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Partly from the damping influence of this alarm, partly to rest Silverand the sick folk, the whole party sat down as soon as they had gainedthe brow of the ascent.

The plateau being somewhat tilted toward the west, this spot on which wehad paused commanded a wide prospect on either hand. Before us, over thetree-tops, we beheld the Cape of the Woods fringed with surf; behind, wenot only looked down upon the anchorage and Skeleton Island, butsaw--clear across the spit and the eastern lowlands--a great field ofopen sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the Spy-glass, here dottedwith single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound butthat of the distant breakers mounting from all around, and the chirp ofcountless insects in the brush. Not a man, not a sail upon the sea; thevery 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 fromSkeleton Island. 'Spy-glass Shoulder,' I take it, means that lower p'intthere. It's child's play to find the stuff now. I've half a mind to dinefirst."

"I don't feel sharp," growled Morgan. "Thinkin' o' Flint--I think itwere--as done me."

"Ah, well, my son, you praise your stars he's dead," said Silver.

"He was an ugly devil," cried a third pirate, with a shudder; "that bluein the face, too!"

"That was how the rum took him," added Merry. "Blue! well I reckon hewas blue. That's a true word."

Ever since they had found the skeleton and got upon this train ofthought, they had spoken lower and lower, and they had almost got towhispering by now, so that the sound of their talk hardly interruptedthe silence of the wood. All of a sudden, out of the middle of the treesin front of us, a thin, high, trembling voice struck up the well-knownair 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. Thecolor went from their six faces like enchantment; some leaped to theirfeet, some clawed hold of others; Morgan groveled on the ground.

"It's Flint, by ----!" cried Merry.

The song had stopped as suddenly as it began--broken off, you would havesaid, in the middle of a note, as though someone had laid his hand uponthe singer's mouth. Coming so far through the clear, sunny atmosphereamong 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,"that won't do. Stand by to go about. This is a rum start, and I can'tname the voice, but it's someone skylarking--someone that's flesh andblood, and you may lay to that."

His courage had come back as he spoke, and some of the color to his facealong with it. Already the others had begun to lend an ear to thisencouragement, and were coming a little to themselves, when the samevoice broke out again--not this time singing, but in a faint, distanthail, that echoed yet fainter among the clefts of the Spy-glass.

"Darby M'Graw," it wailed--for that is the word that best describes thesound--"Darby M'Graw! Darby M'Graw!" again and again and again; and thenrising a little higher, and with an oath that I leave out: "Fetch aftthe rum, Darby!"

The buccaneers remained rooted to the ground, their eyes starting fromtheir heads. Long after the voice had died away they still stared insilence, 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 broughtup, had Dick, before he came to sea and fell among bad companions.

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

"Nobody in this here island ever heard of Darby," he muttered; "not onebut us that's here." And then, making a great effort: "Shipmates," hecried, "I'm here to get that stuff, and I'll not be beat by man nordevil. I never was feared of Flint in his life, and, by the powers, I'llface him dead. There's seven hundred thousand pound not a quarter of amile from here. When did ever a gentleman o' fortune show his stern tothat much dollars for a boozy old seaman with a blue mug--and him dead,too?"

But there was no sign of reawakening 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 awayseverally had they dared, but fear kept them together, and kept themclose by John, as if his daring helped them. He, on his part, had prettywell 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? Thatain't in natur', surely."

This argument seemed weak enough to me. But you can never tell what willaffect the superstitious, and, to my wonder, George Merry was greatlyrelieved.

"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, Ido believe. And come to think on it, it was like Flint's voice, I grantyou, but not just so clear away like it, after all. It was likersomebody 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 itwere!"

"It don't make much odds, do it, now?" asked Dick. "Ben Gunn's not herein the body, any more'n Flint."

But the older hands greeted this remark with scorn.

"Why, nobody minds Ben Gunn," cried Merry; "dead or alive, nobody mindshim!"

