Amiga Format CD 41/Amiga Format CD41 (1999-06)(Future Publishing)(GB)[!][issue 1999-07].iso/-seriously_amiga-/misc/wordwrap/treasure.txt

Text File | 1999-04-19 | 9KB | 222 lines

                          25

               I Strike the Jolly Roger


I HAD scarce gained a position on the bowsprit when the
flying jib flapped and filled upon the other tack, with
a report like a gun.  The schooner trembled to her keel
under the reverse, but next moment, the other sails still
drawing, the jib flapped back again and hung idle.

This had nearly tossed me off into the sea; and now I
lost no time, crawled back along the bowsprit, and
tumbled head foremost on the deck.

I was on the lee side of the forecastle, and the main-
sail, which was still drawing, concealed from me a
certain portion of the after-deck.  Not a soul was to
be seen.  The planks, which had not been swabbed since
the mutiny, bore the print of many feet, and an empty
bottle, broken by the neck, tumbled to and fro like a
live thing in the scuppers.

Suddenly the HISPANIOLA came right into the wind.  The
jibs behind me cracked aloud, the rudder slammed to, the
whole ship gave a sickening heave and shudder, and at the
same moment the main-boom swung inboard, the sheet groaning
in the blocks, and showed me the lee after-deck.

There were the two watchmen, sure enough: red-cap on
his back, as stiff as a handspike, with his arms
stretched out like those of a crucifix and his teeth
showing through his open lips; Israel Hands propped
against the bulwarks, his chin on his chest, his hands
lying open before him on the deck, his face as white,
under its tan, as a tallow candle.

For a while the ship kept bucking and sidling like a
vicious horse, the sails filling, now on one tack, now
on another, and the boom swinging to and fro till the
mast groaned aloud under the strain.  Now and again too
there would come a cloud of light sprays over the
bulwark and a heavy blow of the ship's bows against the
swell; so much heavier weather was made of it by this
great rigged ship than by my home-made, lop-sided
coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea.

At every jump of the schooner, red-cap slipped to and
fro, but--what was ghastly to behold--neither his
attitude nor his fixed teeth-disclosing grin was anyway
disturbed by this rough usage.  At every jump too,
Hands appeared still more to sink into himself and
settle down upon the deck, his feet sliding ever the
farther out, and the whole body canting towards the
stern, so that his face became, little by little, hid
from me; and at last I could see nothing beyond his ear
and the frayed ringlet of one whisker.

At the same time, I observed, around both of them,
splashes of dark blood upon the planks and began to
feel sure that they had killed each other in their
drunken wrath.

While I was thus looking and wondering, in a calm
moment, when the ship was still, Israel Hands turned
partly round and with a low moan writhed himself back
to the position in which I had seen him first.  The
moan, which told of pain and deadly weakness, and the
way in which his jaw hung open went right to my heart.
But when I remembered the talk I had overheard from the
apple barrel, all pity left me.

I walked aft until I reached the main-mast.

"Come aboard, Mr. Hands," I said ironically.

He rolled his eyes round heavily, but he was too far
gone to express surprise.  All he could do was to utter
one word, "Brandy."

It occurred to me there was no time to lose, and dodging
the boom as it once more lurched across the deck, I
slipped aft and down the companion stairs into the cabin.

It was such a scene of confusion as you can hardly
fancy.  All the lockfast places had been broken open in
quest of the chart.  The floor was thick with mud where
ruffians had sat down to drink or consult after wading
in the marshes round their camp.  The bulkheads, all
painted in clear white and beaded round with gilt, bore
a pattern of dirty hands.  Dozens of empty bottles
clinked together in corners to the rolling of the ship.
One of the doctor's medical books lay open on the
table, half of the leaves gutted out, I suppose, for
pipelights.  In the midst of all this the lamp still
cast a smoky glow, obscure and brown as umber.

I went into the cellar; all the barrels were gone, and
of the bottles a most surprising number had been drunk
out and thrown away.  Certainly, since the mutiny
began, not a man of them could ever have been sober.

Foraging about, I found a bottle with some brandy left,
for Hands; and for myself I routed out some biscuit,
some pickled fruits, a great bunch of raisins, and a
piece of cheese.  With these I came on deck, put down
my own stock behind the rudder head and well out of the
coxswain's reach, went forward to the water-breaker,
and had a good deep drink of water, and then, and not
till then, gave Hands the brandy.

