Part 11 (2/2)

While I was thus turning the business over in my mind, I had not been idle with my body I had stolen back to the cabin, slipped once more into my shoes, and laid my hand at random on a bottle of wine, and noith this for an excuse, I made my reappearance on the deck

Hands lay as I had left hiether in a bundle and with his eyelids lowered as though he were too weak to bear the light He looked up, however, at , knocked the neck off the bottle like a , with his favourite toast of ”Here's luck!” Then he lay quiet for a little, and then, pulling out a stick of tobacco, begged me to cut him a quid

”Cut me a junk o' that,” says he, ”for I haven't no knife and hardly strength enough, so be as I had Ah, Jim, Jim, I reckon I've missed stays! Cuthome, and no mistake”

”Well,” said I, ”I'll cut you soht o to my prayers like a Christian man”

”Why?” said he ”Now, you tellme just now about the dead You've broken your trust; you've lived in sin and lies and blood; there's aat your feet this moment, and you ask me why! For God's mercy, Mr Hands, that's why”

I spoke with a little heat, thinking of the bloody dirk he had hidden in his pocket and designed, in his ill thoughts, to end ht of the wine and spoke with the most unusual solemnity

”For thirty years,” he said, ”I've sailed the seas and seen good and bad, better and worse, fair weather and foul, provisions running out, knives going, and what not Well, now I tell you, I never seen good cooodness yet Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don't bite; them's my views--amen, so be it And now, you look here,” he added, suddenly changing his tone, ”we've had about enough of this foolery The tide's h by now You just take my orders, Cap'n Hawkins, and we'll sail slap in and be done with it”

All told, we had scarce two ation was delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner ood, prompt subaltern, and I am very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot, for ent about and about and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty and a neatness that were a pleasure to behold

Scarcely had we passed the heads before the land closed around us The shores of North Inlet were as thickly wooded as those of the southern anchorage, but the space was longer and narrower and ht before us, at the southern end,the wreck of a shi+p in the last stages of dilapidation It had been a great vessel of threeexposed to the injuries of the weather that it was hung about with great webs of dripping seaweed, and on the deck of it shore bushes had taken root and now flourished thick with flowers It was a sad sight, but it showed us that the anchorage was calm

”Now,” said Hands, ”look there; there's a pet bit for to beach a shi+p in Fine flat sand, never a cat's paw, trees all around of it, and flowers a-blowing like a garding on that old shi+p”

”And once beached,” I inquired, ”how shall we get her off again?”

”Why, so,” he replied: ”you take a line ashore there on the other side at loater, take a turn about one of the it back, take a turn around the capstan, and lie to for the tide Coh water, all hands take a pull upon the line, and off she comes as sweet as natur' And now, boy, you stand by We're near the bit now, and she's too much way on her Starboard a little--so--steady--starboard--larboard a little--steady--steady!”

So he issued his commands, which I breathlessly obeyed, till, all of a sudden, he cried, ”Now, my hearty, luff!” And I put the hel round rapidly and ran stem on for the loooded shore

The excitement of these last manoeuvres had somewhat interfered with the watch I had kept hitherto, sharply enough, upon the coxswain Even then I was still sofor the shi+p to touch, that I had quite forgot the peril that hung overover the starboard bulwarks and watching the ripples spreading wide before the bows I le for my life had not a sudden disquietude seized upon me and made me turnwith the tail of my eye; perhaps it was an instinct like a cat's; but, sure enough, when I looked round, there was Hands, already half-way towards ht hand

We must both have cried out aloud when our eyes met, but while mine was the shrill cry of terror, his was a roar of fury like a charging bully's At the same instant, he threw himself forward and I leapt sideways towards the bows As I did so, I let go of the tiller, which sprang sharp to leeward, and I think this saved my life, for it struck Hands across the chest and stopped him, for the moment, dead

Before he could recover, I was safe out of the corner where he had e about Just forward of the main-mast I stopped, drew a pistol froh he had already turned and was once er The hammer fell, but there followed neither flash nor sound; the prilect Why had not I, long before, reprimed and reloaded my only weapons? Then I should not have been as now, asheep before this butcher

Wounded as he was, it onderful how fast he couldover his face, and his face itself as red as a red ensign with his haste and fury I had no time to try my other pistol, nor indeed much inclination, for I was sure it would be useless One thing I saw plainly: I must not simply retreat before him, or he would speedily hold me boxed into the bows, as a moment since he had so nearly boxed ht, and nine or ten inches of the blood-stained dirk would be my last experience on this side of eternity I placed ness, and waited, every nerve upon the stretch

