ou," replied the doctor, "for you cannot hold your tongue. We are not
the only men who know of this paper. These fellows who attacked the inn
to-night--bold, desperate blades, for sure--and the rest who stayed
aboard that lugger, and more, I dare say, not far off, are, one and all,
through thick and thin, bound that they'll get that money. We must none
of us go alone till we get to sea. Jim and I shall stick together in the
meanwhile; you'll take Joyce and Hunter when you ride to Bristol, and,
from first to last, not one of us must breathe a word of what we've
found."

"Livesey," returned the squire, "you are always in the right of it. I'll
be as silent as the grave."

PART II

THE SEA-COOK

CHAPTER VII

I GO TO BRISTOL

It was longer than the squire imagined ere we were ready for the sea,
and none of our first plans--not even Doctor Livesey's, of keeping me
beside him--could be carried out as we intended. The doctor had to go to
London for a physician to take charge of his practice; the squire was
hard at work at Bristol; and I lived on at the Hall under the charge of
old Redruth, the gamekeeper, almost a prisoner, but full of sea-dreams
and the most charming anticipations of strange islands and adventures. I
brooded by the hour together over the map, all the details of which I
well remembered. Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room, I
approached that island, in my fancy, from every possible direction; I
explored every acre of its surface; I climbed a thousand times to that
tall hill they call the Spy-glass, and from the top enjoyed the most
wonderful and changing prospects. Sometimes the isle was thick with
savages, with whom we fought; sometimes full of dangerous animals that
hunted us; but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange and
tragic as our actual adventures.

So the weeks passed on, till one fine day there came a letter addressed
to Doctor Livesey, with this addition, "To be opened in the case of his
absence, by Tom Redruth or Young Hawkins." Obeying this order, we found,
or rather I found--for the gamekeeper was a poor hand at reading
anything but print--the following important news:

"_Old Anchor Inn, Bristol, March 1, 17--._

"DEAR LIVESEY: As I do not know whether you are at the Hall or still
in London, I send this in double to both places.

"The ship is bought and fitted. She lies at anchor, ready for sea.
You nev