`NO, not I,' said Silver. `Flint was cap'n; I was quartermaster, along of my timber leg. The same broadside I lost my leg, old Pew lost his deadlights.
It was a master surgeon, him that ampytated me - out of college and all - Latin by the bucket, and what not; but he was hanged like a dog, and sun - dried like the rest, at Corso Castle. That was Roberts' men, that was, and comed of changing names to their ships - Royal Fortune and so on. Now, what a ship was christened, so let her stay, I says. So it was with the Cassandra as brought us all safe home from Malabar, after England took the Viceroy of the Indies; so it was with the old Walrus, Flint's old ship, as I've seen amuck with the red blood and fit to sink with gold.'
`Ah!' cried another voice, that of the youngest hand on board, and evidently full of admiration, `he was the flower of the flock, was Flint!'
`Davis was a man, too, by all accounts,' said Silver. `I never sailed along of him; first with England, then with Flint, that's my story; and now here on my own account, in a manner of speaking. I laid by nine hundred safe, from England, and two thousand after Flint. That aint bad for a man before the mast - all safe in bank. 'Tain't earning now, it's saving does it, you may lay to that. Where's all England's men now? I dunno. Where's Flint's? Why, most on 'em aboard here, and glad to get the duff - been begging before that, some on 'em. Old Pew, as had lost his sight, and might have thought shame, spends twelve hundred pound in a year, like a lord in Parliament. Where is he now? Well, he's dead now and under hatches; but for two year before that, shiver my timbers! the man was starving.
He begged, and he stole, and he cut throats, and starved at that, by the powers!'
`Well, it aint much use, after all,' said the young seaman.
`'Tain't much use for fools, you may lay to it - that, nor nothing,' cried Silver. `But now, you look here: you're young, you are, but you're as smart as paint. I see that when I set my eyes on you, and I'll talk to you like a man.'
You may imagine how I felt when I heard this abominable old rogue addressing another in the very same words of flattery as he had used to myself. I think, if I had been able, that would have killed him through the barrel.
Meantime, he ran on, little supposing he was overheard.
`Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They lives rough and they risk swinging, but they eat and drink like fighting cocks, and when a cruise is done, why, it's hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings in their pockets. Now, the most goes for rum and a good fling, and to sea again in their shirts. But that's not the course I lay. I puts it all away, some here, some there, and none too much anywheres, by reason of suspicion.
I'm fifty, mark you; once back from this cruise I set up gentleman in earnest.
Time enough, too, says you Ah, but I've lived easy in the meantime; never denied myself o nothing heart desires, and slep' soft and ate dainty all my days, but when at sea. And how did I begin? Before the mast like you!'
`Well,' said the other, `but all the other money's gone now aint it?
You daren't show face in Bristol after this.'
`Why, where might you suppose it was?' asked Silver derisively.
`At Bristol, in banks and places,' answered his companion `It were,' said the cook; `it were when we weighed anchor But my old missis has it all by now. And the ``Spy-glass'' is sold, lease and good-will and rigging; and the old girl's of to meet me. I would tell you where, for I trust you; but it 'ud make jealousy among the mates.'
`And can you trust your missis?' asked the other.
`Gentlemen of fortune,' returned the cook, `usually trusts little among themselves, and right they are, you may lay to it. But I have a way with me, I have. When a mate brings a slip on his cable - one as knows me, I mean - it won't be in the same world with old John. There was some that was feared of Pew, and some that was feared of Flint; but Flint his own self was feared of me. Feared he was, and proud. They was the roughest crew afloat, was Flint's; the devil himself would have been feared to go to sea with them. Well, now, I tell you, I'm not a boasting man, and you seen yourself how easy I keep company; but when I was quartermaster, lambs wasn't the word for Flint's old buccaneers. Ah, you may be sure of yourself in old John's ship.'
`Well, I tell you now,' replied the lad, `I didn't half a quarter like the job till I had this talk with you, John; but there's my hand on it now.'
`And a brave lad you were, and smart, too,' answered Silver, shaking hands so heartily that all the barrel shook, `and a finer figure-head for a gentleman of fortune I never clapped my eyes on.'
By this time I had begun to understand the meaning of their terms. By a `gentleman of fortune' they plainly meant neither more nor less than a common pirate, and the little scene that I had overheard was the last act in the corruption of one of the honest hands - perhaps of the last one left aboard. But on this point I was soon to be relieved for Silver giving a little whistle, a third man strolled up and sat down by the party.
`Dick's square,' said Silver.
`Oh, I know'd Dick was square,' returned the voice of the coxswain, Israel Hands. `He's no fool, is Dick.' And he turned his quid and spat.
