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Treasure Island
Chapter 15. The Man of the Island
From the side of the hill, steep and stony here, a stream of gravel was knocked loose and fell rattling through the trees.
My eyes turned naturally in that direction, and I saw a figure jump very quickly behind the trunk of a pine tree.
What it was, whether bear or man or monkey, I couldn't tell at all.
It seemed dark and hairy, I knew nothing more.
But the terror of this new sight made me stop.
I was now cut off on both sides, it seemed, behind me the murderers, in front of me this hiding unknown creature.
And immediately I began to prefer the dangers that I knew to those I didn't know.
Silver himself seemed less terrible compared to this creature of the woods.
And I turned around, looking sharply behind me over my shoulder, and began to go back in the direction of the boats.
Instantly the figure appeared again, and making a wide circle, began to cut me off.
I was tired anyway.
Even if I had been fresh as when I woke, I could see it was useless to match speed with such an enemy.
From tree to tree the creature moved like a deer, running like a man on two legs.
But it was unlike any man I had ever seen, it bent almost double as it ran.
Yet it was a man, I couldn't doubt that anymore.
I began to remember what I had heard about cannibals.
I was very close to calling for help.
The simple fact that he was a man, however wild, calmed me, and my fear of Silver grew again by comparison.
So I stood still and looked around for some way to escape, and as I was thinking, the memory of my pistol came into my mind.
As soon as I remembered I wasn't defenseless, courage returned to my heart.
I set my face firmly toward this man of the island and walked quickly toward him.
He was hidden behind another tree trunk by this time.
But he must have been watching me closely.
As soon as I moved in his direction, he appeared again.
He took a step to meet me.
He hesitated, stepped back, came forward again, then, to my surprise, fell to his knees and held out clasped hands as if begging.
At that I stopped again, my heart pounding and breath coming quickly.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Ben Gunn," he answered, and his voice sounded rough and strange, like a rusty lock.
"I'm poor Ben Gunn, I'm, and I haven't spoken with a Christian for three years."
I could now see that he was a white man like myself and that his features were even pleasant.
His skin, where uncovered, was burned by the sun, his lips were black, and his light eyes looked surprising in a dark face.
Of all the beggar-men that I had seen or imagined, he was the worst for raggedness.
He was dressed in pieces of old ship's canvas and old sailcloth.
This strange patchwork was held together by various mismatched fastenings.
Around his waist he wore an old leather belt with a brass buckle, which was the one solid thing in his whole outfit.
"Three years!" I cried.
"Were you shipwrecked?"
"No, mate," he said.
"Marooned."
I had heard the word, I knew it meant a horrible punishment common among pirates.
The offender is put ashore with a little gunpowder and shot.
They're left behind on some empty and distant island.
"Marooned three years ago,"
He continued, "I've lived on goats, berries, and oysters since then."
"Wherever a man is, I say a man can take care of himself, but, mate, my heart longs for Christian food."
"You wouldn't have a piece of cheese about you now? No? Many's the long night I've dreamed of toasted cheese and woke again".
"If I ever get back on board again," I said, "you'll have cheese by the ton."
All this time, he had been feeling the cloth of my jacket.
He smoothed my hands and looked at my boots.
In the gaps of his speech, he showed childish pleasure at my presence.
But at my last words he perked up into a kind of startled slyness.
"If ever you get back on board again, you say?" he repeated.
"Why, now, who's going to stop you?"
"Not you, I know," I replied.
"And you were right," he cried.
"Now you, what do you call yourself, mate?"
"Jim," I told him.
"Jim, Jim," he said, quite pleased apparently.
"Well, now, Jim, I've lived so rough that you'd be ashamed to hear about it."
"Now, for instance, you wouldn't think I had a religious mother, to look at me?" He asked.
"Why, no, not really," I answered.
Ah, well," he said, "but I had a very religious mother.
"I was a polite, religious boy, and I could say my catechism so fast you could not tell one word from another."
"And here's what it came to, Jim, it began with throwing stones on the blessed gravestones."
"That's what it started with, but it went further, as my mother told me and predicted the whole thing."
"But it was Providence that put me here, and I've thought it all out on this lonely island and I'm back on religion."
And, Jim," looking all around him and lowering his voice to a whisper, "I'm rich.
I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone crazy in his loneliness.
And I suppose I must have shown that feeling in my face, because he repeated the statement hotly.
Rich! Rich! I'll tell you, I'll make a man of you, Jim. Ah, Jim, you'll bless your luck that you were first to find me!
And at this there came suddenly a dark shadow over his face.
And he tightened his grip on my hand and raised a finger threateningly before my eyes.
"Now, Jim, you tell me the truth, that isn't Flint's ship?" he asked.
At this I had a happy idea.
I began to believe that I had found an ally, and I answered him at once.
It's not Flint's ship, and Flint is dead, but I'll tell you the truth, there are some of Flint's men on board, worse luck for us.
