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.

21

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 everyone 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,” said he, “I’ve given Silver a broadside.  I pitched it in red-hot on purpose; and before the hour’s out, as he said, we shall be boarded.  We’re outnumbered, I needn’t tell you that, but we fight in shelter; and a minute ago I should have said we fought with discipline.  I’ve no manner of doubt that we can drub them, if you choose.”

Then he went the rounds and saw, as he said, that all was clear.

On the two short sides of the house, east and west, there were only two loopholes; on the south side where the porch was, two again; and on the north side, five.  There was a round score of muskets for the seven of us; the firewood had been built into four piles—­tables, you might say—­one about the middle of each side, and on each of these tables some ammunition and four loaded muskets were laid ready to the hand of the defenders.  In the middle, the cutlasses lay ranged.

“Toss out the fire,” said the captain; “the chill is past, and we mustn’t have smoke in our eyes.”

The iron fire-basket was carried bodily out by Mr. Trelawney, and the embers smothered among sand.