crack ! -- three musket-shots flashed out of the thicket . Merry tumbled head foremost into the excavation ; the man with the bandage spun round like a teetotum and fell all his length upon his side , where he lay dead , but still twitching ; and the other three turned and ran for it with all their might . Before you could wink , Long John had fired two barrels of a pistol into the struggling Merry , and as the man rolled up his eyes at him in the last agony , `` George , '' said he , `` I reckon I settled you . '' At the same moment , the doctor , Gray , and Ben Gunn joined us , with smoking muskets , from among the nutmeg-trees . `` Forward ! '' cried the doctor . `` Double quick , my lads . We must head 'em off the boats . '' And we set off at a great pace , sometimes plunging through the bushes to the chest . I tell you , but Silver was anxious to keep up with us . The work that man went through , leaping on his crutch till the muscles of his chest were fit to burst , was work no sound man ever equalled ; and so thinks the doctor . As it was , he was already thirty yards behind us and on the verge of strangling when we reached the brow of the slope . `` Doctor , '' he hailed , `` see there ! No hurry ! '' Sure enough there was no hurry . In a more open part of the plateau , we could see the three survivors still running in the same direction as they had started , right for Mizzenmast Hill . We were already between them and the boats ; and so we four sat down to breathe , while Long John , mopping his face , came slowly up with us . `` Thank ye kindly , doctor , '' says he . `` You came in in about the nick , I guess , for me and Hawkins .
And so it 's you , Ben XXXXX ! ''
Gray Gunn Hawkins Hill John Silver musket-shots nutmeg-trees smoking teetotum