THERE never was such an overturn in this world. Each of these six men was as though he had been struck. But with Silver the blow passed almost instantly. Every thought of his soul had been set full-stretch, like a racer, on that money; well, he was brought up in a single second, dead; and he kept his head, found his temper, and changed his plan before the others had had time to realise the disappointment.
`Jim,' he whispered, `take that, and stand by for trouble.'
And he passed me a double-barrelled pistol.
At the same time he began quietly moving northward, and in a few steps had put the hollow between us two and the other five. Then he looked at me and nodded, as much as to say, `Here is a narrow corner,' as, indeed, I thought it was. His looks were now quite friendly; and I was so revolted at these constant changes, that I could not forbear whispering, `So you've changed sides again.'
There was no time left for him to answer in. The buccaneers, with oaths and cries, began to leap, one after another, into the pit, and to dig with their fingers, throwing the boards aside as they did so. Morgan found a piece of gold. He held it up with a perfect spout of oaths. It was a two-guinea piece, and it went from hand to hand among them for a quarter of a minute.
`Two guineas!' roared Merry, shaking it at Silver. `That's your seven hundred thousand pounds, is it? You're the man for bargains, aint you?
You're him that never bungled nothing, you wooden-headed lubber!'
`Dig away, boys,' said Silver, with the coolest insolence; `you'll find some pig-nuts and I shouldn't wonder.'
`Pig-nuts!' repeated Merry, in a scream. `Mates, do you hear that? I tell you, now, that man there knew it all along. Look in the face of him, and you'll see it wrote there.'
`Ah, Merry,' remarked Silver, `standing for cap'n again? You're a pushing lad, to be sure.'
But this time everyone was entirely in Merry's favour. They began to scramble out of the excavation, darting furious glances behind them. One thing I observed, which looked well for us: they all got out upon the opposite side from Silver.
Well, there we stood, two on one side, five on the other the pit between us, and nobody screwed up high enough to offer the first blow. Silver never moved; he watched them very upright on his crutch, and looked as cool as ever I saw him. He was brave, and no mistake.
At last, Merry seemed to think a speech might help matters.
`Mates,' says he, `there's two of them alone there; one's the old cripple that brought us all here and blundered us down to this; the other's that cub that I mean to have the heart of. Now, mates--'
He was raising his arm and his voice, and plainly meant to lead a charge.
But just then - crack! crack! crack! - three musket-shots flashed out of the thicket. Merry tumbled head foremost into the excavation; the man with the bandage spun round like a teetotum, and fell all his length upon his side, where he lay dead, but still twitching; and the other three turned and ran for it with all their might.
Before you could wink, Long John had fired two barrels of a pistol into the struggling Merry; and as the man rolled up his eyes at him in the last agony, `George,' said he, `I reckon I settled you.'
At the same moment the doctor, Gray, and Ben Gunn joined us, with smoking muskets, from among the nutmeg trees.
`Forward!' cried the doctor. `Double quick, my lads. We must head 'em off the boats.'
And we set off at a great pace, sometimes plunging through the bushes to the chest.
I tell you, but Silver was anxious to keep up with us. The work that man went through, leaping on his crutch till the muscles of his chest were fit to burst, was work no sound man ever equalled; and so thinks the doctor.
As it was, he was already thirty yards behind us, and on the verge of strangling, when we reached the brow of the slope.
`Doctor,' he hailed, `see there! no hurry!'
Sure enough there was no hurry. In a more open part of the plateau, we could see the three survivors still running in the same direction as they had started, right for Mizzen-mast Hill. We were already between them and the boats; and so we four sat down to breathe, while Long John, mopping his face, came slowly up with us.
`Thank ye kindly, doctor,' says he. `You came in in about the nick, I guess, for me and Hawkins. And so it's you, Ben Gunn!' he added. `Well, you're a nice one to be sure.'
`I'm Ben Gunn, I am,' replied the maroon, wriggling like an eel in his embarrassment. `And,' he added, after a long pause, `how do, Mr Silver?
Pretty well, I thank ye, says you.'
`Ben, Ben,' murmured Silver, `to think as you've done me!' The doctor sent back Gray for one of the pickaxes, deserted, in their flight, by the mutineers; and then as we proceeded leisurely down hill to where the boats were lying, related, in a few words, what had taken place. It was a story that profoundly interested Silver; and Ben Gunn, the half-idiot maroon, was the hero from beginning to end.
