Part Six: Captain Silver - Chapter 32: The Treasure-hunt--The Voice Among the Trees

by Robert Louis Stevenson

　　Partly from the damping influence of this alarm, partlyto rest Silver and the sick folk, the whole party satdown as soon as they had gained the brow of the ascent.

　　The plateau being somewhat tilted towards the west,this spot on which we had paused commanded a wideprospect on either hand. Before us, over the tree-tops, we beheld the Cape of the Woods fringed withsurf; behind, we not only looked down upon theanchorage and Skeleton Island, but saw--clear acrossthe spit and the eastern lowlands--a great field ofopen sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the Spy-glass, here dotted with single pines, there black withprecipices. There was no sound but that of the distantbreakers, mounting from all round, and the chirp ofcountless insects in the brush. Not a man, not a sail,upon the sea; the very largeness of the view increasedthe sense of solitude.

　　Silver, as he sat, took certain bearings with his compass.

　　"There are three 'tall trees'" said he, "about in the rightline from Skeleton Island. 'Spy-glass shoulder,' I take it,means that lower p'int there. It's child's play to find thestuff now. I've half a mind to dine first."

　　"I don't feel sharp," growled Morgan. "Thinkin' o'Flint--I think it were--as done me."

　　"Ah, well, my son, you praise your stars he's dead,"said Silver.

　　"He were an ugly devil," cried a third pirate with ashudder; "that blue in the face too!"

　　"That was how the rum took him," added Merry. "Blue!Well, I reckon he was blue. That's a true word."

　　Ever since they had found the skeleton and got uponthis train of thought, they had spoken lower and lower,and they had almost got to whispering by now, so thatthe sound of their talk hardly interrupted the silenceof the wood. All of a sudden, out of the middle of thetrees in front of us, a thin, high, trembling voicestruck up the well-known air and words:

　　"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"I never have seen men more dreadfully affected than thepirates. The colour went from their six faces likeenchantment; some leaped to their feet, some clawedhold of others; Morgan grovelled on the ground.

　　"It's Flint, by ----!" cried Merry.

　　The song had stopped as suddenly as it began--broken off,you would have said, in the middle of a note, as thoughsomeone had laid his hand upon the singer's mouth. Comingthrough the clear, sunny atmosphere among the green tree-tops,I thought it had sounded airily and sweetly; and the effecton my companions was the stranger.

　　"Come," said Silver, struggling with his ashen lips toget the word out; "this won't do. Stand by to goabout. This is a rum start, and I can't name thevoice, but it's someone skylarking--someone that'sflesh and blood, and you may lay to that."

　　His courage had come back as he spoke, and some of thecolour to his face along with it. Already the othershad begun to lend an ear to this encouragement and werecoming a little to themselves, when the same voicebroke out again--not this time singing, but in a faintdistant hail that echoed yet fainter among the cleftsof the Spy-glass.

　　"Darby M'Graw," it wailed--for that is the word thatbest describes the sound--"Darby M'Graw! DarbyM'Graw!" again and again and again; and then rising alittle higher, and with an oath that I leave out:"Fetch aft the rum, Darby!"

　　The buccaneers remained rooted to the ground, their eyesstarting from their heads. Long after the voice had diedaway they still stared in silence, dreadfully, before them.

　　"That fixes it!" gasped one. "Let's go."

　　"They was his last words," moaned Morgan, "his lastwords above board."

　　Dick had his Bible out and was praying volubly. He hadbeen well brought up, had Dick, before he came to seaand fell among bad companions.

　　Still Silver was unconquered. I could hear his teethrattle in his head, but he had not yet surrendered.

　　"Nobody in this here island ever heard of Darby," hemuttered; "not one but us that's here." And then,making a great effort: "Shipmates," he cried, "I'm hereto get that stuff, and I'll not be beat by man ordevil. I never was feared of Flint in his life, and,by the powers, I'll face him dead. There's sevenhundred thousand pound not a quarter of a mile fromhere. When did ever a gentleman o' fortune show hisstern to that much dollars for a boozy old seaman witha blue mug--and him dead too?"

　　But there was no sign of reawakening courage in hisfollowers, rather, indeed, of growing terror at theirreverence of his words.

　　"Belay there, John!" said Merry. "Don't youcross a sperrit."

　　And the rest were all too terrified to reply. Theywould have run away severally had they dared; but fearkept them together, and kept them close by John, as ifhis daring helped them. He, on his part, had prettywell fought his weakness down.

　　"Sperrit? Well, maybe," he said. "But there's onething not clear to me. There was an echo. Now, no manever seen a sperrit with a shadow; well then, what's hedoing with an echo to him, I should like to know? Thatain't in natur', surely?"

　　This argument seemed weak enough to me. But you cannever tell what will affect the superstitious, and tomy wonder, George Merry was greatly relieved.

