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Chapter 27
"Pieces of Eight"
OWING to the cant of the vessel, the masts
hung far out over the water, and from my
perch on the cross-trees 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 cross-trees 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 horrible,
ungainly sort of puppet, life-size, indeed,
but how different from life's colour 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 had 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 main-sail was
a harder matter.
Of course, when the schooner canted over,
the boom had swung out-board, 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 downhall, 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 main-sail 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 clenching 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 block house
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 eyes 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
towards 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 colour 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 smouldering.
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
moonshine; the rest, and the block house
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,
contrasted 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, towards the corner of the house.
As I drew nearer, my heart was suddenly and
greatly lightened.
It is 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, ***," said Silver when my
capture was thus assured.
And one of the men left the log-house and
presently returned with a lighted brand.