The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 6

Indeed, as we found when we also reached the spot, it was something very different. At the foot of a pretty big pine, and involved in a green creeper, which had even partly lifted some of the smaller bones, a human skeleton lay, with a few shreds of clothing, on the ground. I believe a chill struck for a moment to every heart.

“He was a seaman,” said George Merry, who, bolder than the rest, had gone up close, and was examining the rags of clothing. “Leastways, this is good sea-cloth.”

“Ay, ay,” said Silver, “like enough; you wouldn’t look to find a bishop here, I reckon. But what sort of a way is that for bones to lie? ’Tain’t in natur’.”

Indeed, on a second glance, it seemed impossible to fancy that the body was in a natural position. But for some disarray (the work, perhaps, of the birds that had fed upon him, or of the slow-growing creeper that had gradually enveloped his remains) the man lay perfectly straight – his feet pointing in one direction, his hands, raised above his head like a diver’s, pointing directly in the opposite.

“I’ve taken a notion into my old numskull,” observed Silver. “Here’s the compass; there’s the tip-top p’int o’ Skeleton Island, stickin’ out like a tooth. Just take a bearing, will you, along the line of them bones?”

It was done. The body pointed straight in the direction of the island, and the compass read duly E.S.E. and by E.

“I thought so,” cried the cook; “this here is a p’inter. Right up there is our line for the Pole Star and the jolly dollars. But, by thunder! if it don’t make me cold inside to think of Flint. This is one of his jokes, and no mistake. Him and these six was alone here; he killed ’em, every man; and this one he hauled here and laid down by compass, shiver my timbers! They’re long bones, and the hair’s been yellow. Ay, that would be Allardyce. – You mind Allardyce, Tom Morgan?”

“Ay, ay,” returned Morgan, “I mind him; he owed me money, he did, and took my knife ashore with him.”

“Speaking of knives,” said another, “why don’t we find his’n lying round? Flint warn’t the man to pick a seaman’s pocket; and the birds, I guess, would leave it be.”

“By the powers, and that’s true!” cried Silver.

“There ain’t a thing left here,” said Merry, still feeling round among the bones, “not a copper doit nor a baccy-box. It don’t look nat’ral to me.”

“No, by gum, it don’t,” agreed Silver; “not nat’ral, nor not nice, says you. Great guns! messmates, but if Flint was living, this would be a hot spot for you and me. Six they were, and six are we; and bones is what they are now.”

“I saw him dead with these here deadlights,” said Morgan. “Billy took me in. There he laid, with penny-pieces on his eyes.”

“Dead – ay, sure enough he’s dead and gone below,” said the fellow with the bandage; “but if ever sperrit walked, it would be Flint’s. Dear heart, but he died bad, did Flint!”

“Ay, that he did,” observed another; “now he raged, and now he hollered for the rum, and now he sang. ‘Fifteen Men’ were his only song, mates; and I tell you true, I never rightly liked to hear it since. It was main hot, and the windy was open, and I hear that old song comin’ out as clear as clear – and the death-haul on the man already.”

“Come, come,” said Silver, “stow this talk. He’s dead, and he don’t walk, that I know; leastways, he won’t walk by day, and you may lay to that. Care killed a cat. Fetch ahead for the doubloons.”

We started, certainly; but in spite of the hot sun and the staring daylight, the pirates no longer ran separate and shouting through the wood, but kept side by side and spoke with bated breath. The terror of the dead buccaneer had fallen on their spirits.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE TREASURE HUNT – THE VOICE AMONG THE TREES

Partly from the damping influence of this alarm, partly to rest Silver and the sick folk, the whole party sat down 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 wide prospect on either hand. Before us, over the tree-tops, we beheld the Cape of the Woods fringed with surf; behind, we not only looked down upon the anchorage and Skeleton Island, but saw – clear across the spit and the eastern lowlands – a great field of open sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the Spy-glass, here dotted with single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound but that of the distant breakers, mounting from all round, and the chirp of countless insects in the brush. Not a man, not a sail upon the sea; the very largeness of the view increased the sense of solitude.

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

“There are three ‘tall trees,’” said he, “about in the right line from Skeleton Island. ‘Spy-glass Shoulder,’ I take it, means that lower p’int there. It’s child’s-play to find the stuff 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 a shudder; “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 upon this train of thought, they had spoken lower and lower, and they had almost got to whispering by now, so that the sound of their talk hardly interrupted the silence of the wood. All of a sudden, out of the middle of the trees in front of us, a thin, high, trembling voice struck 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 the pirates. The colour went from their six faces like enchantment; some leaped to their feet, some clawed hold 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 though some one had laid his hand upon the singer’s mouth. Coming so far through the clear, sunny atmosphere among the green tree-tops, I thought it had sounded airily and sweetly; and the effect on my companions was the stranger.

“Come,” said Silver, struggling with his ashen lips to get the word out, “this won’t do. Stand by to go about. This is a rum start, and I can’t name the voice: but it’s some one skylarking – some one that’s flesh and blood, and you may lay to that.”

His courage had come back as he spoke, and some of the colour to his face along with it. Already the others had begun to lend an ear to this encouragement, and were coming a little to themselves, when the same voice broke out again – not this time singing, but in a faint distant hail, that echoed yet fainter among the clefts of the Spy-glass.

“Darby M’Graw,” it wailed – for that is the word that best describes the sound – “Darby M’Graw! Darby M’Graw!” again and again and again; and then rising a little higher, and with an oath that I leave out, “Fetch aft the rum, Darby!”

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

“That fixes it!” gasped one. “Let’s go.”

“They was his last words,” moaned Morgan, “his last words above board.”

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

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

“Nobody in this here island ever heard of Darby,” he muttered: “not one but us that’s here.” And then, making a great effort: “Shipmates,” he cried, “I’m here to get that stuff, and I’ll not be beat by man nor devil. I never was feared of Flint in his life, and, by the powers! I’ll face him dead. There’s seven hundred thousand pound not a quarter of a mile from here. When did ever a gentleman o’ fortune show his stern to that much dollars, for a boosy old seaman with a blue mug – and him dead, too?”

But there was no sign of re-awakening courage in his followers; rather, indeed, of growing terror at the irreverence of his words.

“Belay there, John!” said Merry. “Don’t you cross a sperrit.”

And the rest were all too terrified to reply. They would have run away severally had they dared; but fear kept them together, and kept them close by John, as if his daring helped them. He, on his part, had pretty well fought his weakness down.

“Sperrit? Well, maybe,” he said. “But there’s one thing not clear to me. There was an echo. Now, no man ever seen a sperrit with a shadow; well, then, what’s he doing with an echo to him, I should like to know? That ain’t in natur’, surely?”

This argument seemed weak enough to me. But you can never tell what will affect the superstitious, and, to my wonder, George Merry was greatly relieved.

“Well, that’s so,” he said. “You’ve a head upon your shoulders, John, and no mistake. ’Bout ship, mates! This here crew is on a wrong tack, I do believe. And come to think on it, it was like Flint’s voice, I grant you, but not just so clear-away like it, after all. It was liker somebody else’s voice now – it was liker – ”

“By the powers, Ben Gunn!” roared Silver.

“Ay, and so it were,” cried Morgan, springing on his knees. “Ben Gunn it were!”