"Here you are, my man," said the captain, raising his head.
"You had better sit down."
"You ain't a-going to let me inside, cap'n?" complained Long John.
"It's a main cold morning, to be sure, sir, to sit outside upon the sand."
"Why, Silver," said the captain, "if you had pleased to be an honest man, you might have been sitting in your galley.
It's your own doing.
You're either my ship's cook—and then you were treated handsome—or Cap'n Silver, a common mutineer and pirate, and then you can go hang!"
"Well, well, cap'n," returned the sea-cook, sitting down as he was bidden on the sand, "you'll have to give me a hand up again, that's all.
A sweet pretty place you have of it here.
Ah, there's Jim!
The top of the morning to you, Jim.
Doctor, here's my service.
Why, there you all are together like a happy family, in a manner of speaking."
"If you have anything to say, my man, better say it," said the captain.
"Right you were, Cap'n Smollett," replied Silver.
"Dooty is dooty, to be sure.
Well now, you look here, that was a good lay of yours last night. I don't deny it was a good lay.
Some of you pretty handy with a handspike-end.
And I'll not deny neither but what some of my people was shook—maybe all was shook; maybe I was shook myself; maybe that's why I'm here for terms.
But you mark me, cap'n, it won't do twice, by thunder!
We'll have to do sentry-go and ease off a point or so on the rum.
Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind's eye.
But I'll tell you I was sober; I was on'y dog tired; and if I'd awoke a second sooner, I'd 'a caught you at the act, I would.
He wasn't dead when I got round to him, not he."
"Well?" says Captain Smollett as cool as can be.
All that Silver said was a riddle to him, but you would never have guessed it from his tone.
As for me, I began to have an inkling.
Ben Gunn's last words came back to my mind.
I began to suppose that he had paid the buccaneers a visit while they all lay drunk together round their fire, and I reckoned up with glee that we had only fourteen enemies to deal with.
"Well, here it is," said Silver.
"We want that treasure, and we'll have it—that's our point!
You would just as soon save your lives, I reckon; and that's yours.
You have a chart, haven't you?"
"That's as may be," replied the captain.
"Oh, well, you have, I know that," returned Long John.
"You needn't be so husky with a man; there ain't a particle of service in that, and you may lay to it.
What I mean is, we want your chart. Now, I never meant you no harm, myself."
"That won't do with me, my man," interrupted the captain.
"We know exactly what you meant to do, and we don't care, for now, you see, you can't do it."
And the captain looked at him calmly and proceeded to fill a pipe.
"If Abe Gray—" Silver broke out.
"Avast there!" cried Mr. Smollett.
"Gray told me nothing, and I asked him nothing; and what's more, I would see you and him and this whole island blown clean out of the water into blazes first.
So there's my mind for you, my man, on that."
This little whiff of temper seemed to cool Silver down.
He had been growing nettled before, but now he pulled himself together.
"Like enough," said he.
"I would set no limits to what gentlemen might consider shipshape, or might not, as the case were.
And seein' as how you are about to take a pipe, cap'n, I'll make so free as do likewise."
And he filled a pipe and lighted it; and the two men sat silently smoking for quite a while, now looking each other in the face, now stopping their tobacco, now leaning forward to spit.