"Selena!" said Bentham.
"Oh, go away."
"I got to talk to you."
She nearly killed him there and then, overwhelmed by the surge of anger, the thought blazing in her mind: Draw! Fire!
But she didn't. She'd killed in self defence, but wasn't quite ready for cold-blooded murder. So she thought a bit… and tried something new. She turned to face him.
"Flint don't like you talking to me," she said, and saw at once that she'd hit the mark. Bentham scowled, but for a moment she saw the fright in his big, smooth face.
"Damn Flint!" said Bentham. "He's nothing to me!"
"Really?" she said. "Let's see you tell him that!"
Bentham wasn't done, though. He stepped forward, then stopped about ten feet off, and raised his hands.
"Selena," he said, "we're near the end o' this voyage."
"What voyage?"
"The raising of Flint's treasure."
"Oh… that."
"There was another council earlier, with Dreamer."
"I know."
"Flint had a plan. A plan to take Silver's fort."
"Yes."
"It's clever."
"It would be, since it came from him. But don't trust your life on it."
"I won't — it's the Patanq who'll take the risks!"
"So?"
"Well… once it's done, and we're done with Silver, then my share'll make me rich, and I'm fixed on givin' up the sea life, and going ashore and — "
"Selena!"
Flint's voice. Distant. Coming from the direction of the camp.
"Better not let him find you with me," said Selena.
"Bollocks to that! I'll skin and gut the swab!"
"Really?"
Bentham turned and stared at the distinctive figure coming towards them along the beach.
"He knows I come along here," said Selena, "but he hasn't seen you yet. You've still time to make up your mind… So," she sneered, "just what are you going to do now, Mister Bentham?"
Bentham thought. Flint was the only creature who knew where the treasure was buried. Flint couldn't be killed. Not even harmed.
"I want you, Selena," he said. "I'll find a way!" And with that Bentham ran and hid in the dark woods. He hid so well that when Flint marched up there wasn't even a sniff of him, and Selena was quite alone.
Flint stepped up to her, took her hands and kissed them.
"Selena!" he said.
"What d'you want?"
"I have good news."
"What?"
"Things are going well. We're going to be rich."
"We are?"
He smiled, but only God knew what was behind the smile. Certainly Selena had no idea. Not when Flint could smile one instant and kill the next.
"Ah!" he said. "I see you are unsure. No matter, I've been unsure myself. Unsure for months."
"Have you?" she said, and prickled in fright because she guessed where this was leading.
"I thought I wasn't fit," he said. "Would you believe that? Not fit for you." And he smiled again, and spoke such words as drew Selena clean out of her depth, and into very deep waters indeed.
For Flint was arguing a case. Where a normal man — a man in love — would have pleaded and begged, Flint was beating the drum that marshalled the facts, that destroyed the opposition. He did it with great skill, magnified by his undoubted charm, and founded on the rock-bottom truth that he was master of one of the greatest treasures ever assembled in one place.
Selena was still young. She had no experience of life beyond the Fitzroy plantation, Charley Neal's liquor store, or sailing with gentlemen of fortune. By comparison, life with Flint was the best she could hope for — that was how Flint told it. That was what he was offering. And Selena wondered. She really wondered. Perhaps this was the best she could get in a vicious, cruel world, because it could be, it might be, a very comfortable best… and perhaps Flint himself had changed?
A second later she was convinced of it, for Flint was so persuasive that he succeeded in persuading even himself and took the final step, as a rush of genuine feeling overcame him.
"Marry me!" he said. "Be my wife!"
There was utter silence as each reacted to these extraordinary words. Selena could not believe that he'd actually spoken them, while Flint was astounded that something so powerful could exist within himself without him knowing, until it burst forth, passionate, spontaneous and sincere. And in that uncanny moment they stood together on the brink of the fathomless, uncharted unknown.
"Joe," she said, "where do we go from here?"
"I'll tell you," he said, "we've come to a parting, Selena!"
"What do you mean?"
"You don't think we're going to share the goods, do you? With the rest?"
"Well, yes!"
Flint laughed aloud. "God bless you, no! There's you and me, and there's those we do not want. Now listen, my little flower, for this is what I shall do with them and this is what you must do to be safe…"
And so he explained. He explained in detail, and a great shame fell upon Selena that she'd considered — even for an instant — the possibility of giving herself to Flint while John Silver still lived. Even if Long John were a thousand miles away and she might never see him again.
"Stop it!" she cried, breaking into Flint's hideous lecture. "D'you think I could be part of that? D'you think the whole world is like you? D'you think I don't know a better man? Get away from me! I despise you!"
Flint blinked. His face went white. He shook with rage. He had reached out. He'd reached for something he wanted badly, never dreaming it wasn't his for the taking, and he'd been scorched, sizzled and seared, right down to the bone.
Danny Bentham was watching from the trees, teeth grinding in rage. It was all the worse because Selena had forced Bentham to face the loathsome truth that her lusting after other women was cause for derision so far as the rest of the world was concerned.
So when Selena cried out and pulled away from Flint, and when he seized her and began to slap her face with the full swing of his arm, Danny Bentham was already running forward with drawn steel and lunging at Flint with all the strength of her seventy-seven inches and fifteen stone.
"Bastard!" she cried, but should have kept quiet. Either that or move a lot faster, for the same rapier-thrust — delivered a split-second earlier — would have sliced into Flint's spine and out through his sternum. Instead, Flint heard, and saw, and a cutlass flashed, and the rapier was parried, and Bentham stumbled and nearly went over.
"Ugh!" cried Flint, "Bang!" cried one of his pistols, and missed, and then whizzed as he threw it, spinning and empty, at Bentham's head. Clash! It was cut from the air by Bentham's blade as she stamped and came on again, stabbing at Flint's legs, and Flint jumping clear, and hacking shallow into Bentham's sword arm.
"Aaaaah!" screamed Bentham.
Bang! Flint's second pistol — pulled left-handed — shot flame, smoke and a ball that tore through Bentham's scalp, scoring blood and flesh. Then Bentham was coming forward and thrusting left and right and dripping blood, and Flint was staggering back under such an onslaught as he'd never faced before, from a huge opponent with a vastly greater reach than his own, and Bentham shrieking and roaring and cursing and damning, who'd fought men face-to-face all her life and had never been beaten, and was the full, raging, blinding equal of Flint in lunatic, animal ferocity.
But Flint recovered like lightning. Dropping his cutlass, he ducked under her swinging arm and shoulder-charged with all his strength, knocking Bentham over. The two went down struggling, pummelling, kicking, biting and gouging, and Flint pulled a razor-edged knife from his sleeve and tried repeatedly to get the point under Bentham's ribs, and was repeatedly fended off, and so searched elsewhere, and sliced sharp and accurate into Bentham's left thigh, opening the great artery that ran alongside of her femur.