Part Three: My Shore Adventure - Chapter 14: The First Blow

by Robert Louis Stevenson

　　I was so pleased at having given the slip to Long Johnthat I began to enjoy myself and look around me withsome interest on the strange land that I was in.

　　I had crossed a marshy tract full of willows,bulrushes, and odd, outlandish, swampy trees; and I hadnow come out upon the skirts of an open piece ofundulating, sandy country, about a mile long, dottedwith a few pines and a great number of contorted trees,not unlike the oak in growth, but pale in the foliage,like willows. On the far side of the open stood one ofthe hills, with two quaint, craggy peaks shiningvividly in the sun.

　　I now felt for the first time the joy of exploration.The isle was uninhabited; my shipmates I had leftbehind, and nothing lived in front of me but dumbbrutes and fowls. I turned hither and thither amongthe trees. Here and there were flowering plants,unknown to me; here and there I saw snakes, and oneraised his head from a ledge of rock and hissed at mewith a noise not unlike the spinning of a top. Littledid I suppose that he was a deadly enemy and that thenoise was the famous rattle.

　　Then I came to a long thicket of these oaklike trees--live, or evergreen, oaks, I heard afterwards theyshould be called--which grew low along the sand likebrambles, the boughs curiously twisted, the foliagecompact, like thatch. The thicket stretched down fromthe top of one of the sandy knolls, spreading andgrowing taller as it went, until it reached the marginof the broad, reedy fen, through which the nearest ofthe little rivers soaked its way into the anchorage.The marsh was steaming in the strong sun, and theoutline of the Spy-glass trembled through the haze.

　　All at once there began to go a sort of bustle amongthe bulrushes; a wild duck flew up with a quack,another followed, and soon over the whole surface ofthe marsh a great cloud of birds hung screaming andcircling in the air. I judged at once that some of myshipmates must be drawing near along the borders of thefen. Nor was I deceived, for soon I heard the verydistant and low tones of a human voice, which, as Icontinued to give ear, grew steadily louder and nearer.

　　This put me in a great fear, and I crawled under coverof the nearest live-oak and squatted there, hearkening,as silent as a mouse.

　　Another voice answered, and then the first voice, whichI now recognized to be Silver's, once more took up thestory and ran on for a long while in a stream, only nowand again interrupted by the other. By the sound theymust have been talking earnestly, and almost fiercely;but no distinct word came to my hearing.

　　At last the speakers seemed to have paused and perhapsto have sat down, for not only did they cease to drawany nearer, but the birds themselves began to grow morequiet and to settle again to their places in the swamp.

　　And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my business,that since I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore withthese desperadoes, the least I could do was to overhearthem at their councils, and that my plain and obvious dutywas to draw as close as I could manage, under the favourableambush of the crouching trees.

　　I could tell the direction of the speakers prettyexactly, not only by the sound of their voices but bythe behaviour of the few birds that still hung in alarmabove the heads of the intruders.

　　Crawling on all fours, I made steadily but slowlytowards them, till at last, raising my head to anaperture among the leaves, I could see clear down intoa little green dell beside the marsh, and closely setabout with trees, where Long John Silver and another ofthe crew stood face to face in conversation.

　　The sun beat full upon them. Silver had thrown his hatbeside him on the ground, and his great, smooth, blondface, all shining with heat, was lifted to the otherman's in a kind of appeal.

　　"Mate," he was saying, "it's because I thinks gold dustof you--gold dust, and you may lay to that! If Ihadn't took to you like pitch, do you think I'd havebeen here a-warning of you? All's up--you can't makenor mend; it's to save your neck that I'm a-speaking,and if one of the wild uns knew it, where'd I be, Tom--now, tell me, where'd I be?"

　　"Silver," said the other man--and I observed he was notonly red in the face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, andhis voice shook too, like a taut rope--"Silver," says he,"you're old, and you're honest, or has the name for it;and you've money too, which lots of poor sailors hasn't;and you're brave, or I'm mistook. And will you tell meyou'll let yourself be led away with that kind of a messof swabs? Not you! As sure as God sees me, I'd soonerlose my hand. If I turn agin my dooty--"

　　And then all of a sudden he was interrupted by a noise.I had found one of the honest hands--well, here, atthat same moment, came news of another. Far away outin the marsh there arose, all of a sudden, a sound likethe cry of anger, then another on the back of it; andthen one horrid, long-drawn scream. The rocks of theSpy-glass re-echoed it a score of times; the wholetroop of marsh-birds rose again, darkening heaven, witha simultaneous whirr; and long after that death yellwas still ringing in my brain, silence had re-established its empire, and only the rustle of theredescending birds and the boom of the distant surgesdisturbed the languor of the afternoon.

