“Jim,” said Dr. Livesey, “take a seat.”

And they made me sit down at table beside them, poured me out a glass of wine, filled my hands with raisins, and all three, one after the other, and each with a bow, drank my good health, and their service to me, for my luck and courage.

“Now, captain,” said the squire, “you were right, and I was wrong. I own myself an ass, and I await your orders.”

“No more an ass than I, sir,” returned the captain. “I never heard of a crew that meant to mutiny but what showed signs before, for any man that had an eye in his head to see the mischief and take steps according. But this crew,” he added, “beats me.”

“Captain,” said the doctor, “with your permission, that’s Silver. A very remarkable man.”

“He’d look remarkably well from a yard–arm, sir,” returned the captain. “But this is talk; this don’t lead to anything. I see three or four points, and with Mr. Trelawney’s permission, I’ll name them.”

“You, sir, are the captain. It is for you to speak,” says Mr. Trelawney grandly.

“First point,” began Mr. Smollett. “We must go on, because we can’t turn turn back. If I gave the word to go about, they would rise at once. Second point, we have time before us—at least until this treasure’s found. Third point, there are faithful hands. Now, sir, it’s got to come to blows sooner or later, and what I propose is to take time by the forelock, as the saying is, and come to blows some fine day when they least expect it. We can count, I take it, on your own home servants, Mr. Trelawney?”

“As upon myself,” declared the squire.

“Three,” reckoned the captain; “ourselves make seven, counting Hawkins here. Now, about the honest hands?”

“Most likely Trelawney’s own men,” said the doctor; “those he had picked up for himself before he lit on Silver.”

“Nay,” replied the squire. “Hands was one of mine.”

“I did think I could have trusted Hands,” added the captain.

“And to think that they’re all Englishmen!” broke out the squire. “Sir, I could find it in my heart to blow the ship up.”

“Well, gentlemen,” said the captain, “the best that I can say is not much. We must lay to, if you please, and keep a bright lookout. It’s trying on a man, I know. It would be pleasanter to come to blows. But there’s no help for it till we know our men. Lay to, and whistle for a wind, that’s my view.”

“Jim here,” said the doctor, “can help us more than anyone. The men are not shy with him, and Jim is a noticing lad.”

“Hawkins, I put prodigious faith in you,” added the squire.

I began to feel pretty desperate at this, for I felt altogether helpless; and yet, by an odd train of circumstances, it was indeed through me that safety came. In the meantime, talk as we pleased, there were only seven out of the twenty–six on whom we knew we could rely; and out of these seven one was a boy, so that the grown men on our side were six to their nineteen.

“Let me get up,” said Kemp. “I’ll stop where I am. And let me sit quiet for a minute.”

He sat up and felt his neck.

“I am Griffin, of University College, and I have made myself invisible. I am just an ordinary man — a man you have known — made invisible.”

“Griffin?” said Kemp.

“Griffin,” answered the Voice. A younger student than you were, almost an albino, six feet high, and broad, with a pink and white face and red eyes, who won the medal for chemistry.”

“I am confused,” said Kemp. “My brain is rioting. What has this to do with Griffin?”

“I am Griffin.”

Kemp thought. “It’s horrible,” he said. “But what devilry must happen to make a man invisible?”

“It’s no devilry. It’s a process, sane and intelligible enough — ”

“It’s horrible!” said Kemp. “How on earth — ?”

“It’s horrible enough. But I’m wounded and in pain, and tired ... Great God! Kemp, you are a man. Take it steady. Give me some food and drink, and let me sit down here.”

Kemp stared at the bandage as it moved across the room, then saw a basket chair dragged across the floor and come to rest near the bed. It creaked, and the seat was depressed the quarter of an inch or so. He rubbed his eyes and felt his neck again. “This beats ghosts,” he said, and laughed stupidly.

“That’s better. Thank Heaven, you’re getting sensible!”

“Or silly,” said Kemp, and knuckled his eyes.

“Give me some whiskey. I’m near dead.”

“It didn’t feel so. Where are you? If I get up shall I run into you? There! all right. Whiskey? Here. Where shall I give it to you?”

The chair creaked and Kemp felt the glass drawn away from him. He let go by an effort; his instinct was all against it. It came to rest poised twenty inches above the front edge of the seat of the chair. He stared at it in infinite perplexity. “This is — this must be — hypnotism. You have suggested you are invisible.”

“Nonsense,” said the Voice.

“It’s frantic.”

“Listen to me.”

“I demonstrated conclusively this morning,” began Kemp, “that invisibility — ”

“Never mind what you’ve demonstrated! — I’m starving,” said the Voice, “and the night is chilly to a man without clothes.”

“Food?” said Kemp.

The tumbler of whiskey tilted itself. “Yes,” said the Invisible Man rapping it down. “Have you a dressing-gown?”

Kemp made some exclamation in an undertone. He walked to a wardrobe and produced a robe of dingy scarlet. “This do?” he asked. It was taken from him. It hung limp for a moment in mid-air, fluttered weirdly, stood full and decorous buttoning itself, and sat down in his chair. “Drawers, socks, slippers would be a comfort,” said the Unseen, curtly. “And food.”