“Dick,” said Silver, “I trust you.  I’ve a gauge on the keg, mind.  There’s the key; you fill a pannikin and bring it up.”

Terrified as I was, I could not help thinking to myself that this must have been how Mr. Arrow got the strong waters that destroyed him.

Dick was gone but a little while, and during his absence Israel spoke straight on in the cook’s ear.  It was but a word or two that I could catch, and yet I gathered some important news, for besides other scraps that tended to the same purpose, this whole clause was audible:  “Not another man of them’ll jine.”  Hence there were still faithful men on board.

When Dick returned, one after another of the trio took the pannikin and drank—­one “To luck,” another with a “Here’s to old Flint,” and Silver himself saying, in a kind of song, “Here’s to ourselves, and hold your luff, plenty of prizes and plenty of duff.”

Just then a sort of brightness fell upon me in the barrel, and looking up, I found the moon had risen and was silvering the mizzen-top and shining white on the luff of the fore-sail; and almost at the same time the voice of the lookout shouted, “Land ho!”

12

Council of War

There was a great rush of feet across the deck.  I could hear people tumbling up from the cabin and the forecastle, and slipping in an instant outside my barrel, I dived behind the fore-sail, made a double towards the stern, and came out upon the open deck in time to join Hunter and Dr. Livesey in the rush for the weather bow.

There all hands were already congregated.  A belt of fog had lifted almost simultaneously with the appearance of the moon.  Away to the south-west of us we saw two low hills, about a couple of miles apart, and rising behind one of them a third and higher hill, whose peak was still buried in the fog.  All three seemed sharp and conical in figure.

So much I saw, almost in a dream, for I had not yet recovered from my horrid fear of a minute or two before.  And then I heard the voice of Captain Smollett issuing orders.  The Hispaniola was laid a couple of points nearer the wind and now sailed a course that would just clear the island on the east.

“And now, men,” said the captain, when all was sheeted home, “has any one of you ever seen that land ahead?”

“I have, sir,” said Silver.  “I’ve watered there with a trader I was cook in.”

“The anchorage is on the south, behind an islet, I fancy?” asked the captain.

“Yes, sir; Skeleton Island they calls it.  It were a main place for pirates once, and a hand we had on board knowed all their names for it.  That hill to the nor’ard they calls the Fore-mast Hill; there are three hills in a row running south’ard—­fore, main, and mizzen, sir.  But the main—­that’s the big un, with the cloud on it—­they usually calls the Spy-glass, by reason of a lookout they kept when they was in the anchorage cleaning, for it’s there they cleaned their ships, sir, asking your pardon.”