me, shipmate; and if fairer can be said by mortal seaman,
shiver my sides!"

"Am I to answer, then?" I asked with a very tremulous voice. Through all
this sneering talk, I was made to feel the threat of death that overhung
me, and my cheeks burned and my heart beat painfully in my breast.

"Lad," said Silver, "no one's a-pressing of you. Take your bearings.
None of us won't hurry you, mate; time goes so pleasant in your company,
you see."

"Well," says I, growing a bit bolder, "if I'm to choose, I declare I
have a right to know what's what, and why you're here, and where my
friends are."

"Wot's wot?" repeated one of the buccaneers in a deep growl. "Ah, he'd
be a lucky one as knowed that!"

"You'll perhaps batten down your hatches till you're spoke to, my
friend," cried Silver truculently to this speaker. And then, in
his first gracious tones, he replied to me, "Yesterday morning, Mr.
Hawkins," said he, "in the dog-watch, down came Doctor Livesey with a
flag of truce. Says he, 'Cap'n Silver, you're sold out. Ship's gone.'
Well, maybe we'd been taking a glass, and a song to help it round. I
won't say no. Leastways, none of us had looked out. We looked out, and
by thunder, the old ship was gone! I never seen a pack o' fools look
fishier; and you may lay to that, if I tells you that looked the
fishiest. 'Well,' says the doctor, 'let's bargain.' We bargained, him
and I, and here we are: stores, brandy, block house, the firewood you
was thoughtful enough to cut, and in a manner of speaking, the whole
blessed boat, from cross-trees to kelson. As for them, they've tramped;
I don't know where's they are."

He drew again quietly at his pipe.

"And lest you should take it into that head of yours," he went on, "that
you was included in the treaty, here's the last word that was said: 'How
many are you,' says I, 'to leave?' 'Four,' says he; 'four, and one of us
wounded. As for that boy, I don't know where he is, confound him,' says
he, 'nor I don't much care. We're about sick of him.' These was his
words.

"Is that all?" I asked.

"Well, it's all that you're to hear, my son," returned Silver.

"And now I am to choose?"

"And now you are to choose, and you may lay to that," said Silver.

"Well," said I, "I am not such a fool but I know pretty well what I have
to look for. Let the worst come to the worst, it's little I care. I've
seen too many die since I fell in with you. But there's a thing or two
I have to tell you,