ll come up one
by one, unarmed, I'll engage to clap you all in irons, and take you home
to a fair trial in England. If you won't, my name is Alexander Smollett,
I've flown my sovereign's colours, and I'll see you all to Davy Jones.
You can't find the treasure. You can't sail the ship--there's not a man
among you fit to sail the ship. You can't fight us--Gray, there, got
away from five of you. Your ship's in irons, Master Silver; you're on a
lee shore, and so you'll find. I stand here and tell you so; and they're
the last good words you'll get from me; for, in the name of heaven, I'll
put a bullet in your back when next I meet you. Tramp, my lad. Bundle out
of this, please, hand over hand, and double quick."

Silver's face was a picture; his eyes started in his head with wrath. He
shook the fire out of his pipe.

"Give me a hand up!" he cried.

"Not I," returned the captain.

"Who'll give me a hand up?" he roared.

Not a man among us moved. Growling the foulest imprecations, he crawled
along the sand till he got hold of the porch and could hoist himself
again upon his crutch. Then he spat into the spring.

"There!" he cried, "that's what I think of ye. Before an hour's out, I'll
stove in your old block-house like a rum-puncheon. Laugh, by thunder,
laugh! Before an hour's out, ye'll laugh upon the other side. Them that
die'll be the lucky ones."

And with a dreadful oath he stumbled off, ploughed down the sand, was
helped across the stockade, after four or five failures, by the man with
the flag of truce, and disappeared in an instant afterwards among the
trees.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ATTACK

As soon as Silver disappeared, the captain, who had been closely watching
him, turned towards the interior of the house, and found not a man of us
at his post but Gray. It was the first time we had ever seen him angry.

"Quarters!" he roared. And then, as we all slunk back to our places,
"Gray," he said, "I'll put your name in the log; you've stood by your
duty like a seaman.--Mr. Trelawney, I'm surprised at you, sir.--Doctor, I
thought you had worn the king's coat! If that was how you served at
Fontenoy, sir, you'd have been better in your berth."

The doctor's watch were all back at their loopholes, the rest were busy
loading the spare muskets, and every one with a red face, you may be
certain, and a flea in his ear, as the saying is.

The captain looked on for a while in silence. Then he spoke.

"My lads,"