Silver (44 page)

Natty and I then took our places side by side at the little table. Most of the candles previously set there by our crew were drowned in their wax by now, though enough remained for us to see one another’s faces, and also the silver that shone between us. Natty ran her hand along its length as if she were stroking a cat.

‘It’s warm,’ she said, and for a moment I saw again the gleam in her face that I had noticed when we stood on the White Rock.

‘Warm as blood,’ I replied, which was a little theatrical of me, but showed we should not forget the price of our good fortune.

Natty then leaned backwards until her head was resting against one of the curved windows of the roundhouse, and turned towards the island. Beyond the creamy waves breaking along the shore, cinders of the log-houses glowed with a strange pulse as the wind rose and sank across them.

‘Scotland saved my life,’ she said; her voice was expressionless, as though she might be asleep.

‘He did.’ My reply was also soft, since I could tell that she was still wandering in the trance she had entered a few hours before; I thought in this condition she might speak more easily about things she usually kept hidden.

‘Do you think he meant to sacrifice himself?’ she said.

‘His foot slipped,’ I told her. ‘I saw that. He slipped as he
jumped. But there’s no doubt what he meant to do – which was to save you.’

‘His wife died,’ Natty said, in the same empty voice.

‘You mean he had nothing more to lose?’

‘I do mean that,’ Natty said, and swung round to face me so suddenly that the glass creaked as her head pressed it. Her eyes were wide and full of tears.

‘Imagine,’ she went on. ‘Loving a person so much, your own life is worth nothing to you.’

I did not reply to this, but placed my hand on hers, where it lay on her knee, and kept it there. The fact that she did not move away, but tightened her fingers around my own, gave me confidence to ask for the complete story of her adventures after leaving the
Nightingale
. Her answer was the longest speech I had ever heard her give, and by the end we were seated in complete darkness, because our candles had entirely burned down, and the moon was obscured by clouds. I could not even see the bodies sleeping on the deck all around us.

Everything Natty told me was very candid, and very affecting, and very reassuring – except that in conclusion she said Scotland had reminded her of her father. I asked in what way. ‘Age,’ she replied. ‘Their age. If you cannot understand, you understand nothing.’ I took this to be a reproach, although it was spoken gently – and so said nothing more, but unwound my fingers from her own and sat still for a moment, looking into the night.

Throughout our long voyage together I had avoided questioning myself about my feelings for Natty – fearing, as I have said, that it would lead me to conclusions I could not easily bear, because I could not easily act on them. Now that our adventure seemed almost finished, I indulged myself a little – by wondering whether I might lose all connection with her after we had returned to London. The
thought was unendurable. I had loved her from the moment I first saw her, despite the silence I had kept. The sights we shared on our journey to Treasure Island; the revulsion we had both felt when we discovered the stockade; my jealousy of Scotland; my dread when she disappeared; my astonishment and delight when she kissed me: all these things had torn my heart open, and allowed her to occupy it. This very evening her descriptions of her imprisonment had seemed
particular to me
, because they allowed me to suffer with her; they had drawn me even closer to her.

Did Natty feel the same? The time for such a question would come later, I told myself, if it came at all – when we were safely home. For all that, it made me very glad when I suggested we might retire and, instead of giving me one of her cold stares, or insisting she wanted the chance to reflect on things alone, she rose very willingly, and took my hand as we walked across the deck together. It was only a short distance, but a slow and zigzag journey, since we had to pick our way carefully among the sleeping forms of our friends – some folded for warmth in one another’s arms, others lying apart and straight like corpses. When I reached the head of the companionway, I felt we had travelled a long way together.

Before disappearing below decks to our cabin, I looked about me for the last time. The moon had appeared again, and a breeze was sliding in from seaward, very much weaker than on previous nights, but enough to stir the trees on the island: their shiver was like water running over pebbles – very easy and gentle, which I took to be a good omen. The sky, too, now seemed to be promising an easy passage when we set sail the next day. The clouds we had seen around sunset were beginning to lift – although outlined by a distinctly greenish light, such as you might find in a sea-cave.

