Kenosha tribune & telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1856-1859, 1858-03-04
THE PERILs OF
CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS.
AND THEIR TREASURE ~
WOMEN, CHILDREN, SILVER AND JEWELS
BY CHARLES DICKENS
THE ISLAND OF SILVER STORE.

THE ISLAND OF SILVER STORE.
1t was in the year of our Lord one
!, thousand seven hundred and forty-four,
that |, Gill Davis to command, His
Mark, having then the honor to be pri-
vate in the Royal Marines, stood a-lean-
ing over the bulwarks of the armed sIoop
| Christopher Columbus, in the South
American waters off the Mosquito shore.
My lady remarks to me, before | 90
any further, that there is no such chris
tian-name as Gill, and that her confident
opinion is, that the name given me in the
baptism wherein | was made, &c, was
Gilbert. She is certain to be right, but
| never beard of it. / was a founding
child, picked up somewhere or another,
and | always understood my christian
name to be Gill. 1t is true that | was
called ellis when employed atSnorridge
Bottom betwixt Chatham and Maidstone
to brighten birds; but that had nothing
to do with the Baptism wherein | was
made, &C., and wherein number of
things promised for me by somebody,
who let me alone ever afterwards as to
performing any of them, and who,
consider, must have been the Beadle.-
Such name of ellis was entirely owing
to my cheeks, or gills, which at that
time of my life were of a raspy descrip-
ton.
Il My lady stops me again, before | 90
any further by laughing exactly in her
old way and waving the feather of her
pen at me. The action on her part, calls
to my mind as / look at her hand with
the rings on it-Well! / won't. To be
sure it will come in, Units own place
But it's always strange to me, noticing
/ the quiet hand, and noticing it (as /
have done, you know, so many timss)
Attending children and grandchildren
asleep, to think that when blood and
honor were up-there | won't! not at
present Scratch it out.
She won't scratch it out, and quite
honorable; because we have made an un-
derstanding that everything is to be ia
ken down, and that nothing that is once
taken down shall be scratched out. |
have the great misfortune not to be able
to read and write, and / am speaking my
true and faithful account of those adj
ventures, and my lady is writing it, word
! for word.
say, there | was, a-leaning over the
bulwarks Of the sloop Christopher Co
lumbus in the South American waters
off the mosquito, shore subject Of his
Gracious Majesty King George of Eng
land, and a private iii the Royal Ma
rines.
In those climates, you don't want to
do much. ! was doing nothing Twas
thinking of the shepherd (my father, |
wonder p on the hill-sides by Snorridge
Bottom, with long staff, and with a
rough white coat III all weather all the
year round, who used to let me lie in
corner of his INIT by night, and who used
to let me 90 about with him and his
sheep by day when | could get nothing
else to do, and who used to give me so
little Of his victuals and so much of his
staff, that ran away from him-which
was what he wanted all along, | expect
! to be knocked about the world in pref
erencc to Snorridge Bottom. | had been
knocked about the world for nine-and-
twenty years in all, when | stood looking
along those bright blue South American
waters. Looking after the sheperd |
may say. Watching him in half-wa-
king-dream. with my eyes half-shut, as
he, and his flock of sheep, and his two
dogs, seemed to move away from the
ships side, far away over the blue water,
and go right down into the sky,
It's rising out Of the water, steady
a voice said close to me. | had been
thinking on so, that it like woke me
with a start, though it was no stranger
voice than the voice of Harry Charker,
my own comrade.
What's rising out of the water,
steady?' l asked my comrade.
What? says he, The Island
90. The Islandl' says I, turning my
eyes towards it. True, forgot the Is
land
Forgot the port you're going to p
That's odd, ant it?'
4 1T is odd says |.
And odd he said, slowly consider
ing with himself, ant even. Is it Gill p
lie had always remark just like that
to make, and seldom another AS soon
as he had brought a thing round to what
it was not, he was satisfied. lie was one
Of the best of men, and, in a certain sort
Of a way, one with the least to say for
himself | qualify it, because, besides
being able to read and write like Quar-
ter, master, he had always one most ex-
e feeilcnt idea in his mind. That was, Du-
1ty. Upon my soul, | don't believe,
. though | admire learning beyond every
: Thing, that he could have got a better
dea out of all the books in the world, ii he
had learnt them every word, and been
the eleverest OF scholars.
NV comrade and had been quarter
ed in jamaica, and from there we had
been drafted off to the British settlement;
of Belize, lying away West and North
of the Mosquito coast AT Belize there
had been great alarm of one cruel game
OF pirates there were always more pi
rates than enough in those Caribbean
Seas,) and as they got the better OF our
English cruisers by running into out-of
the-way creeks and shadows, and then
taking the land when they were hotly
lpressed, the governor of Belize had re
ceived orders from home to keep sharr
n lookout for them along shore. Now
there was an armed sloop came once a
wear from Port Royal, Jamaica, to Tho
Island, laden with all manner of neces
saries, to eat and to drink, and TO wear
and to use in various ways, and it was
aboard of that sloop which had touched
4 ut Belize, that / was a-standing, leaning
over the bulwarks.
s The Island was occupied by a yer!
small English colony. Ithad been giyer
- =
! of its being so called, was, that the In
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