e than a third of the way up. Then,
with a pistol in either hand, I addressed him.

"One more step, Mr. Hands," said I, "and I'll blow your brains out! Dead
men don't bite, you know," I added, with a chuckle.

He stopped instantly. I could see by the working of his face that he was
trying to think, and the process was so slow and laborious that, in my
new-found security, I laughed aloud. Then with a swallow or two, he
spoke, his face still wearing the same expression of extreme perplexity.
In order to speak he had to take the dagger from his mouth, but, in all
else, he remained unmoved.

"Jim," says he, "I reckon we're fouled, you and me, and we'll have to
sign articles. I'd have had you but for that there lurch: but I don't
have no luck, not I; and I reckon I'll have to strike, which comes hard,
you see, for a master mariner to a ship's younker like you, Jim."

I was drinking in his words and smiling away, as conceited as a cock
upon a wall, when, all in a breath back went his right hand over his
shoulder. Something sang like an arrow through the air; I felt a blow
and then a sharp pang, and there I was pinned by the shoulder to the
mast. In the horrid pain and surprise of the moment--I scarce can say it
was by my own volition, and I am sure it was without a conscious
aim--both my pistols went off, and both escaped out of my hands. They
did not fall alone; with a choked cry, the coxswain loosed his grasp
upon the shrouds, and plunged head first into the water.

Stevenson was not one of the men who can write only one sort of
thing. The numerous little poems contained in the first volume of
this series show his sympathetic knowledge of children, while his
essays prove that he could handle serious subjects in a most
masterly manner. The extract from _Treasure Island_ which you have
just been reading displays his skill in still another field--the
writing of stories of pure adventure.

One of the striking things in all Stevenson's writings is his power
of vivid description, his ability to make us see things. Nor does
he make us wait while he gives us page-long descriptions; he
suggests pictures to us with a few words. It may be safely said of
descriptions, when they are part of a story, that those which are
given in the fewest words, if those few words are the right ones,
are most effective. Stevenson fully grasped this fact, and that is
the