Flint's Island Read online

  Hodge, for answer, threw the cutlass point to me. “Tom,” he said, “that there blade was broke less than six months ago and broke in a fight and Silver wasn’t fighting with himself. I think there’s more ashore than Silver and I think they are maybe lying low until we get all that treasure aboard. The last of the treasure went aboard this morning. The brig’s watered, provisioned, and armed. Part of the crew—most of the crew—is ashore, like us. If there’s more men ashore, Flint’s hands, let’s say, and Long John leading them, there isn’t a better time to seize the Jane than now”

  “Come,” I cried, “there isn’t a moment to lose. We must get back to the brig immediately.”

  Our shortest route to the inlet where the Jane lay was due north, with the swamp on our right-hand side. A good landmark would have been the hill on the northern side of the inlet in which the treasure cave was, but that was not to be seen through the forest of evergreen oaks which we now had to make our way through. The branches of these trees spread close to the ground like giant fans and were festooned with Spanish moss. The ground was thick with mold into which we sank at every step, and clouds of mosquitoes lived under these trees and feasted on us as we struggled along. We had soon thrown away the ducks and we would have thrown away some of our clothing but for the mosquitoes, which were able to bite even through the stuff of our shirts. They battened on our bare arms, faces, and necks, so that we were covered with welts from all their stings.

  Eventually we came to a small escarpment or cliff, not much more than breast-high, and when we had climbed this and plunged on perhaps three hundred yards, the mosquitoes suddenly left us. We were not now among oaks but among pines and could feel a little stirring of a sea breeze, which after the heavy air of that moss-hung forest was like the renewal of life itself. Here, despite our urgency, we had to rest for a moment. My arms showed a dozen little trickles of blood from the bites of the mosquitoes and my left arm was beginning to swell to twice its size. We flung ourselves on the ground, panting, and then heard from ahead the report of a musket, followed by two or three more.

  “Come on,” I yelled, and plunged forward. We had, I suppose, half a mile yet to go to get to the south side of the bay, so it was twenty minutes before, bursting through the last of the trees, we saw the calm waters of North Inlet before us. There the Jane lay, utterly peaceful, scarcely stirring at her anchor. The brig’s yawl swung alongside and she was exactly as I had last seen her, except for one terrible change.

  The British ensign had been taken down from the staff on her stern and in its place now hung the skull and crossbones—the dreaded flag of piracy. From the brig came a snatch of song sung in a thin, quavering tenor. The words reached us clearly across the bay:

  Fifteen men on a Dead Man’s Chest—

  Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

  Drink and the devil had done for the rest—

  Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

  CHAPTER 11

  THE SHOCK OF so terrible a turnabout—to lose ship and treasure and face the prospect of being marooned on a desert island for the rest of my days (if indeed I were not killed)—deprived me of all reason for the moment. I could only stare at the Jane, struggling to accept the truth of what I saw. It was Hodge who first recovered. He touched me on the shoulder and, stooping, motioned that we should get back out of sight among the trees, and this we did without being seen from the brig.

  “What’s left of the crew may be up in the cave,” I said. “We should join them. Perhaps the brig can be retaken.”

  Hodge shook his head. “Better lie low for a while until we find out what has happened,” he said. “We can go up to the cave, and should. But lie low, mate—that’s the ticket. If they’re all prisoners up there, we don’t want to join them.”

  This was eminently sensible advice, and so, with one last glance at the Jane, we withdrew into the pine woods and started making our way around the end of North Inlet to the treasure cave. It was dark by the time we got there, for we were delayed finding a place to cross the sluggish river that debouched into the North Inlet, and with our recent experience of quicksands were not inclined to take risks. Twilight in these regions lasted but half an hour and then all was pitch-black under the trees, with fireflies here and there exploding into dashes of greenish light.

