Silver (40 page)

Because Scotland himself, the snakes and the pirates were instantly tangled together, I could not see precisely what happened next – though its effects were clear enough. The canoe slid a little further
away from our boat, and began rocking violently as its occupants heaved and convulsed. Smirke tried to follow Natty’s example, dragging his large body upright in order to hurl himself into the waves – but then falling back down very sharply, as he realised the snakes had already done their work on him. Stone I never did see again as a living thing, for the reason that Scotland was actually lying on top of him with two or three snakes in his hand, appearing to feed them into the body that had caused his own so much misery.

It was this action, so deliberate and so intent, that made me change my mind and think Scotland had not lost his footing, but had always intended to leap into the canoe. In the excited lifting of his arm, with the snakes writhing between his fingers; in its eager plunging downwards onto Stone; in his furious dabbling; in the way he spread himself with legs apart, to prevent his victim from moving – in all these things I saw a purpose that was not so much desperate as passionate.

Smirke meanwhile continued to sit bolt upright, glaring and spewing curses as the canoe drifted further away from us. When the poison began to nip through him, this blaze of rage dimmed – turning first into puzzlement, then into something rather pathetic and child-like. His curses stopped, and were replaced by thoughts that became less orderly as his mind faded. ‘Damn you, Jim Hawkins, and you, John Silver,’ he said, in a choking voice. ‘Damn you, Captain Smollett and Dr Livesey and Squire Trelawny. Damn you all for leaving me here to rot.’ Here he broke off and spread his arms wide – then continued more moderately: ‘Why would you never take me home again? Why would you never take me home? I have done nothing but dream of old England. Green fields and safe harbours. Nothing like old England. Oh –’

Here his arms dropped to his side, and he sagged off the bench on which he was sitting, until he was kneeling. He achieved this
manoeuvre without making a sound, so he must have been cushioned on the bodies of Scotland and Stone. All of us in the jolly-boat were staring at him now, though whether willing him to stop or continue I could not be sure, so extraordinary was his performance. As if acknowledging this, he raised his arms again, high above his head this time, which I remembered my father saying he had done years before when beseeching the
Hispaniola
to include him in the last exodus from Treasure Island. ‘Take me with you,’ he said, in tones of the most earnest supplication. Then again, more quietly: ‘Damn you, Silver. Take me with you. Take me with you.’ When he saw none of us move, but only sit and watch, his mouth snapped shut and he toppled sideways like a sack of grain.

For a moment it seemed the canoe would be able to withstand this change of weight and stay afloat. But the body was too heavy – and soon, as though deliberating whether to live in this world or the next, the little craft leaned a little, then a little more, then capsized in such a way as to tip all its occupants into the water rather than trapping them underneath. For a minute or more the three dead men rode the waves face down, while around them the snakes sizzled like flakes of fire. Then everything was still.

By this time Natty had been dragged on board, and I was able to embrace her safe and sound.

I did not expect to hear Natty’s story immediately, nor for her to hear mine. One thing, however, could not wait to be told. When she was finally dragged from the waves with her battered black chapeau knocked from her head, and her clothes clinging to her body, she was at last revealed to all and sundry as her own true self – no longer Nat, but Natty. Mr Tickle, whom I knew best of the oarsmen, spoke for them all. ‘Glory be!’ he exclaimed, pushing his own cap back from his forehead. ‘You’ve been eating mighty strange fruit since you ran off from us, Master Nat. Either that or you’ve fooled us all along.’ He did not seem offended by the fact that he had been misled, only pleased to have saved a soul.

Natty herself seemed more put out, struggling to stand in the crowded boat, but looking around defiantly. ‘I am Mr Silver’s
daughter,’ she said, as if the spectre of her father had come to stand beside her, and was ready to crush anyone who mocked. ‘I did what I did. I disguised myself in case …’ But here her courage seemed to run out and she looked to me. Exhaustion was to blame, I understood that. And shock, too, at everything she had seen. But I suspected something else as well. Natty had grown used to her disguise, and the opportunities for freedom that it offered; now she was herself again, and felt constrained.

