'Captain Silver wants to talk to you,' said Long John.
‘We didn’t kill that man,’ I thought. ‘Ben Gunn killed him.
Now there are only fourteen pirates.’
‘We want that treasure,’ Silver said. ‘And you’ve got a map,
right?’
‘Perhaps,’ said the captain.
‘I know you’ve got it,’ said Silver. ‘Give us the map. Then you
can
leave the island with us, or, if you like, you can stay here.’
‘Is that all?’ asked Captain Smollett. ‘Now, listen to me, Silver.
You can’t find the treasure and you can’t sail the ship. We aren’t
going to help you find the treasure, so you can go now. I have
nothing more to say to you.’
‘Then we’re going to fight you,’ said
Silver angrily, and he
went away, walking slowly down the hill.
23
It was a hot day. We waited for a long time and then the pirates
started shooting again. Suddenly some of the pirates ran out of the
trees up to the house.
‘Get them!’ said the captain. We all fought hard. We killed
three of the pirates and the others ran away. But when we got
back inside the house we found that Joyce was dead.
Hunter and
the captain were hurt, too.
‘Five pirates are dead,’ said the doctor.
‘Good,’ said the captain. ‘Now they have nine men and we have
five.’
♦
The pirates went back to the beach. Everything was quiet. Later
that day Hunter died.
The doctor left the house. ‘He’s going to meet Ben Gunn,’ I
thought. It was very hot inside the
house and I did not like
waiting. So I took some food and a gun and went to look for Ben
Gunn’s boat.
After about an hour I found it. It was very small and light. ‘I
can take this boat and go out to the
Hispaniola at night,’ I
thought.
I sat down and waited. Night came, and it was very dark. The
pirates had a big fire on the beach, and there was a small light on
the
Hispaniola. Very quietly, I put Ben Gunn’s boat into the sea.
The boat moved slowly and quietly across the water. Soon I was
near the ship. Nobody saw me.
‘I can cut the ship’s
rope with my knife,’ I thought. ‘And then
the wind can push the ship away from the beach.’
I listened. There were two men on the ship. The other pirates
were all on the beach. The men on the ship were talking loudly
and angrily. ‘They’re going to have a fight,’ I thought. One of the
men was Israel Hands.
I waited, then I cut the rope. Slowly the ship turned round and
24