`` Not without swamping the boat , '' said he . `` You must bear up , sir , if you please -- bear up until you see you 're gaining . '' I tried and found by experiment that the tide kept sweeping us westward until I had laid her head due east , or just about right angles to the way we ought to go . `` We 'll never get ashore at this rate , '' said I. `` If it 's the only course that we can lie , sir , we must even lie it , '' returned the captain . `` We must keep upstream . You see , sir , '' he went on , `` if once we dropped to leeward of the landing-place , it 's hard to say where we should get ashore , besides the chance of being boarded by the gigs ; whereas , the way we go the current must slacken , and then we can dodge back along the shore . '' `` The current 's less a ` ready , sir , '' said the man Gray , who was sitting in the fore-sheets ; `` you can ease her off a bit . '' `` Thank you , my man , '' said I , quite as if nothing had happened , for we had all quietly made up our minds to treat him like one of ourselves . Suddenly the captain spoke up again , and I thought his voice was a little changed . `` The gun ! '' said he . `` I have thought of that , '' said I , for I made sure he was thinking of a bombardment of the fort . `` They could never get the gun ashore , and if they did , they could never haul it through the woods . '' `` Look astern , doctor , '' replied the captain . We had entirely forgotten the long nine ; and there , to our horror , were the five rogues busy about her , getting off her jacket , as they called the stout tarpaulin cover under which she sailed . Not only that , but it flashed into my mind at the same moment that the round-shot and the powder for the gun had been left behind , and a stroke with an axe would put it all into the possession of the evil ones abroad . `` Israel was Flint 's gunner , '' said Gray hoarsely . At any risk , we put the boat 's head direct for the landing-place . By this time we had got so far out of the run of the current that we kept steerage way even at our necessarily gentle rate of rowing , and I could keep her steady for the goal . But the worst of it was that with the course I now held we turned our broadside instead of our stern to the HISPANIOLA and offered a target like a barn door .
I could hear as well as see that brandy-faced rascal Israel Hands plumping down a XXXXX on the deck .
Flint HISPANIOLA astern fore-sheets gigs landing-place left right round-shot steerage