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Treasure Island
Chapter 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.
If there had been a breeze, we'd have fallen on the six mutineers left aboard, slipped the cable and gone to sea.
But the wind was missing, and the sea lay calm, without even a breath.
And to complete our helplessness, down came Hunter with the news that Jim Hawkins had slipped into a boat and 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'd see the boy again.
We ran on deck, the pitch was bubbling in the seams.
The nasty stench of the place made me sick.
If a man ever smelled fever and dysentery, it was in that horrible 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, near where the river runs in.
One of them was whistling "Lillibullero."
Waiting was a strain, and we decided that Hunter and I should go ashore with the jolly-boat in search of information.
The gigs had leaned to their right, but Hunter and I pulled straight in, toward the stockade on the chart.
The two who were left guarding their boats seemed busy at our appearance.
"Lillibullero" stopped, and I could see the pair discussing what they ought to do.
If they had 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 start "Lillibullero" again.
There was a slight bend in the coast, and I steered so as to put it between us.
Even before we landed we had lost sight of the gigs.
I jumped out and ran as fast as I dared, a big silk handkerchief under my hat and a brace of pistols primed.
I hadn't 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.
On the knoll, around the spring, they had built a strong log house that could hold two score people in a pinch.
It had holes for muskets on either side.
All around this they had cleared a wide space.
Then the thing was finished by a fence six feet high, without door or opening.
It was too strong to pull down without time and labor and too open to shelter the attackers.
The people in the log house had them in every way.
They stood quietly in shelter and shot the others like birds.
All they needed was a good watch and food.
Short of a complete surprise, they might have held the place against a regiment.
What particularly took my fancy was the spring.
We had a good enough place in the cabin of the HISPANIOLA.
There were plenty of arms, ammunition, food, and excellent wines.
However, one thing was 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 wasn't 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 fast and uneven.
"Jim Hawkins is gone," was my first thought.
It's something to have been an old soldier, but more still to have been a doctor.
There's no time to waste 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 toward him.
"New to this work. He nearly fainted, 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 around under the stern-port.
Joyce and I began loading it with supplies.
We packed powder tins, muskets, bags of biscuits, and kegs of pork.
We also added 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 makes a signal of any description, that man's dead."
They were a good deal taken aback.
After a little consultation they 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 turned around at once, and a head popped out again on deck.
"Down, dog!" cries the captain.
And the head popped back again, we heard no more, for the time, of these six very faint-hearted seamen.
By this time, tumbling things in as they came, we had the jolly-boat loaded as much as we dared.
Joyce and I got out through the stern-port, and we made for shore again as fast as oars could take us.
This second trip fairly aroused the watchers along shore.
"Lillibullero" was dropped again.
Just before we lost sight of them behind the little point, one of them went ashore and disappeared.
I had half a mind to change my plan and destroy their boats.
But I feared that Silver and the others might be close at hand.
All might be lost by trying for too much.
We soon touched land in the same place as before and set to provision the block house.
All three made the first journey, heavily laden, and tossed our stores over the fence.
Then, leaving Joyce to guard them, one man, to be sure, but with half a dozen muskets.
Hunter and I returned to the jolly-boat and loaded ourselves once more.
So we went on without pausing to take breath, till the whole cargo was stored.
Then the two servants took up their position in the block house, and I, with all my power, rowed back to the HISPANIOLA.
That we risked a second boat load seems more daring than it really was.
They had the advantage of numbers, of course, but we had the advantage of arms.
Not one of the men ashore had a musket.
Before they could get within range for pistol shooting, we thought we'd be able to give a good account of a half-dozen at least.
The squire was waiting for me at the stern window, all his faintness gone from him.
He caught the painter and made it fast, and we fell to loading the boat for our very lives.
Pork, powder, and biscuit was the cargo, with only a musket and a cutlass apiece for the squire and me and Redruth and the captain.
We dropped the rest of the arms and powder overboard.
The water was two and a half fathoms deep.
We could see the bright steel shining far below us in the sun.
It rested on the clean, sandy bottom.
By this time the tide was beginning to ebb, and the ship was swinging around to her anchor.
Voices were heard faintly calling in the direction of the two gigs.
Though this reassured us for Joyce and Hunter, who were well to the eastward, it warned our party to be off.
Redruth left the gallery, dropped into the boat, and we brought it round to the ship's counter for Captain Smollett.
"Now, men," said he, "do you hear me?"
There was no answer from the forecastle.
"It's to you, Abraham Gray, it's to you I'm speaking."
Still no reply came from the forepeak, only the creak of the ship's timbers.
"Gray," resumed Mr. Smollett, a little louder, "I'm leaving this ship, and I order you to follow your captain."
"I know you're a good man at bottom, and I dare say not one of you's as bad as he makes out," Mr. Smollett said.
"I have my watch here in my hand, and I give you thirty seconds to join me in".
There was a pause while every man on deck waited for some reply.
"Come, my fine fellow," continued the captain.
"Don't hang so long in stays. I'm risking my life and the lives of these good gentlemen every second."
There was a sudden scuffle, a sound of blows, and out burst Abraham Gray with a knife cut on the side of the cheek.
He came running to the captain like a dog to the whistle.
"I'm with you, sir," said he.
And the next moment he and the captain had dropped aboard of us, and we had pushed off and given way.
We were clear out of the ship, but not yet ashore in our stockade.