it if I had found the strength, but my limbs and heart alike misgave me.
I heard Dick begin to rise, and then someone seemingly stopped him, and
the voice of Hands exclaimed, Oh, stow that! Don t you get sucking of
that bilge, John. Let s have a go of the rum.
Dick, said Silver, I trust you. I ve a gauge on the keg, mind.
There s the key; you fill a pannikin and bring it up.
Terrified as I was, I could not help thinking to myself that this must
have been how Mr. Arrow got the strong waters that destroyed him.
Dick was gone but a little while, and during his absence Israel spoke
straight on in the cook s ear. It was but a word or two that I could
catch, and yet I gathered some important news, for besides other scraps
that tended to the same purpose, this whole clause was audible: Not
another man of them ll jine. Hence there were still faithful men on
board.
When Dick returned, one after another of the trio took the pannikin and
drank--one To luck, another with a Here s to old Flint, and Silver
himself saying, in a kind of song, Here s to ourselves, and hold your
luff, plenty of prizes and plenty of duff.
Just then a sort of brightness fell upon me in the barrel, and looking
up, I found the moon had risen and was silvering the mizzen-top and
shining white on the luff of the fore-sail; and almost at the same time
the voice of the lookout shouted, Land ho!
XII
Council of War
There was a great rush of feet across the deck. I could hear people
tumbling up from the cabin and the forecastle, and slipping in an
instant outside my barrel, I dived behind the fore-sail, made a double
towards the stern, and came out upon the open deck in time to join
Hunter and Dr. Livesey in the rush for the weather bow.
63