It was extraordinary how their spirits had returned, and how the naturalcolor had revived in their faces. Soon they were chatting together, withintervals of listening; and not long after, hearing no further sound,they shouldered the tools and set forth again, Merry walking first withSilver's compass to keep them on the right line with Skeleton Island. Hehad said the truth; dead or alive, nobody minded Ben Gunn.

Dick alone still held his Bible, and looked around him as he went, withfearful glances; but he found no sympathy, and Silver even joked him onhis precautions.

"I told you," said he, "I told you you had sp'iled your Bible. If itain't no good to swear by, what do you suppose a sperrit would give forit? Not that!" and he snapped his big fingers, halting a moment on hiscrutch.

But Dick was not to be comforted; indeed, it was soon plain to me thatthe lad was falling sick; hastened by heat, exhaustion, and the shock ofhis alarm, the fever, predicted by Doctor Livesey, was evidently growingswiftly higher.

It was fine open walking here, upon the summit; our way lay a littledownhill, for, as I have said, the plateau tilted toward the west. Thepines, great and small, grew wide apart; and even between the clumps ofnutmeg and azalea, wide open spaces baked in the hot sunshine. Striking,as we did, pretty near northwest across the island, we drew, on the onehand, ever nearer under the shoulders of the Spy-glass, and on theother, looked ever wider over that western bay where I had once tossedand trembled in the coracle.

The first of the tall trees was reached, and by the bearing, proved thewrong one. So with the second. The third rose nearly two hundred feetinto the air above a clump of underwood; a giant of a vegetable, with ared column as big as a cottage, and a wide shadow around in which acompany could have maneuvered. It was conspicuous far to sea, both onthe east and west, and might have been entered as a sailing mark uponthe chart.

But it was not its size that now impressed my companions; it was theknowledge that seven hundred thousand pounds in gold lay somewhereburied below its spreading shadow. The thought of the money, as theydrew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors. Their eyes burned intheir heads; their feet grew speedier and lighter; their whole soul wasbound up in that fortune, that whole lifetime of extravagance andpleasure, that lay waiting there for each of them.

Silver hobbled, grunting, on his crutch; his nostrils stood out andquivered; he cursed like a madman when the flies settled on his hot andshiny countenance; he plucked furiously at the line that held me to him,and, from time to time, turned his eyes upon me with a deadly look.Certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts; and certainly I readthem like print. In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else hadbeen forgotten; his promise and the doctor's warning were both things ofthe past; and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon thetreasure, find and board the _Hispaniola_ under cover of night, cutevery honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at firstintended, laden with crimes and riches.

Shaken as I was with these alarms, it was hard for me to keep up withthe rapid pace of the treasure-hunters. Now and again I stumbled, and itwas then that Silver plucked so roughly at the rope and launched at mehis murderous glances. Dick, who had dropped behind us, and now broughtup the rear, was babbling to himself both prayers and curses, as hisfever kept rising. This also added to my wretchedness, and, to crownall, I was haunted by the thought of the tragedy that had once beenacted on that plateau, when that ungodly buccaneer with the blueface--he who had died at Savannah, singing and shouting for drink--hadthere, with his own hand, cut down his six accomplices. This grove, thatwas now so peaceful, must then have rung with cries, I thought; and evenwith the thought I could believe I heard it ringing still.

We were now at the margin of the thicket.

"Huzza, mates, altogether!" shouted Merry, and the foremost broke into arun.

And suddenly, not ten yards farther, we beheld them stop. A low cryarose. Silver doubled his pace, digging away with the foot of his crutchlike one possessed, and next moment he and I had come also to a deadhalt.

Before us was a great excavation, not very recent, for the sides hadfallen in and grass had sprouted on the bottom. In this were the shaftof a pick broken in two and the boards of several packing cases strewnaround. On one of these boards I saw branded with a hot iron, the name_Walrus_--the name of Flint's ship.

All was clear to probation. The _cache_ had been found and rifled--theseven hundred thousand pounds were gone!