Part 4 (1/2)

”Trelawney,” said the doctor, ”contrary to all et two honest men on board with you--that man and John Silver”

”Silver, if you like,” cried the squire; ”but as for that intolerable hu, I declare I think his conduct unlish”

”Well,” says the doctor, ”we shall see”

When we caun already to take out the ar at their work, while the captain and Mr Arrow stood by superintending

The new arrange The whole schooner had been overhauled; six berths had been made astern out of what had been the after-part of the alley and forecastle by a sparred passage on the port side It had been originally meant that the captain, Mr Arrow, Hunter, Joyce, the doctor, and the squire were to occupy these six berths Now Redruth and I were to get two of them and Mr Arrow and the captain were to sleep on deck in the coht almost have called it a round-house Very loas still, of course; but there was roo two haement Even he, perhaps, had been doubtful as to the crew, but that is only guess, for as you shall hear, we had not long the benefit of his opinion

We were all hard at work, changing the powder and the berths, when the lastwith them, came off in a shore-boat

The cook came up the side like a , ”So ho,of the powder, Jack,” answers one

”Why, by the powers,” cried Long John, ”if we do, we'lltide!”

”My orders!” said the captain shortly ”You o below, my man Hands ant supper”

”Aye, aye, sir,” answered the cook, and touching his forelock, he disappeared at once in the direction of his galley

”That's a good man, captain,” said the doctor

”Very likely, sir,” replied Captain Smollett ”Easy with that,the powder; and then suddenly observingbrass nine, ”Here you, shi+p's boy,” he cried, ”out o' that! Off with you to the cook and get so off I heard him say, quite loudly, to the doctor, ”I'll have no favourites on my shi+p”

I assure you I was quite of the squire's way of thinking, and hated the captain deeply

10

The Voyage

ALL that night ere in a great bustle getting things stowed in their place, and boatfuls of the squire's friends, Mr Blandly and the like, coe and a safe return We never had a night at the Ad-tired when, a little before dawn, the boatswain sounded his pipe and the crew began to ht have been twice as weary, yet I would not have left the deck, all was so new and interesting to me--the brief co to their places in the glimmer of the shi+p's lanterns

”Now, Barbecue, tip us a stave,” cried one voice

”The old one,” cried another

”Aye, aye,by, with his crutch under his arm, and at once broke out in the air and words I kneell: ”Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--”

And then the whole crew bore chorus:-- ”Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

And at the third ”Ho!” drove the bars before the moment it carried me back to the old Admiral Benbow in a second, and I see in the chorus But soon the anchor was short up; soon it was hanging dripping at the bows; soon the sails began to draw, and the land and shi+pping to flit by on either side; and before I could lie down to snatch an hour of slue to the Isle of Treasure

I ae in detail It was fairly prosperous The shi+p proved to be a good shi+p, the creere capable seahly understood his business But before we cas had happened which require to be known

Mr Arrow, first of all, turned out even worse than the captain had feared He had no co the men, and people did what they pleased with him But that was by no an to appear on deck with hazy eye, red cheeks, stuttering tongue, and other marks of drunkenness Tirace So in his little bunk at one side of the companion; sometimes for a day or two he would be almost sober and attend to his work at least passably

In the ot the drink That was the shi+p'sto solve it; and e asked hih if he were drunk, and if he were sober deny sole but water

He was not only useless as an officer and a bad influence ast the men, but it was plain that at this rate he ht, so nobody was ht, with a head sea, he disappeared entirely and was seen no entle him in irons”

But there ere, without a mate; and it was necessary, of course, to advance one of the men The boatswain, Job Anderson, was the likeliest h he kept his old title, he served in a way as e made him very useful, for he often took a watch himself in easy weather And the coxswain, Israel Hands, was a careful, wily, old, experienced sea

He was a great confidant of Long John Silver, and so the mention of his name leads me on to speak of our shi+p's cook, Barbecue, as the men called him

Aboard shi+p he carried his crutch by a lanyard round his neck, to have both hands as free as possible It was soainst a bulkhead, and propped against it, yielding to everylike soe was it to see him in the heaviest of weather cross the deck He had a line or two rigged up to help his, they were called; and he would hand hi the crutch, now trailing it alongside by the lanyard, as quickly as another man could walk Yet some of the men who had sailed with him before expressed their pity to see him so reduced

”He's no coood schooling in his young days and can speak like a book when soJohn! I seen hiether--him unarmed”

All the crew respected and even obeyed hi everybody some particular service To alley, which he kept as clean as a new pin, the dishes hanging up burnished and his parrot in a cage in one corner

”Come away, Hawkins,” he would say; ”come and have a yarn with John nobody more welcome than yourself, my son Sit you down and hear the news Here's Cap'n Flint--I calls my parrot Cap'n Flint, after the fa success to our v'yage Wasn't you, cap'n?”

And the parrot would say, with great rapidity, ”Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!” till you wondered that it was not out of breath, or till John threw his handkerchief over the cage

”Now, that bird,” he would say, ”is, maybe, two hundred years old, Hawkins--they live forever mostly; and if anybody's seen more wickedness, it reat Cap'n England, the pirate She's been at Madagascar, and at Malabar, and Surina up of the wrecked plate shi+ps It's there she learned 'Pieces of eight,' and little wonder; three hundred and fifty thousand of 'e of the viceroy of the Indies out of Goa, she was; and to look at her you would think she was a babby But you so about,” the parrot would scream

”Ah, she's a handsoar from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at the bars and swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness ”There,” John would add, ”you can't touch pitch and not be mucked, lad Here's this poor old innocent bird o'blue fire, and none the wiser, you may lay to that She would swear the sa, before chaplain” And John would touch his forelock with a solemn way he had that made me think he was the best of men

In the meantime, the squire and Captain Smollett were still on pretty distant terms with one another The squire made no bones about the matter; he despised the captain The captain, on his part, never spoke but when he was spoken to, and then sharp and short and dry, and not a asted He owned, when driven into a corner, that he see about the crew, that some of them were as brisk as he wanted to see and all had behaved fairly well As for the shi+p, he had taken a downright fancy to her ”She'll lie a point nearer the wind than a ht to expect of his own married wife, sir But,” he would add, ”all I say is, we're not hoain, and I don't like the cruise”

The squire, at this, would turn away and march up and down the deck, chin in air

”A trifle more of that man,” he would say, ”and I shall explode”

We had some heavy weather, which only proved the qualities of the HISPANIOLA Every man on board seemed well content, and they must have been hard to please if they had been otherwise, for it is my belief there was never a shi+p's co on the least excuse; there was duff on odd days, as, for instance, if the squire heard it was anybroached in the waist for anyone to help hiood come of it yet,” the captain said to Dr Livesey ”Spoil forecastle hands, ood did come of the apple barrel, as you shall hear, for if it had not been for that, we should have had no note of warning and ht all have perished by the hand of treachery