I was about to point this out to Natty, when a voice called from the crow’s-nest above us, giving the beautiful old sea-cry of the
watch: ‘Twelve of the clock and all’s well.’ It was Mr Stevenson, who had been keeping guard while we were thinking and talking. We returned him a friendly greeting and then went below, still without the least sense of foreboding.

Our plan next morning was for all our passengers and some of the crew to remain on board, while the rest of us formed what we called ‘the silver party’: our task was to transport the treasure from the White Rock onto the
Nightingale
by using the jolly-boat. It was strenuous work, but we never felt it. Neither did we care when the weather took a turn for the worse. We noticed the wind blowing colder and the waves cutting up more choppily – but stuck to our labour.

When each load of treasure came on board, it was solemnly carried below deck to the captain’s cabin, where Mr Tickle’s piece joined it and everything was neatly stacked. This storage involved almost half a dozen trips, so that in the end our hoard was the size of a basking shark, which in general outline it somewhat
resembled, and also in colour, being mostly a dull greenish grey. Although I joined several of these journeys, and was willing to take charge of the key to the captain’s cabin, as Bo’sun Kirkby wanted me to do, I cannot say I felt any pleasure in the work. The weight of every bar dragged at my spirits, no matter how often I reminded myself that wealth would make life easier for us all.

When we had finished our work at last, another party returned to the island charged with the task of collecting more fresh food and water for our journey. They went carefully and armed since, despite my continued assurances, they feared the slavers might take this last opportunity to attack them. But on their return they admitted the most frightening sound they had heard was a sort of
prickly silence –
which had made them feel that perhaps they were being watched, or even haunted.

I insisted once again: our enemies had chosen to live as Robinson Crusoes, and would hope for rescue by a ship that did not know their crimes as we did. Although I said this thinking their decision was perfectly reasonable (in the sense that it could easily be justified), it shocked me nonetheless. With no shelter left in the stockade, and only one another for company, and the vegetation creeping back day after day, and the continuous pounding of surf in their ears and the scalding of sun on their heads, the future of these new maroons seemed very desperate. For my own part, I should have preferred England and the gibbet.

For this reason, it did not entirely surprise me that they decided to show themselves one final time, before we left them to their solitude. This sad episode began when Bo’sun Kirkby blew his whistle and gave orders that some of our crew must begin raising our anchor, while others should climb into the rigging and set our mainsails and topsails. As was customary, the first of these
operations encouraged the singing of an old stave – which was akin to the chant they had made when we left London.

Just as I was thinking it was strange this song should bear so little resemblance to actual circumstances (our crew being in a place notably without wives and lassies), a hideous howling rose from the trees skirting the Anchorage. Several of us, including me and Natty, ran to the stern so that we could see what might be causing such a terrible lamentation – which was really as desolate as the grief of a suffering animal.

We soon had our explanation. No sooner was the anchor hanging at the bows, and the topsails creaking overhead, than the slavers we had marooned came bursting onto the shore of the Anchorage beyond the White Rock, still screaming at the top of their lungs. I counted all eight of those who had fled from us the previous day, their clothes already very soiled by their concealment in the jungle, and their hair flying untidily about their faces. At first I thought they must have changed their minds about the benefits of isolation, and were begging to be taken home to face justice. But I was mistaken. Thanks to the violent waving of their arms, and oaths that reached me in snatches, I soon realised they were not piteously crying for our return, but instead furiously dismissing us – to hell, if at all possible.

My shipmates found their rumpus entertaining, and replied with loud shouts of laughter and the opinion that hell might be rather closer to Treasure Island, where they remained, than it was to England, where we were bound. No doubt they felt able to reply so confidently because by now the
Nightingale
was turning in the current, and moving further away from the shore with every passing second. It did strike me, however, that heaven itself might agree with all of us on board, since our sails began to draw more strongly, and our speed to increase, precisely as the slavers made clear their wishes for our future. My last sight of them was all eight lifting their shirts and coat-tails, or lowering their tattered trousers if they wore such things, and showing us their behinds – as if they were already part monkey, and might be preparing to clamber into the trees that provided the backdrop for their performance.