The least I could do was admit that I had been privy to her trick. ‘Natty thought it would be for the best,’ I said, from the place I had taken on the bench beside her. ‘It was her father’s idea – in case of
accidents
. Our captain knew, didn’t he, Natty? Captain Beamish also thought disguise was right for our journey.’

At this Natty suddenly rallied and clapped her hands. My first thought was: she wanted to fix our attention on the remaining buccaneers, because they might reappear from the trees at any minute and launch another attack against us. Our friends were certainly concerned about this, and glanced continually towards the shore, where the remainder of the slaves stood in a ragged group, still guarded by Bo’sun Kirkby and the rest. Instead, she meant us to look towards the place she had recently been hiding.

‘The White Rock!’ she called out.

I did not understand what she could mean, beyond naming the place.

‘What of it?’ I asked.

‘We must go there,’ she said quickly. ‘We must go there and you must see, you must all see.’

Such insistence surprised me very much. Natty had admired Scotland and inclined towards him. Yet now his corpse was floating in the waves a matter of yards away, she did not so much as acknowledge him. I could not comprehend this – except by supposing her
mind was injured by the dangers she had recently confronted. It was not that she felt nothing; rather that she felt too much.

As Mr Tickle and the others began to pull the dead men closer to our boat, I thought this must indeed be the true state of things – because Natty could not prevent her eyes swelling into tears when she turned and looked down into the water. Scotland’s body had rolled onto its back so that his face was plain to us, very calm and smooth. All the fury of his last few moments had vanished, though not the longer grief of his life. The scalp and shoulders were still deeply scarred, and here and there on his chest were hard lumps, each with a darker V-shape at the centre, which showed where the snakes had bitten. As Natty saw all this, and choked back tears that still threatened to fall, she pressed her hand hard enough against her mouth to leave a bluish mark when she removed it again; she then let her fingers trail in the water where they could dabble against Scotland’s neck and chest.

There was a pause and a silence, broken only by the splash of little waves as they appeared to lift Scotland towards us. In reality they did no such thing; we took responsibility for him ourselves, hoisting him into the boat with all the gentleness we could manage, and laying him at our feet. We showed no such respect for Smirke and Stone, however, but tied a rope around their ankles and dragged them roughly through the water behind us. I could not see this, because my view was blocked by friends who sat in the stern; I did notice, however, that occasionally they turned to spit at them, after my shipmates had taken up the oars again.

Natty now wiped her face and remembered to finish what she had begun a moment before.

‘The White Rock,’ she repeated, pointing to where she had just left. Mr Tickle, who was setting the rhythm for rowing, looked at me with a raised eyebrow, which meant he was asking my advice.
This sense that I had some authority, now the captain was no longer able to provide it, was new to me – but I did not hesitate. Although I understood our friends on shore were still at the mercy of the slavers, should those devils return, I calculated that the men we had left as guards would be able to protect them. Indeed, the miserable cargo dragging in our wake convinced me that for the time being we were invincible – which may have been the hubris of youth.

‘Thank you, Mr Tickle,’ I therefore said, with as much command as I could muster. ‘Back to the Rock, if you please.’

Our boat swung round, banging heavily through the waves. This change of direction produced a good deal of whispering among the friends sitting close to me, which at first I thought must be complaints that they were frightened, and cold, and weary of being cooped in our boat. When I looked at them more carefully, I saw they were in fact sharing glances of excitement, not anxiety. They knew what we were about to find.

As we made our approach, I could not help reflecting it might have been easier if we had jumped overboard and
waded
, the tide had now withdrawn so far from the Anchorage. As our oars struck the water, they disturbed small puffs of sand on the seabed. It gave an impression of quietness and safety, which was at odds with the sky above: whereas previous mornings on the island had been sunlit, today had never shaken off the storms of the previous night. The expanse of sea stretching towards the
Nightingale
, where she rode at anchor in the middle distance, was still as grey as pewter.

