“You,” 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 tonight—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.”
7
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 Dr. 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 Dr. 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
never imagined a sweeter schooner—a
child might sail her—two hundred tons;
name, Hispaniola.
I got her through my old friend, Blandly,
who has proved himself throughout the most surprising
trump. The admirable fellow literally slaved
in my interest, and so, I may say, did everyone
in Bristol, as soon as they got wind of the port
we sailed for—treasure, I mean.
“Redruth,” said I, interrupting the letter,
“Dr. Livesey will not like that. The squire
has been talking, after all.”
