It was a
strange collection, like Billy Bones’s hoard for the diversity of coinage, but
so much larger and so much more varied that I think I never had more pleasure
than in sorting them. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and
Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moidores and sequins, the pictures of
all the kings of Europe for the last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces
stamped with what looked like wisps of string or bits of spider’s web, round
pieces and square pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to wear
them round your neck — nearly every variety of money in the world must, I
think, have found a place in that collection; and for number, I am sure they
were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping and my fingers
with sorting them out.
(... )
At last,
seeing the ship still bore on her course and was now swiftly drawing out of
earshot, one of them — I know not which it was — leapt to his feet with a
hoarse cry, whipped his musket to his shoulder, and sent a shot whistling over
Silver’s head and through the mainsail.
After that,
we kept under cover of the bulwarks, and when next I looked out they had
disappeared from the spit, and the spit itself had almost melted out of sight
in the growing distance. That was, at least, the end of that; and before noon,
to my inexpressible joy, the highest rock of Treasure Island had sunk into the
blue round of sea.
(... )
Ben Gunn
was on deck alone, and as soon as we came on board he began, with wonderful
contortions, to make us a confession. Silver was gone. The maroon had connived
at his escape in a shore boat some hours ago, and he now assured us he had only
done so to preserve our lives, which would certainly have been forfeit if “that
man with the one leg had stayed aboard.” But this was not all. The sea cook had
not gone empty-handed. He had cut through a bulkhead unobserved and had removed
one of the sacks of coin, worth perhaps three or four hundred guineas, to help
him on his further wanderings.
(... )
The bar
silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint buried them;
and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring
me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have
are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with
the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: “Pieces of eight!
Pieces of eight!”