  The cave had a kind of natural protection in the front in the palmettos with their thorns which grew out, but we managed to avoid the worst of these by coming in obliquely from the southwest, where we also had the cover of a spur of the hill to conceal us until we were almost at the cave mouth. Night, then, was well established when we were within a hundred yards of the entrance and could see the glimmer and flicker of a fire from within. We could hear heavy breathing, punctuated by an occasional grunt and low moaning. Hodge sniffed the air and whispered in my ear the one word “Rum,” and almost immediately I caught the rich, fruity aroma of it.

  Keeping close to the shadows, we stole to the mouth of the cave, and since the firelight illuminated but a small area, we were able to see only a portion of the interior. Smigley and Green lay propped against the side of the cave, their hands tied behind them. Smigley had a rough bandage on his head through which a dark stain showed. Sweeney, the sailmaker, lay dead just outside the cave, and there were several men beyond, all tied up, hand and foot. On guard at the entrance were two figures in tattered clothing whose straggling long hair and beards gave them the appearance of wild animals rather than human beings. They had each a bare cutlass across his knees and a brace of pistols in his waistband. One, directly facing me, had a livid cutlass scar clean across his nose to the turn of his jaw—a terrible wound that had divided his face diagonally and in healing had left the two portions slightly out of line with each other.

  “I’d say Kingston or Vera Cruz,” said this one. “But it’s all the same to me, so’s I get my lay. Whatever Long John says, that will be it, and I don’t reckon there’s any one fool enough to cross his hawse.”

  “That’s a man with a head on him, that Silver,” said the other. “If they’d listened to Long John at the start, and laid off the rum, we’d never have struck and we’d have been out of here eighteen months ago. But rum they must have, and Jacobs, he weren’t the man to say no when they’d tapped the barrel.”

  The other thrust with his boot at the end of a log, and a sheet of flames and sparks rose suddenly into the night, making me withdraw quickly into the shadows, lest I be seen. “That’s what comes of crew’s elections,” he said. “I seen sheep had more sense than seamen. Gentlemen of for tune, is it? Well, they’ll muck right in when the rum’s running, and never think of anything but what’s before them.”

  “Well,” said the other, “right of election is part of the articles. And if a crew votes for grog, grog they have a right to have. T’aint for hard work and hazing they put to sea, but to live free and take their pleasure, dooty done.”

  “Dooty done,” snorted the other. “Running up on a reef on a dark night, three sheets to the wind, ain’t my idea of dooty done, nor yours either, if you’d use your head. As for articles, Flint wasn’t one to abide by them—nor Billie Bones either. And we’ve learned a thing or two about articles from Long John since we’ve all been ashore here so cozy waiting for another ship. Fourteen of us there was as made shore when the old Walrus struck, and there’s seven of us left. And you know what happened to the rest. Don’t go ajawing about articles and deputations to Long John.”

  “Not I,” said the first. “If Long John was to decide to put in with that treasure at the royal dock at Spithead, I’d trim sheets handsome for him. I still get the horrors thinking of Marrow’s end.”

  “Marrow was a fool,” said the other. “And a man don’t last long in quicksand, anyway.”

  That settled both the mystery of the broken cutlass and of how Long John and these rogues had come to be wrecked. They’d voted for rum, and Jacobs, whom I took to be their captain, hadn’t been man enough to oppose them. With the lookouts drunk or partly d
runk, they had run up on a reef. That refrain which we had heard from aboard the Jane echoed in my mind:

  Fifteen men on a Dead Man’s Chest—

  Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

  Drink and the devil had done for the rest—

  Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

  Someone groaned from inside the cave and called for water and was answered by an oath and a threat. But the other guard got up and, picking up a pannikin, went into the depths of the cave. He was back almost immediately and, seating himself by the fire again, said, “Silver said to treat them gentle. He’s a need of hands, and two wrecks on one voyage wouldn’t be to his liking.”

  “Left to me, I’d cut the throat of that captain, and the rest would volunteer quick enough,” said the first guard.

  “That was never Silver’s way,” was the reply. “He’s a coaxing man, is Silver until aroused, and he’ll have half of them eating out of his hand this time tomorrow night, mark my words.”

