"Who shall be first?" cried Flint, and levelled into the mob. "What no-seaman lubber will stand forward and deny our articles?"
Where Flint led, Billy Bones followed, and the three most feared men of Walrus's crew were now standing shoulder to shoulder. Israel Hands hesitated, then crept in beside Long John. And that was the end of the matter.
"Get 'em below and out of sight!" hissed Flint to Billy Bones, who promptly drove the women down the nearest ladder with blows from the flat of his blood-smeared cutlass. It was rough work, but Billy had no Spanish and the women no English. And it was better than repeated violent rape by over one hundred men.
"Now then, lads?" said Silver, turning the subject as hard and fast as he could. "Who'll lend a hand to get the dollars across to the old Walrus? " They growled nastily, still baulked in their lust, and Silver nudged Flint with his elbow, and said in a loud stage-whisper, "I'd say there's five hundred there for every man of us. What's your tally, Cap'n?"
"At the very least," said Flint, and stooping forward he snatched a handful of coins from an open chest and flung them at the men. That brought a small cheer and a struggle for the coins, and a merciful shift in the wind of the men's attentions.
"See 'em scrabble, John?" said Flint softly, as the men dived for the chests and fought and bit for the biggest share. They cursed and bellowed and dug. "Hogs to the trough," Flint added.
"Aye," said Silver. "They lives for the moment, mostly, like all sailormen." Then he caught Flint's eye and winked. "Thank'ee, messmate," he said. "For a while there, I didn't know who I might count on, but articles is articles."
"Indeed," said Flint, shifting uneasily under his gaze.
"Didn't know for sure you was with me," said Silver, "judging from some o' the tales that's told." Silver looked again at Flint, for some of the details of Flint's past doings were circulating aboard Walrus and it was no secret that he'd led a most ghastly and bloody mutiny on his secret island.
"Bah!" said Flint. "Take no account of tales. I stand by what I sign."
"Spoken like a man!" said Silver, deciding to judge Flint by his future behaviour — and a thousand leagues from guessing the real truth, which was that Flint's powder was thoroughly damp in this particular respect.
Then Billy Bones came puffing and blowing out through a hatchway. He plunged into the maelstrom of struggling bodies and hauled out two that he thought might be trusted: Tom Allardyce and George Merry. He slammed their heads together to gain their attention, poured fearful threats into their ears, and sent them below with two brace of pistols each, and a powder horn and a bag of bullets. Then he fought through the press to Silver and Flint.
"All secured, Cap'n!" he said to Flint and touched his hat. "I put the tarts all back in their hole, along with the dead 'un, and them two lubbers to guard 'em." He jerked his thumb to where Allardyce and Merry had gone below.
"Can you trust them?" said Flint, and Billy Bones smiled — a sight as rarely seen as a polar bear coming ashore at Portsmouth with a penguin lugging his sea-chest.
"Aye, Cap'n!" said Billy Bones. "They'll be good, for I told 'em what I'd do with 'em if they ain't."
"Good man," said Flint. "And now we'll have some order on the lower deck. They've had their fun…"
"Avast there!" said Silver. "What about them?" He pointed to the Spanish seamen huddled on the fo'c'sle.
"Huh!" said Flint, grinning. "Sssssk — " and he drew a finger across his throat.
"No!" said Silver. "Maroon 'em, or set 'em adrift in a boat with stores an' a sail. That was England's way. But spare the poor buggers' lives." He looked hard at Flint. "For we're gentlemen o' fortune, not common pirates."
"Oh?" said Flint. "And what, pray, is the difference?"
"That is," said Silver.
"Oh?" said Flint.
"Aye," said Silver.
Flint sighed. He bit his lip. He looked about him, and he reached up and stroked the parrot that, as ever, had settled back on his shoulder once the killing stopped. He paused and thought… and finally he came into harbour and dropped anchor in the recognition that Silver was whole-heartedly sincere in his determination to live by his precious articles. It was one more reluctant step towards the invisible frontier that might make a better man of Flint.
Nonetheless, Flint was clever enough to realise that, in calling himself a gentleman of fortune, Silver was trying to deny what he had become. So thought Joseph Flint, and he thought this ridiculous. But he liked Silver more than any man he'd ever met… he who'd never had such a thing as a friend.
"Have it your own way," he said finally, looking over the ship from stem to stern. "In any case, this ship's too big for our sort of buyer. They want smaller and more handy craft. For myself, I'd have burned her. But this is what we'll do…"
He paused and fished for words. "As gentlemen of fortune, and jolly companions all — " Long John quietly nodded "- we'll strip this ship of whatever we want, and then…" he shrugged his shoulders "… why, we'll let them sail away and take their blasted females with them." He turned and looked to Silver for approval, an incredible act for Joe Flint. "What say you, Long John?"
"Aye-aye, Cap'n," said Silver with a smile and with immense relief, for he would think well of Flint, if only he could. "That'd be the way, Cap'n, and no mistake."
So Walrus's men cleared Doña Inez of everything that glittered or shone, and helped themselves to everything they fancied in the way of drink and victuals. Israel Hands took some extra powder and a splendid nine-pounder for a bow- chaser: a brand-new iron gun from the Spanish Royal Foundry at Barcelona, complete with a supply of shot to go with it. The cooper wanted some water butts, which he thought held water sweeter than those in Walrus's ground tier, but he was to be disappointed. The men were already tired hauling Israel's gun aboard and they weren't going to raise sweat for mere water. The cooper complained to Flint, but merely got cursed. Flint had pushed the men as far as he dared today, and in a cause he didn't believe in.
As the sun went down over the Caribbean islands under the horizon, Walrus sailed away and left the Spaniards to mend their wounds, to bend a new suit of sails to the jury- rigged masts, and thank the Blessed Virgin for their lives.
They buried their dead too, including the poor creature who'd blown out her brains in a needless sacrifice to her chastity. Conversely, aboard Walrus all was plum duff and merriment, with healths drunk, the fiddler playing, and messes competing to dance under the stars. Flint had found a friend, and thought he'd only temporarily compromised in these absurd matters of how prisoners should be treated. John Silver, too, had found a friend, and thought he'd shown him how to steer a better course from now on.
The friendship, at least, was true. Each man found a vital something in the other that was absent from himself. Together they were stronger than ever they had been apart, and the result was the celebrated career of Captain Joseph Flint — Flint the pirate, for the world saw through such dissembling words as gentleman of fortune.
The most remarkable thing is that so few people ever knew that Captain Flint the pirate was not one man at all, but a symbiotic partnership between two, and the phenomenal success of Captain Flint lasted only as long as the partnership endured.
Chapter 18