Chapter: "PIECES OF EIGHT"


Owing to the cant of the vessel, the masts hung far out over the water,
and from my perch on the crosstrees I had nothing below me but the
surface of the bay. Hands, who was not so far up, was, in consequence,
nearer to the ship, and fell between me and the bulwarks. He rose once
to the surface in a lather of foam and blood, and then sank again for
good. As the water settled, I could see him lying huddled together on
the clean, bright sand in the shadow of the vessel's sides. A fish or
two whipped past his body. Sometimes, by the quivering of the water, he
appeared to move a little, as if he were trying to rise. But he was dead
enough, for all that, being both shot and drowned, and was food for fish
in the very place where he had designed my slaughter.

I was no sooner certain of this than I began to feel sick, faint, and
terrified. The hot blood was running over my back and chest. The dirk,
where it had pinned my shoulder to the mast, seemed to burn like a hot
iron; yet it was not so much these real sufferings that distressed me,
for these, it seemed to me, I could bear without a murmur; it was the
horror I had upon my mind of falling from the crosstree into that still,
green water beside the body of the coxswain.

I clung with both hands till my nails ached, and I shut my eyes as if to
cover up the peril. Gradually my mind came back again, my pulses
quieted down to a more natural time, and I was once more in possession
of myself.

It was my first thought to pluck forth the dirk; but either it stuck too
hard or my nerve failed me, and I desisted with a violent shudder. Oddly
enough, that very shudder did the business. The knife, in fact, had come
the nearest in the world to missing me altogether; it held me by a mere
pinch of skin, and this the shudder tore away. The blood ran down the
faster, to be sure, but I was my own master again, and only tacked to
the mast by my coat and shirt.

These last I broke through with a sudden jerk, and then regained the
deck by the starboard shrouds. For nothing in the world would I have
again ventured, shaken as I was, upon the overhanging port shrouds, from
which Israel had so lately fallen.

I went below and did what I could for my wound; it pained me a good
deal, and still bled freely, but it was neither deep nor dangerous, nor
did it greatly gall me when I used my arm. Then I looked around me, and
as the ship was now, in a sense, my own, I began to think of clearing it
from its last passenger--the dead man, O'Brien.

He had pitched, as I have said, against the bulwarks, where he lay like
some horrid, ungainly sort of puppet; life-size, indeed, but how
different from life's color or life's comeliness! In that position, I
could easily have my way with him, and as the habit of tragical
adventures had worn off almost all my terror for the dead, I took him by
the waist as if he had been a sack of bran, and, with one good heave,
tumbled him overboard. He went in with a sounding plunge; the red cap
came off, and remained floating on the surface; and as soon as the
splash subsided, I could see him and Israel lying side by side, both
wavering with the tremulous movement of the water. O'Brien, though still
quite a young man, was very bald. There he lay with that bald head
across the knees of the man who killed him, and the quick fishes
steering to and fro over both.

I was now alone upon the ship; the tide had just turned. The sun was
within so few degrees of setting that already the shadow of the pines
upon the western shore began to reach right across the anchorage and
fall in patterns on the deck. The evening breeze had sprung up, and
though it was well warded off by the hill with the two peaks upon the
east, the cordage had begun to sing a little softly to itself and the
idle sails to rattle to and fro.

I began to see a danger to the ship. The jibs I speedily doused and
brought tumbling to the deck, but the mainsail was a harder matter. Of
course, when the schooner canted over, the boom had swung outboard, and
the cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water. I thought
this made it still more dangerous, yet the strain was so heavy that I
half feared to meddle. At last I got my knife and cut the halyards. The
peak dropped instantly, a great belly of loose canvas floated broad upon
the water; and since, pull as I liked, I could not budge the downhaul,
that was the extent of what I could accomplish. For the rest, the
_Hispaniola_ must trust to luck, like myself.

By this time the whole anchorage had fallen into shadow--the last rays,
I remember, falling through a glade of the wood, and shining bright as
jewels on the flowery mantle of the wreck. It began to be chill, the
tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner settling more and more
on her beam-ends.

I scrambled forward and looked over. It seemed shallow enough, and
holding the cut hawser in both hands for a last security, I let myself
drop softly overboard. The water scarcely reached my waist; the sand was
firm and covered with ripple-marks, and I waded ashore in great spirits,
leaving the _Hispaniola_ on her side, with her mainsail trailing wide
upon the surface of the bay. About the same time the sun went fairly
down, and the breeze whistled low in the dusk among the tossing pines.

At least, and at last, I was off the sea, nor had I returned thence
empty-handed. There lay the schooner, clear at last from buccaneers and
ready for our own men to board and get to sea again. I had nothing
nearer my fancy than to get home to the stockade and boast of my
achievements. Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truantry, but the
recapture of the _Hispaniola_ was a clinching answer, and I hoped that
even Captain Smollett would confess I had not lost my time.

So thinking, and in famous spirits, I began to set my face homeward for
the blockhouse and my companions. I remembered that the most easterly of
the rivers which drain into Captain Kidd's anchorage ran from the
two-peaked hill upon my left; and I bent my course in that direction
that I might pass the stream while it was small. The wood was pretty
open, and keeping along the lower spurs, I had soon turned the corner of
that hill, and not long after waded to the mid-calf across the
watercourse.

This brought me near to where I had encountered Ben Gunn, the maroon,
and I walked more circumspectly, keeping an eye on every side. The dusk
had come nigh hand completely, and, as I opened out the cleft between
the two peaks, I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky, where,
as I judged, the man of the island was cooking his supper before a
roaring fire. And yet I wondered, in my heart, that he should show
himself so careless. For if I could see this radiance, might it not
reach the eye of Silver himself where he camped upon the shore among the
marshes?