  They fell then to talking of other matters—their whack, as they called it, of the treasure, and to what port they were likely to sail with it. We had learned, however, that there were only seven of them—eight, including Silver. That was enough to handle the brig, given fair weather. But fair weather was not to be expected, with ahead that same threat of hurricanes which had persuaded Captain Samuels to put in at the island for topmasts. So Silver would try to persuade at least some of the Jane’s crew to join him.

  Again it seemed that there were only two ashore, since one had had to leave for a moment to answer the call for water. Given the benefit of surprise and a little luck, Hodge and I might be able to overcome the two of them. But a musket shot would rouse those on the ship, and we had no surety that the arms our men had brought with them had not been gathered up and taken back on board the brig. If we were to overpower the guards, it must be without a shot being fired. So we withdrew some distance and debated the problem. We would never have such an opportunity of liberating the crew again, so we must not fail.

  In the end we hit upon a plan which, though desperate, was entirely simple. One of us would distract the attention of both guards, while the other stole into the cave and liberated at least some of the crew. The first one was to allow himself to be taken and brought captive into the cave, when the freed crew would overpower the captors. Hodge volunteered to provide the distraction, though there was a very considerable danger that he might be shot. He stole off into the darkness and came blundering through the palmettos from some distance away, calling out for Captain Samuels. The two guards turned immediately and jumped to their feet, their pistols in their hands, and moved away from the fire toward him. As soon as they left the entrance to the cave, I slipped inside, keeping to the shadows, my sheath knife ready.

  The first man I found was Mr. Hogan, our quiet, even-tempered sailing master. I cut him free, whispering in his ear at the same time to say nothing but find what arms he could. He in return whispered that Captain Samuels lay bound opposite him. I felt blood on the captain’s clothes as I cut the ropes binding his arms, but whatever his hurt, he asked me only if I had not an extra knife. I gave him Hodge’s, for knowing that Hodge would be taken, we had seen no sense in his keeping it. I had just time to give the musket to Becker, the ox of a coxun, with a warning not to fire lest he rouse the ship, when the two pirates reappeared, thrusting Hodge before them.

  “He’s done for,” Hodge was saying. “He was lost in the quicksand. I nearly died trying to save him. Look at the mud on me. But what’s happened here? Where’s Captain Samuels?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” said one of the guards with a chuckle. They entered the cave, one carrying a lantern and going ahead and the other following, thrusting Hodge, his hands already tied, before him. They passed Becker and against the glow of the fire I saw the big coxun rise slowly, clubbing the musket I had given him. He and Sweeney, whose body lay stiff in death only a few feet from him, had been close friends. He swung the musket silently and the blow he dealt the man with Hodge would have felled a dray horse. Down he went like a dropped sack, and the other guard, whirling around with an oath, was seized by Captain Samuels. He cried out, dropped the lantern, gave a kind of sigh, and himself fell to the ground. All was over in a matter of seconds. The lantern rolled away, the flame turning first orange and then blue, and I snatched it up before it went out. The man lay stretched face down on the floor, Hodge’s knife driven the hilt into his heart by the captain. He was quite dead.

  Captain Samuels examined him, unmoved, in the flickering light of the candle lantern, and said, “I’d give my share of the treasure and a year’s pay on top of it if that man had been Long John Silver.”

  CHAPTER 12

  CAPTAIN SAMUELS WAS FOR attempting to retake the Jane immediately. He was boiling with wrath that his ship had been taken from him, and by pirates, and of all pirates, by Silver. Silver had duped him as readily as a child, despite the captain’s distrust of the man. The tale of that duplicity, which I learned later, is soon told. When all the treasure was aboard, and Captain Samuels and one or two others with it, Silver had got the greater part of the crew into the cave and produced a cask of rum, which he said he had put by for just that occasion.

