The six men stood as if they had been hit. But Silver kept his head and changed his plan before the others even understood what had happened.
“Jim,” he whispered, “take this, and be ready for trouble.” He gave me a pistol.
Then he moved quietly to the other side of the hole, so that the hole was between us two and the other five. I was sick of all his changes, and I could not help whispering, “So you’ve changed sides again.”
There was no time for him to answer. The pirates jumped into the hole, shouting and cursing, and began to dig with their fingers. Morgan found a gold coin, a two-guinea piece, and it went from hand to hand.
“Two guineas!” roared Merry, shaking it at Silver. “So that’s your seven hundred thousand pounds! You’re the man who never made a mistake, are you?”
“Dig away, boys,” said Silver coldly. “Maybe you’ll find some nuts.”
“Nuts!” screamed Merry. “Mates, do you hear him? I tell you, that man knew it all the time. Look at his face!”
“Ah, Merry,” said Silver, “are you trying to be captain again?”
But this time everyone was on Merry’s side. They climbed out of the hole on the other side from Silver. So there we stood, two on one side and five on the other, and nobody dared to strike first. Silver stood straight on his crutch and watched them, as cool as I ever saw him. He was brave, and no mistake.
At last Merry made a speech. “Mates, there are only two of them. One is the old one-legged fool who brought us here for nothing. The other is that boy, and I want his heart. Now, mates—”
He raised his arm to lead the attack. But just then—crack! crack! crack!—three shots came out of the trees. Merry fell head first into the hole. The man with the bandage spun round and fell dead on his side. The other three turned and ran as fast as they could.
At once Long John fired his pistol twice into Merry, who was still moving. “George,” he said, “I think that settles you.”
At the same moment the doctor, Gray and Ben Gunn came out from the trees with smoking guns.
“Forward, my lads!” cried the doctor. “We must stop them before they reach the boats!”
We ran through the bushes, and Silver struggled along on his crutch, working harder than any man with two good legs. But there was no hurry: the three pirates were running the other way. We sat down to get our breath, and Long John came up slowly, wiping his face.
“Thank you, doctor,” he said. “You came just in time for me and Hawkins. And so it’s you, Ben Gunn!”
“I’m Ben Gunn, I am,” said Ben shyly. “How are you, Mr. Silver?”
“Ben, Ben,” said Silver quietly, “to think that you have beaten me!”
As we walked down to the boats, the doctor told us the story, and Ben Gunn was the hero of it. On his long, lonely walks about the island, Ben had found the skeleton and taken everything from it. Then he had found the treasure and dug it up (the broken pick in the hole was his). He had carried it all on his back, trip after trip, to his cave in the hill with two peaks, two months before the Hispaniola arrived.
The doctor had learned this secret from Ben on the afternoon of the attack. The next morning, when he saw that the ship was gone, he gave Silver the useless map, the stockade and the food (Ben had plenty of salted goat meat). In return the doctor and the others could move safely to the cave, away from the fever of the marsh, and guard the money.
“As for you, Jim,” he said, “I hated to do it, but I did what was best for those who had stayed at their post. And if you were not one of them, whose fault was that?”
That morning, when the doctor saw that I would be with the pirates when they found the empty hole, he set off with Gray and Ben. Ben was the fastest, so the doctor sent him ahead, and Ben had the idea of frightening his old shipmates with Flint’s voice. That gave the doctor and Gray time to hide in the trees.
“Ah,” said Silver, “it was lucky for me that I had Hawkins with me. You would have let old John be cut to pieces, doctor, and never given it a thought.”
“Not a thought,” said the doctor cheerfully.
At the beach the doctor smashed a hole in one of the boats with a pick, and we all rowed round the island in the other. As we passed the hill with two peaks, we saw the squire standing at the black mouth of Ben Gunn’s cave with a gun. We gave him three cheers, and Silver cheered as loudly as anyone.
At the mouth of North Inlet we found the Hispaniola floating by herself, hardly damaged. We dropped another anchor, and Gray stayed on board to guard her for the night.
The squire met us at the cave. He was kind to me and said nothing about my adventures, good or bad. But when Silver greeted him politely, he turned red.
“John Silver,” he said, “you are a terrible villain. They tell me I must not take you to court. Well, then, I will not. But the dead men hang around your neck like stones.”
“Thank you kindly, sir,” said Long John.
“Don’t you dare thank me!” cried the squire. “Stand back.”
We went into the cave. Captain Smollett lay in front of a big fire, and in a far corner I saw great heaps of coins and piles of gold bars shining in the firelight. That was Flint’s treasure. We had come so far to find it, and it had already cost the lives of seventeen men from the Hispaniola.
“Come in, Jim,” said the captain. “You’re a good boy in your way, but I don’t think you and I will go to sea together again. Is that you, John Silver? What brings you here?”
“Come back to my duty, sir,” said Silver.
“Ah!” said the captain, and that was all.
What a supper I had that night, with all my friends around me! I am sure no people were ever happier. And there was Silver, sitting back almost out of the firelight, eating well, jumping up when anyone wanted something and even laughing quietly with us: the same polite, helpful sailor as on the voyage out.