“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.”

PART TWO—­The Sea-cook

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.”