I kept my place in the stern long after they had disappeared behind the bulk of Skeleton Island; although I had not expected to fall into a reverie at such a moment, I could not help reflecting that my departure from Treasure Island was very unlike anything I had expected. Instead of congratulating myself on how well I had completed the work begun by my father, or on how I had gained wisdom through suffering, or on how I had learned a lesson in love, I thought instead about the persistence of evil, and the thousand ways in which we are likely to be disappointed when we look for a better world. To contemplate this truth after witnessing such a strange spectacle made me smile, but it felt no less urgent for its association with something ridiculous.

When I had dwelt for long enough on these miserable conclusions, which was only a minute or two, I turned to thinking how remarkable it was that no decision had yet been taken about who should be called Captain of the
Nightingale
. Instead, we had silently agreed that every necessary end would be reached by common
consent, as if our ship were a little republic. Bo’sun Kirkby continued with the duties he knew well, which included manning the wheel. Mr Tickle gave orders about the setting of sails. And in consultation with them both, Natty and I decided which course we should take, with Mr Stevenson high in the rigging above us, calling down information and opinion as he thought fit. Matters involving the well-being of the Negroes were resolved by what I can only call a
natural process –
with some of them lending a hand about the ship, and others seizing the opportunity to do what they most needed – which was to sleep, and so begin recovering their health and strength. If this way of organising our existence sounds utopian, I cannot apologise for it.

Because I now wished I had never visited Treasure Island, I felt a strong need to watch it disappear over the horizon. Two miles offshore, I was able to catch the entire shape in a single glance: the black cliffs at the northern end, where I had walked with the captain; the ridge of high ground along the centre, climbing to the blunt summit of Spyglass Hill; and the sloping shoulder to the south, which ran towards the ruins of the stockade. I thought again of how my father had said it resembled a
dragon rearing onto its hind legs
, and realised he must have arrived at this comparison by staring at the map. From the angle I saw it, which was at sea-level in the fitful light of late afternoon, its silhouette appeared to be the jagged mouth of a cave, in which a person might shelter from the bare sky and the bare sea – and from which they might never escape. A cave that led to the underworld, in fact.

Only when this silhouette had shrunk from being such a cave, and had become a whale, then an eye, then a splinter, did it seem safe to turn my back. As I did so, believing it would be for the last time, I preferred to think the island had not simply disappeared, but had sunk down with all its stones and trees and plants and animals
until it rested on the bottom of the sea, where it would soon become sand and mud.

By this time we were less than an hour from sunset and bowling along nicely, sailing into the Caribbean Sea, with the wind directly astern and our sails full. Such smooth progress had begun to make me think that organising a ship must be very easy, and was only made to seem difficult by men who needed to add to their authority by surrounding it with mysteries. If I had known better, I would also have understood that the greenish light I had noticed twenty-four hours earlier, and now saw burning more intensely around the fringes of a few high clouds, indicated our steady progress would not continue much longer.

The first sign that all might not be well was a sudden lowering of the sky ahead and a strange contortion in the air, as if it had been snatched and twisted like a sheet. Mr Tickle, who had climbed into the rigging to chat with Mr Stevenson about how soon they would be drinking in London, shouted down a warning I did not hear, because our sails had suddenly begun floundering in a series of loud wallops and shudders. The instant they saw this, and without waiting for orders, several of our shipmates, including Mr Creed and Mr Lawson, scrambled up the rigging to help Mr Tickle collapse most of our canvas; very soon there was only a single topsail in place. When they had done this, and scuttled down onto the deck again, Mr Tickle came to the roundhouse, where Natty and I had already taken shelter. Here he explained what had occurred. The wind had entirely changed direction and was now blowing directly into our faces; we noticed as he said this that the temperature of the air had dropped several degrees, and was laced with threads of rain.