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THE red glare of the torch, lighting up the interior of
the block house, showed me the worst of my
apprehensions realized. The pirates were in possession
of the house and stores: there was the cask of cognac,
there were the pork and bread, as before, and what
tenfold increased my horror, not a sign of any
prisoner. I could only judge that all had perished,
and my heart smote me sorely that I had not been there
to perish with them.
There were six of the buccaneers, all told; not another
man was left alive. Five of them were on their feet,
flushed and swollen, suddenly called out of the first
sleep of drunkenness. The sixth had only risen upon
his elbow; he was deadly pale, and the blood-stained
bandage round his head told that he had recently been
wounded, and still more recently dressed. I remembered
the man who had been shot and had run back among the woods
in the great attack, and doubted not that this was he.
The parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long John's
shoulder. He himself, I thought, looked somewhat paler
and more stern than I was used to. He still wore the
fine broadcloth suit in which he had fulfilled his
mission, but it was bitterly the worse for wear, daubed
with clay and torn with the sharp briers of the wood.
"So," said he, "here's Jim Hawkins, shiver my timbers!
Dropped in, like, eh? Well, come, I take that friendly."
And thereupon he sat down across the brandy cask and
began to fill a pipe.
"Give me a loan of the link, Dick," said he; and then,
when he had a good light, "That'll do, lad," he added;
"stick the glim in the wood heap; and you, gentlemen,
bring yourselves to! You needn't stand up for Mr.
Hawkins; HE'LL excuse you, you may lay to that.
And so, Jim"--stopping the tobacco--"here you were, and
quite a pleasant surprise for poor old John. I see you
were smart when first I set my eyes on you, but this
here gets away from me clean, it do."
To all this, as may be well supposed, I made no answer.
They had set me with my back against the wall, and I
stood there, looking Silver in the face, pluckily
enough, I hope, to all outward appearance, but with
black despair in my heart.
Silver took a whiff or two of his pipe with great
composure and then ran on again.
"Now, you see, Jim, so be as you ARE here," says
he, "I'll give you a piece of my mind. I've always
liked you, I have, for a lad of spirit, and the picter
of my own self when I was young and handsome. I always
wanted you to jine and take your share, and die a
gentleman, and now, my cock, you've got to. Cap'n
Smollett's a fine seaman, as I'll own up to any day,
but stiff on discipline. 'Dooty is dooty,' says he,
and right he is. Just you keep clear of the cap'n.
The doctor himself is gone dead again you--'ungrateful
scamp' was what he said; and the short and the long of
the whole story is about here: you can't go back to
your own lot, for they won't have you; and without you
start a third ship's company all by yourself, which
might be lonely, you'll have to jine with Cap'n Silver."
So far so good. My friends, then, were still alive,
and though I partly believed the truth of Silver's
statement, that the cabin party were incensed at me for
my desertion, I was more relieved than distressed by
what I heard.
"I don't say nothing as to your being in our hands,"
continued Silver, "though there you are, and you may
lay to it. I'm all for argyment; I never seen good
come out o' threatening. If you like the service,
well, you'll jine; and if you don't, Jim, why, you're
free to answer no--free and welcome, shipmate; and if
fairer can be said by mortal seaman, shiver my sides!"
"Am I to answer, then?" I asked with a very tremulous
voice. Through all this sneering talk, I was made to
feel the threat of death that overhung me, and my
cheeks burned and my heart beat painfully in my breast.
"Lad," said Silver, "no one's a-pressing of you. Take
your bearings. None of us won't hurry you, mate; time
goes so pleasant in your company, you see."
"Well," says I, growing a bit bolder, "if I'm to
choose, I declare I have a right to know what's what,
and why you're here, and where my friends are."
"Wot's wot?" repeated one of the buccaneers in a deep
growl. "Ah, he'd be a lucky one as knowed that!"
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