THE red glare of the torch, lighting up the interior of the block-house, showed me the worst of my apprehensions realised. 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, ****,' 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 mighty 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!'
`You'll, perhaps, batten down your hatches till you're spoke to, my friend,' cried Silver truculently to this speaker. And then, in his first gracious tones, he replied to me: `Yesterday morning, Mr Hawkins,' said he, `in the dog-watch, down came Doctor Livesey with a flag of truce. Says he, "Cap'n Silver, you're sold out. Ship's gone." Well, maybe we'd been taking a glass, and a song to help it round. I won't say no. Leastways, none of us had looked out. We looked out, and, by thunder! the old ship was gone. I never seen a pack o' fools look fishier; and you may lay to that, if I tells you that looked the fishiest. "Well," says the doctor, "let's bargain." We bargained, him and I, and here we are: stores, brandy, block-house, the firewood you was thoughtful enough to cut, and, in a manner of speaking, the whole blessed boat, from cross-trees to kelson. As for them, they've tramped; I don't know where's they are.'
He drew again quietly at his pipe.
`And lest you should take it into that head of yours,' he went on, `that you was included in the treaty, here's the last word that was said: "How many are you," says I, "to leave?" "Four," says he - "four, and one of us wounded. As for that boy, I don't know where he is, confound him," says he, "nor I don't much care. We're about sick of him." These was his words.'
`Is that all?' I asked.
`Well, it's all that you're to hear, my son,' returned Silver.
`And now I am to choose?'
`And now you are to choose, and you may lay to that,' said Silver.
`Well,' said I, `I am not such a fool but I know pretty well what I have to look for. Let the worst come to the worst, it's little I care.
I've seen too many die since I fell in with you. But there's a thing or two I have to tell you,' I said, and by this time I was quite excited;
