r's polite
salute he somewhat flushed.

"John Silver," he said, "you're a prodigious villain and imposter--a
monstrous imposter, sir. I am told I am not to prosecute you. Well,
then, I will not. But the dead men, sir, hang about your neck like
mill-stones."

"Thank you kindly, sir," replied Long John, again saluting.

"I dare you to thank me!" cried the squire. "It is a gross dereliction
of my duty. Stand back."

And thereupon we all entered the cave. It was a large, airy place, with
a little spring and a pool of clear water, overhung with ferns. The
floor was sand. Before a big fire lay Captain Smollett; and in a far
corner, only duskily flickered over by the blaze, I beheld great heaps
of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of gold. That was Flint's
treasure that we had come so far to seek and that had cost already the
lives of seventeen men from the HISPANIOLA. How many it had cost in the
amassing, what blood and sorrow, what good ships scuttled on the deep,
what brave men walking the plank blindfold, what shot of cannon, what
shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell. Yet there
were still three upon that island--Silver, and old Morgan, and Ben
Gunn--who had each taken his share in these crimes, as each had hoped in
vain to share in the reward.

"Come in, Jim," said the captain. "You're a good boy in your line, Jim,
but I don't think you and me'll go to sea again. You're too much of the
born favourite for me. Is that you, John Silver? What brings you here,
man?"

"Come back to my dooty, sir," returned Silver.

"Ah!" said the captain, and that was all he said.

What a supper I had of it that night, with all my friends around me; and
what a meal it was, with Ben Gunn's salted goat and some delicacies and
a bottle of old wine from the HISPANIOLA. Never, I am sure, were people
gayer or happier. And there was Silver, sitting back almost out of the
firelight, but eating heartily, prompt to spring forward when anything
was wanted, even joining quietly in our laughter--the same bland,
polite, obsequious seaman of the voyage out.

34

And Last

THE next morning we fell early to work, for the transportation of this
great mass of gold near a mile by land to the beach, and thence three
miles by boat to the HISPANIOLA, was a considerable task for so small
a number of workmen. The three fellows still abroad upon the island did
not greatly trouble us; a single sentry on the shoulder of the h