He must have drunk a gill before he took the bottle
from his mouth.

"Aye," said he, "by thunder, but I wanted some o' that!"

I had sat down already in my own corner and begun to eat.

"Much hurt?" I asked him.

He grunted, or rather, I might say, he barked.

"If that doctor was aboard," he said, "I'd be right
enough in a couple of turns, but I don't have no manner
of luck, you see, and that's what's the matter with me.
As for that swab, he's good and dead, he is," he added,
indicating the man with the red cap.  "He warn't no
seaman anyhow.  And where mought you have come from?"

"Well," said I, "I've come aboard to take possession of
this ship, Mr. Hands; and you'll please regard me as
your captain until further notice."

He looked at me sourly enough but said nothing.  Some
of the colour had come back into his cheeks, though he
still looked very sick and still continued to slip out
and settle down as the ship banged about.

"By the by," I continued, "I can't have these colours,
Mr. Hands; and by your leave, I'll strike 'em.  Better
none than these."

And again dodging the boom, I ran to the colour lines, handed
down their cursed black flag, and chucked it overboard.

"God save the king!" said I, waving my cap.  "And
there's an end to Captain Silver!"

He watched me keenly and slyly, his chin all the while
on his breast.

"I reckon," he said at last, "I reckon, Cap'n Hawkins,
you'll kind of want to get ashore now.  S'pose we talks."

"Why, yes," says I, "with all my heart, Mr. Hands.  Say
on."  And I went back to my meal with a good appetite.

"This man," he began, nodding feebly at the corpse "--
O'Brien were his name, a rank Irelander--this man and
me got the canvas on her, meaning for to sail her back.
Well, HE'S dead now, he is--as dead as bilge; and
who's to sail this ship, I don't see.  Without I gives
you a hint, you ain't that man, as far's I can tell.
Now, look here, you gives me food and drink and a old
scarf or ankecher to tie my wound up, you do, and I'll
tell you how to tail her, and that's about square all
round, I take it."

"I'll tell you one thing," says I: "I'm not going back
to Captain Kidd's anchorage.  I mean to get into North
Inlet and beach her quietly there."

"To be sure you did," he cried.  "Why, I ain't sich an
infernal lubber after all.  I can see, can't I?  I've
tried my fling, I have, and I've lost, and it's you has
the wind of me.  North Inlet?  Why, I haven't no
ch'ice, not I!  I'd help you sail her up to Execution
Dock, by thunder!  So I would."

Well, as it seemed to me, there was some sense in this.
We struck our bargain on the spot.  In three minutes I
had the HISPANIOLA sailing easily before the wind
along the coast of Treasure Island, with good hopes of
turning the northern point ere noon and beating down
again as far as North Inlet before high water, when we
might beach her safely and wait till the subsiding tide
permitted us to land.

Then I lashed the tiller and went below to my own
chest, where I got a soft silk handkerchief of my
mother's.  With this, and with my aid, Hands bound up
the great bleeding stab he had received in the thigh,
and after he had eaten a little and had a swallow or
two more of the brandy, he began to pick up visibly,
sat straighter up, spoke louder and clearer, and looked
in every way another man.

The breeze served us admirably.  We skimmed before it
like a bird, the coast of the island flashing by and
the view changing every minute.  Soon we were past the
high lands and bowling beside low, sandy country,
sparsely dotted with dwarf pines, and soon we were
beyond that again and had turned the corner of the
rocky hill that ends the island on the north.

I was greatly elated with my new command, and pleased
with the bright, sunshiny weather and these different
prospects of the coast.  I had now plenty of water and
good things to eat, and my conscience, which had
smitten me hard for my desertion, was quieted by the
great conquest I had made.  I should, I think, have had
nothing left me to desire but for the eyes of the
coxswain as they followed me derisively about the deck
and the odd smile that appeared continually on his
face.  It was a smile that had in it something both of
pain and weakness--a haggard old man's smile; but there
was, besides that, a grain of derision, a shadow of
treachery, in his expression as he craftily watched,
and watched, and watched me at my work.