"The silver you have promised me is only a fraction of what you raised."
"Nonsense! It's all of it! I told you last night that the rest — the main bulk of the treasure — is in Silver's fort, which is why you must take it!"
"No. You raised ten thousand dollars."
"Joseph Flint!" said Laoslahta. "I have dreamed of you for years. I feared you greatly. But now things are changing — so listen…"
"Listen to what?" said Flint, and looked round the silent camp.
"Be patient!" said Laoslahta. "Listen!"
Flint listened. But aside from a stick cracking in the smouldering fire, the wind in the trees, and of course the booming surf that you didn't even hear any more… there was no sound. He stared at Dreamer — Laoslahta, if that's who he really was — but could read nothing in the dark, emotionless face. So Flint waited, and nothing happened.
"Bah!" said Flint. "Enough of this nonsense!"
"Wait!"
"Huh!"
Flint sneered. But then: Whoof-boom! Whoof-boom! Whoof-boom! Explosions beat flat and echoing across the island. They came from the north, followed by the rattle of small-arms fire. Pure dread struck Flint. It might be the ships!
"That is your ship, Joseph Flint," said Dreamer. "One-Leg is taking your ship from you. And there is more. There are four ships in the southern anchorage. They are King George's. They will put many men ashore this day. But One-Leg has escaped them and abandoned his fort. Tell me, Joseph Flint, has One-Leg given up the treasure under his fort… or is there no treasure there?"
Flint gaped. He gasped. He'd never been so utterly taken aback in all his life.
Then much happened very fast.
Laoslahta threw off his blanket and swung at Flint with a tomahawk.
Cut-Feather — watching and waiting — leapt up and screamed a war-cry.
Flint's bosun staggered to his feet and bawled for all hands on deck.
And the whole camp awoke and reached for its arms.
Flint very nearly died. He very, very nearly died. His mind was in such turmoil that only his speed saved him.
He blocked the hatchet with his forearm: catching it below the blade and against the wood. He seized Laoslahta with his free arm — one hundred pounds of writhing, demonic fury — and over they went and down in a bitter conflict, which was pulled apart as a dozen men of each side rushed forward to save their leaders in a wild, brawling, tumbling melee of thickheaded, stumbling seaman against thick-headed stumbling Patanq, and musket against pistol, knife against tomahawk, and all the anger and hatred bursting out that had been so barely contained last night.
Flint ran. He drew cutlass and struck down all in his path. But he ran. He ran away and left twenty of his men to fight the ninety Patanq that were in the camp. He ran with all his might, keeping clear of the swampy ground, across the open scrubland, and into the cover of some trees. Once safely out of sight, he sat down. He couldn't just run. The Patanq would track him as soon as they'd finished the fight — which was still raging. He could make out screams, yells, gunfire, but the din grew less and less by the second… then triumphant whoops from the Patanq… the solitary shrieking of a man being scalped who wasn't quite dead… then silence.
Flint sat with his head in his hands.
Think! Think, think think… Was Walrus lost? What was Silver doing? Where was Selena? Had the navy landed in strength? How could that be? How would they know?
How could they find the island? How many men were left? Who was alive and who was dead? Was Dreamer — Laoslahta — dead? And how the blasted Hell did Dreamer know so much? Could his dreams be more than dreams?
Flint had little time in which to make some dreadful decisions. He was alone. He had nobody to advise him and wouldn't have listened if he had. But crooked in spirit, and warped in humanity as he was, he still had all the talent, courage and skill — and the invincible determination — to make a most splendid sea-service officer, if only it weren't for all the rest.
So Flint thought fast and made decisions.
He abandoned the island.
He abandoned the treasure — for the moment.
He fell back on pure self-preservation…
And made entirely new plans.
Chapter 36
Abandoning all pretence, the oarsmen heaved and the boats shot forward, while Israel Hands took a long match-cord from the tub where it had been smouldering, and blew on it to make the tip glow, and Silver steered for Walrus, as voices cried out from ashore, and faces appeared over her rail.
"Who goes there?" cried some fool who should've gone straight to the swivels.
"Stand by, boarders!" cried Silver. "Stand by, Mr Hands!"
"Aye-aye, sir!" they cried.
"Give a cheer now, lads!" "HUZZAH! HUZZAH!"
And Whoof-boom! went the first of Israel Hands's grenadoes, lobbed on to Walrus's decks.
"Ahhhhh!" cried someone caught in the blast.
"Huzzah! John Silver! John Silver!" cried the boarders.
Whoof-boom! Whoof-boom! Whoof-boom!
Bump, grind rumble! The launch and jolly-boat were alongside the main-chains, and lines and grapnels were curving up and over to make fast, and all hands were swarming aboard, and Sammy Hayden and Blind Pew among them, for even they had belts full of pistols and were ordered to get aboard, and fire them into the air, and join in the racket. As for Long John himself, he slung his crutch by a lanyard and was up and out of the boat like a monkey and into the chains and aboard, and stamping his one good leg aboard a good pine deck, which felt like heaven after months of sand and earth, and getting his back to the rail and his crutch under his arm, and clicking back the lock of a blunderbuss, and blasting two ounces of goose shot into the front ranks of the men — Walrus's anchor watch, a good two dozen of them — that swarmed out of the fo'c'sle hatchway in their shirts and bare legs, but armed with every weapon they could lay hands on, and Walrus's decks rolling and stinking in white powder smoke, and laid out with the dead from Israel Hands's grenadoes, and echoing to the popping crackle of pistols and the clash of steel and…
"Ah, would you, you rogue?" cried Long John as one of Walrus's people managed to wrench a pike out of the stand round the mainmast, and burst bellowing out of the tumbling, clashing fight, and aimed for tall figure of Long John Silver, and charged screaming damnation and buggery and fixed on shoving steel through Long John's breastbone and out through his spine… only to jerk and falter as Long John drew and shot him straight through the heart, dropping him dead on the deck, with the pike clattering and rattling down beside him with its triangular steel point no more than an inch from Long John's shoe, and right next to its late owner's head, which lay with its mouth open, and the spit still wet and slippery on its tongue.
"Ah, is that you down there, Johnny Saunders?" said Long John, recognising an old shipmate. "Johnny Saunders as chose to stay with Flint at the parting of the ways? For it's a bad choice you made, my cocker, and no mistake!"
And that was the end of the short, brutal fight for Walrus, with most of the anchor watch dead or dying, and the rest throwing down their arms, and some of them — recognising old shipmates as Long John had done — begging aloud for mercy.
"Chop 'em like pig-meat, boys!" cried one of Silver's men.
"No!" cried Mr Joe. "We sign bloody articles!" And he smacked the flat of his cane-cutlass against the man's chest.