Treasure Island

he Attack

As soon as Silver disappeared, the captain, who had been closely
watching him, turned towards the interior of the house and found not a
man of us at his post but Gray. It was the first time we had ever seen
him angry.

“Quarters!” he roared. And then, as we all slunk back to our places,
“Gray,” he said, “I’ll put your name in the log; you’ve stood by your
duty like a seaman. Mr. Trelawney, I’m surprised at you, sir. Doctor,
I thought you had worn the king’s coat! If that was how you served at
Fontenoy, sir, you’d have been better in your berth.”

The doctor’s watch were all back at their loopholes, the rest were busy
loading the spare muskets, and everyone with a red face, you may be
certain, and a flea in his ear, as the saying is.

The captain looked on for a while in silence. Then he spoke.

“My lads,” said he, “I’ve given Silver a broadside. I pitched it in
red-hot on purpose; and before the hour’s out, as he said, we shall be
boarded. We’re outnumbered, I needn’t tell you that, but we fight in
shelter; and a minute ago I should have said we fought with discipline.
I’ve no manner of doubt that we can drub them, if you choose.”

Then he went the rounds and saw, as he said, that all was clear.

On the two short sides of the house, east and west, there were only two
loopholes; on the south side where the porch was, two again; and on the
north side, five. There was a round score of muskets for the seven
of us; the firewood had been built into four piles--tables, you might
say--one about the middle of each side, and on each of these tables some
ammunition and four loaded muskets were laid ready to the hand of the
defenders. In the middle, the cutlasses lay ranged.

“Toss out the fire,” said the captain; “the chill is past, and we
mustn’t have smoke in our eyes.”

The iron fire-basket was carried bodily out by Mr. Trelawney, and the
embers smothered among sand.

“Hawkins hasn’t had his breakfast. Hawkins, help yourself, and back to
your post to eat it,” continued Captain Smollett. “Lively, now, my lad;
you’ll want it before you’ve done. Hunter, serve out a round of brandy
to all hands.”

And while this was going on, the captain completed, in his own mind, the
plan of the defence.

“Doctor, you will take the door,” he resumed. “See, and don’t expose
yourself; keep within, and fire through the porch. Hunter, take the east
side, there. Joyce, you stand by the west, my man. Mr. Trelawney, you
are the best shot--you and Gray will take this long north side, with the
five loopholes; it’s there the danger is. If they can get up to it and
fire in upon us through our own ports, things would begin to look dirty.
Hawkins, neither you nor I are much account at the shooting; we’ll stand
by to load and bear a hand.”

As the captain had said, the chill was past. As soon as the sun had
climbed above our girdle of trees, it fell with all its force upon the
clearing and drank up the vapours at a draught. Soon the sand was baking
and the resin melting in the logs of the block house. Jackets and coats
were flung aside, shirts thrown open at the neck and rolled up to the
shoulders; and we stood there, each at his post, in a fever of heat and
anxiety.

An hour passed away.

“Hang them!” said the captain. “This is as dull as the doldrums. Gray,
whistle for a wind.”

And just at that moment came the first news of the attack.

“If you please, sir,” said Joyce, “if I see anyone, am I to fire?”

“I told you so!” cried the captain.

“Thank you, sir,” returned Joyce with the same quiet civility.

Nothing followed for a time, but the remark had set us all on the alert,
straining ears and eyes--the musketeers with their pieces balanced in
their hands, the captain out in the middle of the block house with his
mouth very tight and a frown on his face.

So some seconds passed, till suddenly Joyce whipped up his musket
and fired. The report had scarcely died away ere it was repeated and
repeated from without in a scattering volley, shot behind shot, like
a string of geese, from every side of the enclosure. Several bullets
struck the log-house, but not one entered; and as the smoke cleared away
and vanished, the stockade and the woods around it looked as quiet and
empty as before. Not a bough waved, not the gleam of a musket-barrel
betrayed the presence of our foes.

“Did you hit your man?” asked the captain.

“No, sir,” replied Joyce. “I believe not, sir.”

“Next best thing to tell the truth,” muttered Captain Smollett. “Load
his gun, Hawkins. How many should say there were on your side, doctor?”

“I know precisely,” said Dr. Livesey. “Three shots were fired on this
side. I saw the three flashes--two close together--one farther to the
west.”

“Three!” repeated the captain. “And how many on yours, Mr. Trelawney?”

But this was not so easily answered. There had come many from the
north--seven by the squire’s computation, eight or nine according to
Gray. From the east and west only a single shot had been fired. It was
plain, therefore, that the attack would be developed from the north and
that on the other three sides we were only to be annoyed by a show of
hostilities. But Captain Smollett made no change in his arrangements. If
the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, he argued, they would
take possession of any unprotected loophole and shoot us down like rats
in our own stronghold.