Gradually the night fell blacker; it was all I could do to guide myself
even roughly toward my destination; the double hill behind me and the
Spy-glass on my right hand loomed faint and fainter, the stars were few
and pale, and in the low ground where I wandered I kept tripping among
bushes and rolling into sandy pits.

Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me. I looked up; a pale glimmer
of moonbeams had alighted on the summit of the Spy-glass, and soon after
I saw something broad and silvery moving low down behind the trees, and
knew the moon had risen.

With this to help me, I passed rapidly over what remained to me of my
journey; and, sometimes walking, sometimes running, impatiently drew
near to the stockade. Yet, as I began to thread the grove that lies
before it, I was not so thoughtless but that I slacked my pace and went
a trifle warily. It would have been a poor end of my adventures to get
shot down by my own party in mistake.

The moon was climbing higher and higher; its light began to fall here
and there in masses through the more open districts of the wood, and
right in front of me a glow of a different color appeared among the
trees. It was red and hot, and now and again it was a little
darkened--as it were the embers of a bonfire smoldering.

For the life of me I could not think what it might be.

At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing. The western
end was already steeped in moon-shine; the rest, and the blockhouse
itself, still lay in a black shadow, chequered with long, silvery
streaks of light. On the other side of the house an immense fire had
burned itself into clear embers and shed a steady, red reverberation,
contrasting strongly with the mellow paleness of the moon. There was not
a soul stirring, nor a sound beside the noises of the breeze.

I stopped, with much wonder in my heart, and perhaps a little terror
also. It had not been our way to build great fires; we were, indeed, by
the captain's orders, somewhat niggardly of firewood, and I began to
fear that something had gone wrong while I was absent.

I stole round by the eastern end, keeping close in shadow, and at a
convenient place, where the darkness was thickest, crossed the palisade.

To make assurance surer, I got upon my hands and knees, and crawled,
without a sound, toward the corner of the house. As I drew nearer, my
heart was suddenly and greatly lightened. It was not a pleasant noise in
itself, and I have often complained of it at other times, but just then
it was like music to hear my friends snoring together so loud and
peaceful in their sleep. The sea-cry of the watch, that beautiful "All's
well," never fell more reassuringly on my ear.

In the meantime there was no doubt of one thing; they kept an infamous
bad watch. If it had been Silver and his lads that were now creeping in
on them, not a soul would have seen daybreak. That was what it was,
thought I, to have the captain wounded; and again I blamed myself
sharply for leaving them in that danger with so few to mount guard.

By this time I had got to the door and stood up. All was dark within, so
that I could distinguish nothing by the eye. As for sounds, there was
the steady drone of the snorers, and a small occasional noise, a
flickering or pecking that I could in no way account for.

With my arms before me I walked steadily in. I should lie down in my own
place (I thought, with a silent chuckle) and enjoy their faces when they
found me in the morning. My foot struck something yielding--it was a
sleeper's leg, and he turned and groaned, but without awaking.

And then, all of a sudden, a shrill voice broke forth out of the
darkness:

"Pieces of eight! pieces of eight! pieces of eight! pieces of eight!
pieces of eight!" and so forth, without pause or change, like the
clacking of a tiny mill.

Silver's green parrot, Captain Flint! It was she whom I had heard
pecking at a piece of bark; it was she, keeping better watch than any
human being, who thus announced my arrival with her wearisome refrain.

I had no time left me to recover. At the sharp clipping tone of the
parrot, the sleepers awoke and sprang up, and with a mighty oath the
voice of Silver cried:

"Who goes?"

I turned to run, struck violently against one person, recoiled, and ran
full into the arms of a second, who, for his part, closed upon and held
me tight.

"Bring a torch, Dick," said Silver, when my capture was thus assured.

And one of the men left the log-house, and presently returned with a
lighted brand.

[Illustration]




PART VI

CAPTAIN SILVER

 Hands rises just once in a lather of foam and blood before he sinks. This sight together with the pain of the wound, caused by Hands dagger, sickens Jim. What terrifies Jim most is the thought of falling into the water. He manages to regain his composure and learns that the knife wasn't stuck very deep. He pulls it out with a jerk and tries to regain his composure over himself. The wound bleeds profusely. As he looks around he sees the only companion he is left with is dead OBrien. Jim gets rid of his body as well. It is almost evening. Jim has difficulty controlling the ship. He cant do much and he leaves the fate of the ship on luck, just like himself. Few minutes pass by and suddenly Jim notices that the ship is in shallow waters. Finally Jim steps on land. He cant wait to get to the stockade to tell them about his achievement. He thinks that the news of recapturing the Hispaniola would make them happy. Jim finds the topography of the land quite familiar. He is familiar with Captain Kid's anchorage, the two peaks on his left and the place where he met Ben Gunn for the first time. He notices a glow of fire against the sky and presumes that someone is cooking supper. The night grows darker and darker. Strange sounds in the jungle fill Jims ears. Jim notices firewood burning and notices a strangeness in the way it is lit. Terror strikes him. He wonders if anything wrong has happened at the stockade in his absence. He draws a little closer on his knees. He hears, as Jim says, the sweet sound of his friend snoring. He was sure that nothing had gone wrong, for it were Silvers men he wouldnt have lived to tell the story. As he doesnt find a sentry, he blames himself for this, as he had run away from his duty. Suddenly he trips on a leg as he made his way to the sleeping place allotted to him by his Captain. A shrill voice breaks the silence. It is Captains Flint, Silvers parrot. This scream awakens the sleeping men. Jim knows he was in the wrong camp. As he tries to make his way back, he is held by a tight hand. He sees his end near when he hears Silver shouting for a torch to recognize the intruder.

