Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island by Stevenson Robert Louis
Author:Stevenson, Robert Louis [Stevenson, Robert Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
XVII
Narrative Continued by the Doctor: The Jolly-boatâs Last Trip
THIS FIFTH TRIP WAS quite different from any of the others. In the first place, the little gallipotad of a boat that we were in was gravely overloaded. Five grown men, and three of themâTrelawney, Redruth, and the captainâover six feet high, was already more than she was meant to carry. Add to that the powder, pork, and bread-bags. The gunwale was lip-ping astern. Several times we shipped a little water, and my breeches and the tails of my coat were all soaking wet before we had gone a hundred yards.
The captain made us trim the boat, and we got her to lie a little more evenly. All the same, we were afraid to breathe.
In the second place, the ebb was now makingâa strong rippling current running westward through the basin, and then southâard and seaward down the straits by which we had entered in the morning. Even the ripples were a danger to our overloaded craft, but the worst of it was that we were swept out of our true course and away from our proper landing-place behind the point. If we let the current have its way we should come ashore beside the gigs, where the pirates might appear at any moment.
âI cannot keep her head for the stockade, sir,â said I to the captain. I was steering, while he and Redruth, two fresh men, were at the oars. âThe tide keeps washing her down. Could you pull a little stronger?â
âNot without swamping the boat,â said he. âYou must bear up, sir, if you pleaseâbear up until you see youâre gaining.â
I tried and found by experiment that the tide kept sweeping us westward until I had laid her head due east, or just about right angles to the way we ought to go.
âWeâll never get ashore at this rate,â said I.
âIf itâs the only course that we can lie, sir, we must even lie it,â returned the captain. âWe must keep upstream. You see, sir,â he went on, âif once we dropped to leeward of the landing-place, itâs hard to say where we should get ashore, besides the chance of being boarded by the gigs; whereas, the way we go the current must slacken, and then we can dodge back along the shore.â
âThe currentâs less aâready, sir,â said the man Gray, who was sitting in the fore-sheets; âyou can ease her off a bit.â
âThank you, my man,â said I, quite as if nothing had happened, for we had all quietly made up our minds to treat him like one of ourselves.
Suddenly the captain spoke up again, and I thought his voice was a little changed.
âThe gun!â said he.
âI have thought of that,â said I, for I made sure he was thinking of a bombardment of the fort. âThey could never get the gun ashore, and if they did, they could never haul it through the woods.â
âLook astern, doctor,â replied the captain.
We had entirely forgotten the long nine; and there, to
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