Soon they were chatting together , with intervals of listening ; and not long after , hearing no further sound , they shouldered the tools and set forth again , Merry walking first with Silver 's compass to keep them on the right line with Skeleton Island . He had said the truth : dead or alive , nobody minded Ben Gunn . Dick alone still held his Bible , and looked around him as he went , with fearful glances ; but he found no sympathy , and Silver even joked him on his precautions . `` I told you , '' said he -- `` I told you you had sp ` iled your Bible . If it ai n't no good to swear by , what do you suppose a sperrit would give for it ? Not that ! '' and he snapped his big fingers , halting a moment on his crutch . But Dick was not to be comforted ; indeed , it was soon plain to me that the lad was falling sick ; hastened by heat , exhaustion , and the shock of his alarm , the fever , predicted by Dr. Livesey , was evidently growing swiftly higher . It was fine open walking here , upon the summit ; our way lay a little downhill , for , as I have said , the plateau tilted towards the west . The pines , great and small , grew wide apart ; and even between the clumps of nutmeg and azalea , wide open spaces baked in the hot sunshine . Striking , as we did , pretty near north-west across the island , we drew , on the one hand , ever nearer under the shoulders of the Spy-glass , and on the other , looked ever wider over that western bay where I had once tossed and trembled in the coracle . The first of the tall trees was reached , and by the bearings proved the wrong one . So with the second . The third rose nearly two hundred feet into the air above a clump of underwood -- a giant of a vegetable , with a red column as big as a cottage , and a wide shadow around in which a company could have manoeuvred . It was conspicuous far to sea both on the east and west and might have been entered as a sailing mark upon the chart . But it was not its size that now impressed my companions ; it was the knowledge that seven hundred thousand pounds in gold lay somewhere buried below its spreading shadow . The thought of the money , as they drew nearer , swallowed up their previous terrors . Their eyes burned in their heads ; their feet grew speedier and lighter ; their whole soul was found up in that fortune , that whole lifetime of extravagance and pleasure , that lay waiting there for each of them . Silver hobbled , grunting , on his crutch ; his nostrils stood out and quivered ; he cursed like a madman when the flies settled on his hot and shiny countenance ; he plucked furiously at the line that held me to him and from time to time turned his eyes upon me with a deadly look . Certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts , and certainly I read them like print .
In the immediate nearness of the gold , all else had been forgotten : his promise and the doctor 's warning were both things of the past , and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure , find and board the HISPANIOLA under cover of night , cut every honest throat about that island , and sail away as he had at XXXXX intended , laden with crimes and riches .
Dick Island Silver extravagance first pounds second sperrit terrors third