Treasure island

Indeed, could anyone be more entirely lost than I? When the gun fired, how should I dare to go down to the boats among those fiends, still smoking from their crime? Would not the first of them who saw me wring my neck like a snipe's? Would not my absence itself be an evidence to them of my alarm, and therefore of my fatal knowledge? It was all over, I thought. Good-bye to the HISPANIOLA; good-bye to the squire, the doctor, and the captain! There was nothing left for me but death by starvation or death by the hands of the mutineers.

All this while, as I say, I was still ru

And here a fresh alarm brought me to a standstill with a thumping heart.

— 15. The Man of the Island

FROM the side of the hill, which was here steep and stony, a spout of gravel was dislodged and fell rattling and bounding through the trees. My eyes turned instinctively in that direction, and I saw a figure leap with great rapidity behind the trunk of a pine. What it was, whether bear or man or monkey, I could in no wise tell. It seemed dark and shaggy; more I knew not. But the terror of this new apparition brought me to a stand.

I was now, it seemed, cut off upon both sides; behind me the murderers, before me this lurking nondescript. And immediately I began to prefer the dangers that I knew to those I knew not. Silver himself appeared less terrible in contrast with this creature of the woods, and I turned on my heel, and looking sharply behind me over my shoulder, began to retrace my steps in the direction of the boats.

Instantly the figure reappeared, and making a wide circuit, began to head me off. I was tired, at any rate; but had I been as fresh as when I rose, I could see it was in vain for me to contend in speed with such an adversary. From trunk to trunk the creature flitted like a deer, ru

I began to recall what I had heard of ca

He was concealed by this time behind another tree trunk; but he must have been watching me closely, for as soon as I began to move in his direction he reappeared and took a step to meet me. Then he hesitated, drew back, came forward again, and at last, to my wonder and confusion, threw himself on his knees and held out his clasped hands in supplication. At that I once more stopped.

«Who are you?» I asked.

«Ben Gu

«Three years!» I cried. «Were you shipwrecked?»

«Nay, mate,» said he; «marooned.»

I had heard the word, and I knew it stood for a horrible kind of punishment common enough among the buccaneers, in which the offender is put ashore with a little powder and shot and left behind on some desolate and distant island.

«Marooned three years agone,» he continued, «and lived on goats since then, and berries, and oysters. Wherever a man is, says I, a man can do for himself. But, mate, my heart is sore for Christian diet. You mightn't happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No? Well, many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese — toasted, mostly — and woke up again, and here I were.»

«If ever I can get aboard again,» said I, «you shall have cheese by the stone.»

All this time he had been feeling the stuff of my jacket, smoothing my hands, looking at my boots, and generally, in the intervals of his speech, showing a childish pleasure in the presence of a fellow creature. But at my last words he perked up into a kind of startled slyness.

«If ever you can get aboard again, says you?» he repeated. «Why, now, who's to hinder you?»

«Not you, I know,» was my reply.

«And right you was,» he cried. «Now you — what do you call yourself, mate?»

«Jim,» I told him.

«Jim, Jim,» says he, quite pleased apparently. «Well, now, Jim, I've lived that rough as you'd be ashamed to hear of. Now, for instance, you wouldn't think I had had a pious mother — to look at me?» he asked.

«Why, no, not in particular,» I answered.

«Ah, well,» said he, «but I had — remarkable pious. And I was a civil, pious boy, and could rattle off my catechism that fast, as you couldn't tell one word from another. And here's what it come to, Jim, and it begun with chuck-farthen on the blessed grave-stones! That's what it begun with, but it went further'n that; and so my mother told me, and predicked the whole, she did, the pious woman! But it were Providence that put me here. I've thought it all out in this here lonely island, and I'm back on piety. You don't catch me tasting rum so much, but just a thimbleful for luck, of course, the first chance I have. I'm bound I'll be good, and I see the way to. And, Jim»

— looking all round him and lowering his voice to a whisper — «I'm rich.»

I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone crazy in his solitude, and I suppose I must have shown the feeling in my face, for he repeated the statement hotly: «Rich! Rich! I says. And I'll tell you what: I'll make a man of you, Jim. Ah, Jim, you'll bless your stars, you will, you was the first that found me!»

And at this there came suddenly a lowering shadow over his face, and he tightened his grasp upon my hand and raised a forefinger threateningly before my eyes.

«Now, Jim, you tell me true: that ain't Flint's ship?» he asked.

At this I had a happy inspiration. I began to believe that I had found an ally, and I answered him at once.

«It's not Flint's ship, and Flint is dead; but I'll tell you true, as you ask me — there are some of Flint's hands aboard; worse luck for the rest of us.»

«Not a man — with one — leg?» he gasped.

«Silver?» I asked.

«Ah, Silver!» says he. «That were his name.»

«He's the cook, and the ringleader too.»

He was still holding me by the wrist, and at that he give it quite a wring.

«If you was sent by Long John,» he said, «I'm as good as pork, and I know it. But where was you, do you suppose?»

I had made my mind up in a moment, and by way of answer told him the whole story of our voyage and the predicament in which we found ourselves. He heard me with the keenest interest, and when I had done he patted me on the head.