Seeing that I e, he also paused; and aame as I had often played at home about the rocks of Black Hill Cove, but never before, youheart as now Still, as I say, it was a boy's gaainst an elderly seaun to rise so high that I allowed hts on ould be the end of the affair, and while I saw certainly that I could spin it out for long, I saw no hope of any ultis stood thus, suddenly the HISPANIOLA struck, staggered, ground for an instant in the sand, and then, swift as a blow, canted over to the port side till the deck stood at an angle of forty-five degrees and about a puncheon of water splashed into the scupper holes and lay, in a pool, between the deck and bulwark

We were both of us capsized in a second, and both of us rolled, alether, into the scuppers, the dead red-cap, with his ar stiffly after us So near e, indeed, that ainst the coxswain's foot with a crack that ain, for Hands had got involved with the dead body The sudden canting of the shi+p hadon; I had to find some neay of escape, and that upon the instant, forinto the mizzen shrouds, rattled up hand over hand, and did not draw a breath till I was seated on the cross-trees

I had been saved by being prompt; the dirk had struck not half a foot below ht; and there stood Israel Hands with his mouth open and his face upturned to mine, a perfect statue of surprise and disappointment

Now that I had aofone ready for service, and to make assurance doubly sure, I proceeded to draw the load of the other and recharge it afresh fro

My new ean to see the dice going against him, and after an obvious hesitation, he also hauled himself heavily into the shrouds, and with the dirk in his teeth, began slowly and painfully to roans to haul his wounded leg behind hiements before he was much more than a third of the way up Then, with a pistol in either hand, I addressed him

”One more step, Mr Hands,” said I, ”and I'll blow your brains out! Dead men don't bite, you know,” I added with a chuckle

He stopped instantly I could see by the working of his face that he was trying to think, and the process was so slow and laborious that, in hed aloud At last, with a s or two, he spoke, his face still wearing the same expression of extreer from his mouth, but in all else he remained unmoved

”Jim,” says he, ”I reckon we're fouled, you and n articles I'd have had you but for that there lurch, but I don't have no luck, not I; and I reckon I'll have to strike, which comes hard, you see, for a master mariner to a shi+p's younker like you, Ji away, as conceited as a cock upon a wall, when, all in a breath, back went his right hand over his shoulder Soh the air; I felt a blow and then a sharp pang, and there I was pinned by the shoulder to the mast In the horrid pain and surprise of the moment--I scarce can say it was by my own volition, and I am sure it ithout a conscious aim-- both my pistols went off, and both escaped out of my hands They did not fall alone; with a choked cry, the coxswain loosed his grasp upon the shrouds and plunged head first into the water

27

”Pieces of Eight”

OWING to the cant of the vessel, thefar out over the water, and fro below me but the surface of the bay Hands, as not so far up, was in consequence nearer to the shi+p and fell between me and the bulwarks He rose once to the surface in a lather of foaood As the water settled, I could see hiht sand in the shadow of the vessel's sides A fish or thipped past his body So of the water, he appeared toto 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 an 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 s that distressed me, for these, it seemed to me, I could bear without afroreen 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 ain, my pulses quieted down to a more natural time, and I was once ht to pluck forth the dirk, but either it stuck too hard or my nerve failed h, that very shudder did the business The knife, in fact, had coether; 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 ain and only tacked to the h 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 ood 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 an to think of clearing it froer--the dead ainst the bulwarks, where he lay like soainly sort of puppet, life-size, indeed, but how different from life's colour or life's comeliness! In that position I could easily have ical adventures had worn off almost all my terror for the dead, I took hiood heave, tue; the red cap ca on the surface; and as soon as the splash subsided, I could see hi with the treh still quite a young man, was very bald There he lay, with that bald head across the knees of theto and fro over both

I was now alone upon the shi+p; the tide had just turned The sun ithin 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 arded 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 shi+p The jibs I speedily doused and brought tu to the deck, but the main-sail was a harder matter Of course, when the schooner canted over, the boo out-board, and the cap of it and a foot or two of sail hung even under water I thought this erous; yet the strain was so heavy that I half feared to ot reat 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 e had fallen into shadow--the last rays, I re bright as jewels on the flowery an to be chill; the tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner settling more and more on her beam-ends

I scrah, 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 firreat spirits, leaving the HISPANIOLA on her side, with herwide upon the surface of the bay About the same time, the sun went fairly down and the breeze whistled low in the dusk a 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 froet to sea again I had nothing nearer et home to the stockade and boast of ht 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 an 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 ht pass the strea along the lower spurs, I had soon turned the corner of that hill, and not long after waded to the ht me near to where I had encountered Ben Gunn, thean eye on every side The dusk had coh hand completely, and as I opened out the cleft between the two peaks, I becaed, thefire And yet I wondered, in my heart, that he should show hiht it not reach the eyes of Silver hi the ht fell blacker; it was all I could do to guide hly towards lass on ht hand loomed faint and fainter; the stars were few and pale; and in the low ground where I wandered I kept tripping a into sandy pits

Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about hted on the su broad and silverylon behind the trees, and knew the moon had risen