Nor had we much time left to us for thought. Suddenly, with a loud
huzza, a little cloud of pirates leaped from the woods on the north side
and ran straight on the stockade. At the same moment, the fire was once
more opened from the woods, and a rifle ball sang through the doorway
and knocked the doctor’s musket into bits.

The boarders swarmed over the fence like monkeys. Squire and Gray fired
again and yet again; three men fell, one forwards into the enclosure,
two back on the outside. But of these, one was evidently more frightened
than hurt, for he was on his feet again in a crack and instantly
disappeared among the trees.

Two had bit the dust, one had fled, four had made good their footing
inside our defences, while from the shelter of the woods seven or eight
men, each evidently supplied with several muskets, kept up a hot though
useless fire on the log-house.

The four who had boarded made straight before them for the building,
shouting as they ran, and the men among the trees shouted back to
encourage them. Several shots were fired, but such was the hurry of the
marksmen that not one appears to have taken effect. In a moment, the
four pirates had swarmed up the mound and were upon us.

The head of Job Anderson, the boatswain, appeared at the middle
loophole.

“At ’em, all hands--all hands!” he roared in a voice of thunder.

At the same moment, another pirate grasped Hunter’s musket by the
muzzle, wrenched it from his hands, plucked it through the loophole,
and with one stunning blow, laid the poor fellow senseless on the floor.
Meanwhile a third, running unharmed all around the house, appeared
suddenly in the doorway and fell with his cutlass on the doctor.

Our position was utterly reversed. A moment since we were firing, under
cover, at an exposed enemy; now it was we who lay uncovered and could
not return a blow.

The log-house was full of smoke, to which we owed our comparative
safety. Cries and confusion, the flashes and reports of pistol-shots,
and one loud groan rang in my ears.

“Out, lads, out, and fight ’em in the open! Cutlasses!” cried the
captain.

I snatched a cutlass from the pile, and someone, at the same time
snatching another, gave me a cut across the knuckles which I hardly
felt. I dashed out of the door into the clear sunlight. Someone was
close behind, I knew not whom. Right in front, the doctor was pursuing
his assailant down the hill, and just as my eyes fell upon him, beat
down his guard and sent him sprawling on his back with a great slash
across the face.

“Round the house, lads! Round the house!” cried the captain; and even in
the hurly-burly, I perceived a change in his voice.

Mechanically, I obeyed, turned eastwards, and with my cutlass raised,
ran round the corner of the house. Next moment I was face to face
with Anderson. He roared aloud, and his hanger went up above his head,
flashing in the sunlight. I had not time to be afraid, but as the blow
still hung impending, leaped in a trice upon one side, and missing my
foot in the soft sand, rolled headlong down the slope.

When I had first sallied from the door, the other mutineers had been
already swarming up the palisade to make an end of us. One man, in a red
night-cap, with his cutlass in his mouth, had even got upon the top and
thrown a leg across. Well, so short had been the interval that when I
found my feet again all was in the same posture, the fellow with the red
night-cap still half-way over, another still just showing his head above
the top of the stockade. And yet, in this breath of time, the fight was
over and the victory was ours.

Gray, following close behind me, had cut down the big boatswain ere
he had time to recover from his last blow. Another had been shot at a
loophole in the very act of firing into the house and now lay in agony,
the pistol still smoking in his hand. A third, as I had seen, the doctor
had disposed of at a blow. Of the four who had scaled the palisade, one
only remained unaccounted for, and he, having left his cutlass on the
field, was now clambering out again with the fear of death upon him.

“Fire--fire from the house!” cried the doctor. “And you, lads, back into
cover.”

But his words were unheeded, no shot was fired, and the last boarder
made good his escape and disappeared with the rest into the wood. In
three seconds nothing remained of the attacking party but the five who
had fallen, four on the inside and one on the outside of the palisade.

The doctor and Gray and I ran full speed for shelter. The survivors
would soon be back where they had left their muskets, and at any moment
the fire might recommence.

The house was by this time somewhat cleared of smoke, and we saw at
a glance the price we had paid for victory. Hunter lay beside his
loophole, stunned; Joyce by his, shot through the head, never to move
again; while right in the centre, the squire was supporting the captain,
one as pale as the other.

“The captain’s wounded,” said Mr. Trelawney.

“Have they run?” asked Mr. Smollett.

“All that could, you may be bound,” returned the doctor; “but there’s
five of them will never run again.”

“Five!” cried the captain. “Come, that’s better. Five against three
leaves us four to nine. That’s better odds than we had at starting. We
were seven to nineteen then, or thought we were, and that’s as bad to
bear.” *

*The mutineers were soon only eight in number, for the man shot by Mr.
Trelawney on board the schooner died that same evening of his wound. But
this was, of course, not known till after by the faithful party.

PART FIVE--My Sea Adventure