it--on your knees you came, you was that downhearted--and you'd have
starved, too, if I hadn't--but that's a trifle! you look there--that's
why!"

And he cast down upon the floor a paper that I instantly recognised--none
other than the chart on yellow paper, with the three red crosses, that I
had found in the oilcloth at the bottom of the captain's chest. Why the
doctor had given it to him was more than I could fancy.

But if it were inexplicable to me, the appearance of the chart was
incredible to the surviving mutineers. They leaped upon it like cats upon
a mouse. It went from hand to hand, one tearing it from another; and by
the oaths and the cries and the childish laughter with which they
accompanied their examination, you would have thought, not only they were
fingering the very gold, but were at sea with it, besides, in safety.

"Yes," said one, "that's Flint, sure enough. J. F., and a score below,
with a clove hitch to it; so he done ever."

"Mighty pretty," said George. "But how are we to get away with it, and us
no ship?"

Silver suddenly sprang up, and supporting himself with a hand against the
wall: "Now I give you warning, George," he cried. "One more word of your
sauce, and I'll call you down and fight you. How? Why, how do I know? You
had ought to tell me that--you and the rest, that lost me my schooner,
with your interference, burn you! But not you, you can't; you hain't got
the invention of a cockroach. But civil you can speak, and shall, George
Merry, you may lay to that."

"That's fair enow," said the old man Morgan.

"Fair! I reckon so," said the sea-cook. "You lost the ship; I found the
treasure. Who's the better man at that? And now I resign, by thunder!
Elect whom you please to be your cap'n now; I'm done with it."

"Silver!" they cried. "Barbecue for ever! Barbecue for cap'n!"

"So that's the toon, is it?" cried the cook. "George, I reckon you'll
have to wait another turn, friend: and lucky for you as I'm not a
revengeful man. But that was never my way. And now, shipmates, this black
spot? 'Tain't much good now, is it? Dick's crossed his luck and spoiled
his Bible, and that's about all."

"It'll do to kiss the book on still, won't it?" growled Dick, who was
evidently uneasy at the curse he had brought upon himself.

"A Bible with a bit cut out!" returned Silver derisively. "Not it. It
don't bind no more'n a ballad-book."

"Don't it, though?" cried Dick, with a sort of joy. "Well, I r