"Not a man, with one, leg?" he gasped.
"Silver?" I asked.
"Ah, Silver!" he said.
"That was his name."
"He's the cook, and the leader too."
He was still holding me by the wrist, and at that he gave it quite a twist.
"If you were sent by Long John," he said, "I'm as good as dead, and I know it. But where were you, do you suppose?"
I made up my mind in a moment.
As an answer, I told him the whole story of our voyage and the difficult situation in which we found ourselves.
He heard me with the greatest interest, and when I had finished he patted me on the head.
"You're a good lad, Jim,"
He said, "You're all in a tight spot, aren't you?"
"Well, you just put your trust in Ben Gunn. Ben Gunn's the man to handle it," he said.
"Would you think it likely that your squire would prove generous in case of help, him being in a tight spot"?
I told him the squire was the most generous of men.
"Yes, but you see," replied Ben Gunn.
"I didn't mean giving me a gate to guard, and a suit of servant's clothes, and such, that's not my style, Jim."
"What I mean is, would he be likely to give out, say, one thousand pounds out of money that's as good as a man's own already?"
"I'm sure he'd," I said.
"As it was, everyone was to share."
"And a passage home?" he added with a look of great cleverness.
"Why," I cried, "the squire's a gentleman. And besides, if we got rid of the others, we'd need you to help work the ship home."
"Ah," he said, "so you'd." And he seemed very much relieved.
"Now, I'll tell you what," he went on.
"So much I'll tell you, and no more".
I was on Flint's ship when he buried the treasure, he and six along, six strong sailors.
They were on shore nearly a week, and we stayed near the island in the old WALRUS.
One fine day up went the signal.
And here came Flint by himself in a little boat, and his head wrapped in a blue scarf.
The sun was coming up, and he looked terribly pale around the face.
But there he was, you understand, and the six all dead, dead and buried.
How he did it, not a man on board could figure out.
It was battle, murder, and sudden death, at least, him against six.
Billy Bones was the mate, Long John, he was the quartermaster, and they asked him where the treasure was.
Ah, you can go ashore and stay,' he says, 'but the ship'll sail off for more, by thunder!' That's what he said.
"Well, I was on another ship three years back, and we saw this island".
'Boys,' I said, 'here's Flint's treasure, let's land and find it.' The captain was unhappy about that, but my shipmates all agreed and landed.
Twelve days they looked for it, and every day they had worse words for me, until one fine morning everyone went on board.
'As for you, Benjamin Gunn,' they said, 'here's a gun,' they said, 'and a shovel, and a pick-axe.
You can stay here and find Flint's money for yourself,' they said.
"Well, Jim, three years have I been here, and not a bite of Christian food from that day to this."
"But now, you look here, look at me."
"Do I look like a common sailor?"
"No, you say."
"Nor I wasn't, either, I say."
And with that he winked and pinched me hard.
"Just you mention those words to your squire, Jim," he went on.
"Nor he wasn't, either, that's the words."
"For three years, Gunn was the man of this island."
"He experienced light and dark, fair weather and rain."
"Sometimes he'd think of a prayer."
"Sometimes he'd think of his old mother, if she was still alive."
"But most of Gunn's time was taken up with another matter."
"And then you'll give him a pinch, like I do."
And he pinched me again in the most secretive manner.
Then he continued, "You'll stand up and say this."
"Gunn is a good man."
"He puts a great deal more trust in a gentleman born than in these gentlemen of fortune."
"He has been one himself."
"Well," I said, "I don't understand one word that you've been saying. But that doesn't matter, how am I going to get on board?"
"Ah," he said, "that's the problem, for sure, there's my boat, made with my two hands and kept under the white rock."
If the worst comes to the worst, we might try that after dark, "Hey!" he broke out.
"What's that?"
Just then, though the sun had an hour or two to go, all the island's echoes woke and roared with a cannon's thunder.
"They have begun to fight!" I cried.
"Follow me."
I ran toward the anchorage, my fears forgotten, while the marooned man in his goatskins trotted at my side.
"Left, left," he says, "keep to your left, mate Jim! Under the trees with you! That's where I killed my first goat."
"They don't come down here now, they're all hiding on those mountains for fear of Benjamin Gunn. Ah! And there's the cemetery, cemetery, he must have meant."
"You see the mounds?"
"I came here and prayed, now and then, when I thought maybe a Sunday would be about due."
"It wasn't quite a chapel,"
"But it seemed more solemn like, and then, you say, Ben Gunn was short-handed, no chaplain, nor so much as a Bible and a flag, you say."
So he kept talking as I ran, neither expecting nor receiving any answer.
The cannon shot was followed after a long pause by a volley of small arms.
Another pause, and then, not a quarter of a mile in front of me, I saw the Union Jack wave in the air above a wood.
>>> PART FOUR, the Stockade, a rough wooden fort defended by desperate men.