‘Hurry!’ said Natty, as if she had once again forgotten Scotland and the captain. It seemed almost heartless, although I forgave it by reminding myself of the reasons and turned in my seat to look where she was looking. Thanks to the low water I could now see the lowest part of the White Rock was in fact
black
rock: a blunt
tooth of the same granite as Spyglass Hill, which loomed over the island. The repeated washing of the tides had carved its lines of weakness into fantastic shapes, such as the inside of an ear, or a shell. Where it stood proud of the sea, the burnishing of salt and sun had produced a comparative pallor. Not exactly white as in its name, more a pearl grey, and very smooth, as though waves were in fact sandpaper.

Had the Rock been domed or even flat, I doubt it would have supported a single seed. But now we were about to draw alongside, I could see its whole length (about twelve foot) was in fact sharply concave. Over the centuries the edge of this bowl had been coated with all manner of dust and vegetable matter, including the fertilisations of birds, and had become a circular garden in which the ferns I have mentioned had taken root and flourished. The collection was immensely varied in so small a place. Some had leaves like slender green tongues, some were coiled like English bracken, and others were deep red, or almost black, or mixed green and yellow.

Natty cared nothing for the flora. As soon as the nose of our jolly-boat ground against the side once more, she grabbed the rope in the prow and jumped ashore, clinging to the slimy roots of a plant that hung down over the bare stone. While she secured us, I followed – and was again surprised by the behaviour of our friends in the boat, who suddenly gave a long musical sigh.

By the time I found my balance, Natty had almost disappeared into the ferns – where I immediately followed. We were now standing on the rim of the little volcano-shape, and could not go any further without slithering down its slope.

When looking from the jolly-boat, I had supposed this middle part of the Rock to be covered with the same plants that formed a kind of barricade round the edge; in fact the centre was a clearing, overhung by foliage, with a floor of dead leaves. Beneath these leaves
– showing in little gleams and fragments, where their covering had been disturbed – were dozens and dozens of bars of silver. They reminded me of something I had seen as a child, when fishing with my father near the mouth of the Thames; we had looked over the side of our boat and found a big shoal of sea bass, dawdling six feet beneath the surface of the water. With the shadows playing across, and the varying light this created, I saw the same ripple, and dapple, and silent suspension.

‘Our treasure,’ said Natty in a deep voice of reverence. ‘This is where they brought it for safe keeping, where they could watch it from the camp. This is their silver vault.’

‘Did you know?’ I asked in a whisper.

‘Not exactly,’ she said.

‘Scotland told you?’

Natty shook her head.

‘What, then?’

‘I cannot say exactly. It seemed to find me.’

‘The silver found you?’

‘Yes, the silver found me. Scotland told me it would.’

I did not reply, but looked into her eyes and saw a cold light reflected there. It was the same that I had seen in her father’s eyes, when he first explained to me what I must do; I knew she must be thinking about him, although neither of us spoke his name. In my own eyes, I think, there was the glitter of a question: was this what we had come for, so far and with so much loss? There seemed very little of it – or too much. I could not decide.

When Natty and I clambered down from the White Rock and into the jolly-boat again, several of our friends gave shouts of congratulation: these were the men who had carried the silver from its original site, and understood its value. By this time my shipmates also knew what we had seen, and so abandoned their oars to share in the discovery: we soon heard them whooping and laughing among the ferns, which shook in a kind of ecstasy. When they returned, Mr Tickle was carrying an ingot – a lovely old piece of silver the size and shape of a cottage loaf. He laid it in the bottom of the boat, beside the body of Scotland, with so much reverence it might have been a holy relic. Then he took his place beside the other oarsmen and together they set about their work.

Natty placed her hand on my arm; it looked somewhat wizened
after her plunge in the sea. ‘I’m sorry about the captain,’ she said, as though suddenly remembering what she observed seen from her perch on the Rock. ‘I saw it all; I watched everything.’