Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson [best sales books of all time txt] 📗

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 mainmast.

“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 lock-fast places had been broken open in quest of the chart. The floor was thick with mud, where the 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 pipe-lights. 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 rudderhead, 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 until then, gave Hands the brandy.

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

“Ay,” 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 color 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 colors, Mr. Hands; and by your leave I’ll strike ’em. Better none than these.”

And, again dodging the boom, I ran to the color lines, hauled 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 o’ 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 give 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 ankercher to tie my wound up, you do; and I’ll tell you how to sail 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