  It is not hard to persuade seamen, once ashore, to take a drink, and it must be acknowledged that few crews had such a cause for celebration, as they thought, as ours. First one had taken a drink, and then another, and before long the crew had utterly lost all guard and discipline and determined on finishing the cask before going on board. Peasbody, the officer in charge, should have prevented all this, but Peasbody had no real authority with the men and, indeed, hoping to show himself just such a fellow as they, had joined them in a toast. After that, it was no trouble to persuade him to one more, and he had soon lost all competence as an officer. He remembered enough of his duty, however, to get back to the ship and report that the hands were all drunk ashore. Captain Samuels left immediately, taking Hogan, the sailing master, with him, and leaving Peasbody aboard protesting childishly that he had done his best to keep discipline among the men.

  It was not until the captain was inside the cave and haranguing the crew that Silver summoned his rogues, whom he had visited each day hidden about the island. There was a sharp tussle, some of the men not being entirely gone in drink, but men stupefied with rum and taken by surprise were no match for the remnant of Flint’s crew. Captain Samuels went down, felled by a blow from Long John’s crutch, and Sweeney had been shot dead, and four others gravely wounded. The crew, in short, were soon subdued and tied up, and then it had been an easy matter for Silver to take the brig, defended as it was only by Peasbody and two hands, who could only gape as the pirates came alongside. One did try to get to the swivel in the ship’s waist, we learned later, but it was a futile gesture. It took three hands to serve that piece, and all he got for his pains was a blow on the side of the head with the flat of a cutlass.

  Released then by Hodge and me, Captain Samuels was determined to launch a counterattack immediately, and it was the sailing master, Mr. Hogan, who pointed out to him, patiently but firmly, that this might lead only to the slaughter of his unarmed crew.

  “We’re seventeen,” said Captain Samuels, “and they are but six, including Silver. Don’t talk to me of slaughter.”

  “We are thirteen, sir, not counting the heavily wounded, and have but a single musket, two pistols, and two cutlasses among us,” said the sailing master. “Once the firearms are discharged in an assault, it will be unarmed men against six fully armed desperadoes, everyone of them a veteran of a score of boardings.”

  That made Captain Samuels hesitate. However many men he had, there was no gainsaying that our hands were green when it came to fighting. To pit inexperienced, unarmed men against Flint’s hands, fully armed, was scarcely a plan for victory.

  “If you have another scheme,” said Captain Samuels, “speak up. We have but a few hours of dark and we must make the best use of them. I’ll listen t
o anything any man has to say, for we are all together in this. We must either retake the brig or face spending the rest of our lives on this island, if we are not cut down like so much pork first. That’s the choice, a desperate choice calling for desperate measures.”

  “And all the treasure gone,” muttered Green. Captain Samuels looked at him sharply but refrained from saying a word.

  “The ebbs set in soon, I think,” said Smigley. “We could run her aground.”

  “And what good would that do?” demanded the captain.

  “Well, sir,” said Smigley in his plodding way, “if we had the boats and we cut her cable, the ebb would take her out to the entrance of the inlet and she would run aground likely on that point there. And they couldn’t refloat her, for they could not get an anchor out to kedge off, using the windlass, and they couldn’t take a line ashore without swimming with it, and we own the shore. They got the brig, but we got the island.”

  “She’d float off when the tide turned,” said the captain. “Or they could lighten her and refloat her without waiting for the tide.”

  “Not while we got a musket and shot,” said Smigley. “For as soon as a man comes on deck, he could be picked off. They wouldn’t dare show themselves.”

  “Who is the best hand with a musket?” asked the captain.

  “Becker,” said Mr. Hogan. “I’ve seen him put out a candle at a hundred yards, and that with a horse pistol.”

  Captain Samuels hesitated. The temptation with so many men at his back to rush the ship and retake it was all but overwhelming. He had darkness and surprise in his favor, and such an attack would certainly succeed had we plenty of arms.

  But the lack of arms, and the certainty that, should the assault fail, then all was lost, lent him caution. Hodge, the bosun, pointed out that, while we might command the deck in daylight with a musket ashore, there was nothing we could do in the dark. “They have only to wait for the night flood and there is nothing we could do to stop them refloating the ship,” he said, and this was entirely true.