　　"Well, that's so," he said. "You've a head upon yourshoulders, John, and no mistake. 'Bout ship, mates!This here crew is on a wrong tack, I do believe. Andcome to think on it, it was like Flint's voice, I grantyou, but not just so clear-away like it, after all. Itwas liker somebody else's voice now--it was liker--"

　　"By the powers, Ben Gunn!" roared Silver.

　　"Aye, and so it were," cried Morgan, springing on hisknees. "Ben Gunn it were!"

　　"It don't make much odds, do it, now?" asked Dick."Ben Gunn's not here in the body any more'n Flint."

　　But the older hands greeted this remark with scorn.

　　"Why, nobody minds Ben Gunn," cried Merry; "dead oralive, nobody minds him."

　　It was extraordinary how their spirits had returned andhow the natural colour had revived in their faces.Soon they were chatting together, with intervals oflistening; and not long after, hearing no furthersound, they shouldered the tools and set forth again,Merry walking first with Silver's compass to keep themon the right line with Skeleton Island. He had saidthe truth: dead or alive, nobody minded Ben Gunn.

　　Dick alone still held his Bible, and looked around himas he went, with fearful glances; but he found nosympathy, and Silver even joked him on his precautions.

　　"I told you," said he--"I told you you had sp'iled yourBible. If it ain't no good to swear by, what do yousuppose a sperrit would give for it? Not that!" and hesnapped his big fingers, halting a moment on his crutch.

　　But Dick was not to be comforted; indeed, it was soonplain to me that the lad was falling sick; hastened byheat, exhaustion, and the shock of his alarm, thefever, predicted by Dr. Livesey, was evidently growingswiftly higher.

　　It was fine open walking here, upon the summit; our waylay a little downhill, for, as I have said, the plateautilted towards the west. The pines, great and small,grew wide apart; and even between the clumps of nutmegand azalea, wide open spaces baked in the hot sunshine.Striking, as we did, pretty near north-west across theisland, we drew, on the one hand, ever nearer under theshoulders of the Spy-glass, and on the other, lookedever wider over that western bay where I had oncetossed and trembled in the oracle.

　　The first of the tall trees was reached, and by thebearings proved the wrong one. So with the second. Thethird rose nearly two hundred feet into the air above aclump of underwood--a giant of a vegetable, with a redcolumn as big as a cottage, and a wide shadow around inwhich a company could have manoeuvred. It was conspicuousfar to sea both on the east and west and might have beenentered as a sailing mark upon the chart.

　　But it was not its size that now impressed mycompanions; it was the knowledge that seven hundredthousand pounds in gold lay somewhere buried below itsspreading shadow. The thought of the money, as theydrew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors.Their eyes burned in their heads; their feet grewspeedier and lighter; their whole soul was found up inthat fortune, that whole lifetime of extravagance andpleasure, that lay waiting there for each of them.

　　Silver hobbled, grunting, on his crutch; his nostrilsstood out and quivered; he cursed like a madman whenthe flies settled on his hot and shiny countenance; heplucked furiously at the line that held me to him andfrom time to time turned his eyes upon me with a deadlylook. Certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts,and certainly I read them like print. In the immediatenearness of the gold, all else had been forgotten: hispromise and the doctor's warning were both things ofthe past, and I could not doubt that he hoped to seizeupon the treasure, find and board the Hispaniolaunder cover of night, cut every honest throat aboutthat island, and sail away as he had at first intended,laden with crimes and riches.

　　Shaken as I was with these alarms, it was hard for meto keep up with the rapid pace of the treasure-hunters.Now and again I stumbled, and it was then that Silverplucked so roughly at the rope and launched at me hismurderous glances. Dick, who had dropped behind us andnow brought up the rear, was babbling to himself bothprayers and curses as his fever kept rising. This alsoadded to my wretchedness, and to crown all, I was hauntedby the thought of the tragedy that had once been acted onthat plateau, when that ungodly buccaneer with the blue face--he who died at Savannah, singing and shouting for drink--had there, with his own hand, cut down his six accomplices.This grove that was now so peaceful must then have rung withcries, I thought; and even with the thought I could believeI heard it ringing still.

　　We were now at the margin of the thicket.

　　"Huzza, mates, all together!" shouted Merry; and theforemost broke into a run.

　　And suddenly, not ten yards further, we beheld them stop.A low cry arose. Silver doubled his pace, digging awaywith the foot of his crutch like one possessed; and nextmoment he and I had come also to a dead halt.

　　Before us was a great excavation, not very recent, forthe sides had fallen in and grass had sprouted on thebottom. In this were the shaft of a pick broken in twoand the boards of several packing-cases strewn around.On one of these boards I saw, branded with a hot iron,the name Walrus--the name of Flint's ship.

　　All was clear to probation. The cache had been foundand rifled; the seven hundred thousand pounds were gone!