　　Tom had leaped at the sound, like a horse at the spur,but Silver had not winked an eye. He stood where hewas, resting lightly on his crutch, watching hiscompanion like a snake about to spring.

　　"John!" said the sailor, stretching out his hand.

　　"Hands off!" cried Silver, leaping back a yard, as it seemedto me, with the speed and security of a trained gymnast.

　　"Hands off, if you like, John Silver," said the other."It's a black conscience that can make you feared ofme. But in heaven's name, tell me, what was that?"

　　"That?" returned Silver, smiling away, but warier thanever, his eye a mere pin-point in his big face, butgleaming like a crumb of glass. "That?" Oh, I reckonthat'll be Alan."

　　And at this point Tom flashed out like a hero.

　　"Alan!" he cried. "Then rest his soul for a true seaman!And as for you, John Silver, long you've been a mate ofmine, but you're mate of mine no more. If I die like adog, I'll die in my dooty. You've killed Alan, have you?Kill me too, if you can. But I defies you."

　　And with that, this brave fellow turned his backdirectly on the cook and set off walking for the beach.But he was not destined to go far. With a cry Johnseized the branch of a tree, whipped the crutch out ofhis armpit, and sent that uncouth missile hurtlingthrough the air. It struck poor Tom, point foremost,and with stunning violence, right between the shouldersin the middle of his back. His hands flew up, he gavea sort of gasp, and fell.

　　Whether he were injured much or little, none could evertell. Like enough, to judge from the sound, his backwas broken on the spot. But he had no time given himto recover. Silver, agile as a monkey even without legor crutch, was on the top of him next moment and hadtwice buried his knife up to the hilt in thatdefenceless body. From my place of ambush, I couldhear him pant aloud as he struck the blows.

　　I do not know what it rightly is to faint, but I do knowthat for the next little while the whole world swam awayfrom before me in a whirling mist; Silver and the birds,and the tall Spy-glass hilltop, going round and round andtopsy-turvy before my eyes, and all manner of bells ringingand distant voices shouting in my ear.

　　When I came again to myself the monster had pulledhimself together, his crutch under his arm, his hatupon his head. Just before him Tom lay motionless uponthe sward; but the murderer minded him not a whit,cleansing his blood-stained knife the while upon a wispof grass. Everything else was unchanged, the sun stillshining mercilessly on the steaming marsh and the tallpinnacle of the mountain, and I could scarce persuademyself that murder had been actually done and a humanlife cruelly cut short a moment since before my eyes.

　　But now John put his hand into his pocket, brought outa whistle, and blew upon it several modulated blaststhat rang far across the heated air. I could not tell,of course, the meaning of the signal, but it instantlyawoke my fears. More men would be coming. I might bediscovered. They had already slain two of the honestpeople; after Tom and Alan, might not I come next?

　　Instantly I began to extricate myself and crawl backagain, with what speed and silence I could manage, tothe more open portion of the wood. As I did so, Icould hear hails coming and going between the oldbuccaneer and his comrades, and this sound of dangerlent me wings. As soon as I was clear of the thicket,I ran as I never ran before, scarce minding thedirection of my flight, so long as it led me from themurderers; and as I ran, fear grew and grew upon meuntil it turned into a kind of frenzy.

　　Indeed, could anyone be more entirely lost than I?When the gun fired, how should I dare to go down to theboats among those fiends, still smoking from their crime?Would not the first of them who saw me wring my neck likea snipe's? Would not my absence itself be an evidenceto them of my alarm, and therefore of my fatal knowledge?It was all over, I thought. Good-bye to the Hispaniola;good-bye to the squire, the doctor, and the captain!There was nothing left for me but death by starvationor death by the hands of the mutineers.

　　All this while, as I say, I was still running, andwithout taking any notice, I had drawn near to the footof the little hill with the two peaks and had got intoa part of the island where the live-oaks grew morewidely apart and seemed more like forest trees in theirbearing and dimensions. Mingled with these were a fewscattered pines, some fifty, some nearer seventy, feethigh. The air too smelt more freshly than down besidethe marsh.

　　And here a fresh alarm brought me to a standstill witha thumping heart.