard ship," continued the captain, "and I soon saw that he hadn't saved his life for long. ”

“ Time to carouse afterward."
"There's no time for drinkin' like the time ye ha' the liquor at your elbow," retorted Bones.
"And them's true words," assented Silver heartily. "And 'tis plain to be seen as you're a skipper the lads'll all be blithe for, Bill. But I was just figgerin' as we none o' us has ever asked the pris'ners how long 'twill take to dig up that treasure o' Murray's. So I makes bold to suggest we have 'em up here and put 'em through their paces. 'Tain't no ways right as pris'ners should be as close-mouthed as Flint let 'em be. ”