 Treasure Island, by Robert Lewis Stevenson. To the hesitating purchaser, if sailor tales to sailor tunes, storm an adventure, heat and cold, if schooners, islands and maroons, and buccaneers and buried gold, and all the old romance retold, exactly in the ancient way, can please as me they pleased of old the wiser youngsters of today, so be it and fall on, if not, if studious youth no longer crave, his ancient appetites forgot, Kingston nor Ballantine the brave, or Cooper of the Wooden Wave, so be it also, and may I and all my pirates share the grave, where these and their creations lie. To Lloyd Osbourne. An American gentleman, in accordance with whose classic taste the following narrative has been designed. It is now, in return for numerous delightful hours, and with the kindest wishes dedicated by his affectionate friend, the author. Part 1. The Old Buccaneer. Chapter 1. At the Admiral Benbow. Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen, having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back, but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of Grace, 17, and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow in, and the brown old seamen with the sabercut, first took up his lodging under our roof. I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the indoor, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow. A tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred with dirty, broken nails, and the sabercut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards. Fifty men on a dead man's chest, yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum, in the high old, tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstone bars. When he rapped on the door with a bit of a stick like a hand-spike that he carried, and when my father appeared called roughly for a glass of rum. This when it was brought to him he drank slowly like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste, and still looking about him at the cliffs, and up at our sign-board. This is a handy-cove, says he at length, and a pleasant-citiated grog-shop. Much company, mate? My father told him, known, very little company, the more was the pity. Well, then, says he, this is the birth for me. Here you, matey! He cried to the man who trungled the barrow. Bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit, he continued. I'm a plain man, ramen, bacon, and eggs is what I want, and that head up there to watch ships off. What you munk call me? You munk call me captain. Oh, I see what you're at. There! And he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. You can tell me when I've worked through that, said he, looking as fierce as a commander. And indeed, bad as his clothes were, and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like a mate or a skipper, accustomed to be a bade or to strike. The man who came with the barrow told us the male had set him down the morning before at the Royal George, that he'd inquired what inns were along the coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of residence. And that was all we could learn of our guest. He was a very silent man by custom. All day he hung round the cove or upon the cliffs with a brass telescope. All evening he sat in the corner of the parlour next to the fire, and drank rum and water, very strong. Finally he would not speak when spoken to, only look up sudden and fierce, and blow through his nose like a fog-horn, and we and the people who came about our house soon learned to let him be. Every day when he came back from his stroll he would ask if any seaferry men had gone by along the road. At first we thought it was the want of company of his own kind that made him ask this question, but at last we began to see he was desirous to avoid them. When a seamen put up the Admiral Benbow, and now and then some did, making by the coast road for Bristol, he would look in at him through the curtained door before he entered the parlour, and he was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any such was present. For me, at least, there was no secret about the matter, for I was, in a way, a sharer in his alarms. He had taken me aside one day, and promised me a silver forpony on the first of every month if I would only keep my weather-eye open for a seaferry man with one leg, and let him know the moment he appeared. Often enough when the first of the month came round, and I applied to him for my wage, he would only blow through his nose at me, and stare me down, but before the week was out he was sure to think better of it, bring me my forpony piece, and repeat his orders to look out for the seaferry man with one leg. How that personage haunted my dreams, I need scarcely tell you. On stormy nights when the wind shook the four corners of the house, and the surf roared along the cove and up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions. Now the leg would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip. Now he was a monstrous kind of a creature who never had but one leg, and that in the middle of his body. To see him leap and run and pursue me over the hedge and ditch was the worst of nightmares, and altogether I paid pretty dear for my monthly forpony piece in the shape of these abominable fantasies. But though I was so terrified by the idea of the seaferry man with one leg, I was far less afraid of the captain himself that anybody else who knew him. There were nights when he took a great deal more ramen water than his head would carry, and then he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked old wild sea songs, minding nobody. But sometimes he would call for glasses round and force all the trembling company to listen to his stories, or bear a chorus to his singing. Often I have heard the house shaking with yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum, all the neighbours joining in for dear life with the fear of death upon them, and each singing louder than the other to avoid remark, for in these fits he was the most overriding companion ever known. He would slap his hand on the table for silence all around. He would fly up in a passion of anger at a question, or sometimes because none was put, and so he judged the company was not following his story, nor would he allow anyone to leave the inn till he had drunk himself sleepy and reeled off to bed. His stories were what frightened people worst of all, dreadful stories they were about hanging and walking the plank, and storms at sea, and the dry tortugas, and wild deeds and places on the Spanish main. By his own account he must have lived his life among some of the wickedest men that God ever allowed upon the sea, and the language in which he told these stories shocked our plain country people almost as much as the crimes that he described. My father was always saying the inn would be ruined, for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannized over and put down, and sent shivering to their beds. But I really believe his presence did us good. People were frightened at the time, but on looking back they rather liked it. It was a fine excitement in a quiet country life, and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to admire him, calling him a true sea-dog, and a real old salt, and such like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England terrible at sea. In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us, for he kept on staying week after week, and at last month after month, so that all the money had been long exhausted, and still my father never plucked up the heart to insist on having more. If ever he mentioned it, the captain blew through his nose so loudly that you might say that he roared, and stared my poor father out of the room. I have seen him ringing his hands after such a rebuff, and I am sure the annoyance and the terror he lived in must have greatly hastened his early and unhappy death. All the time he lived with us, the captain made no change whatever in his dress, but to buy some stockings from a hawker. One of the cocks of his hat, having fallen down, he let it hang from that day forth, though it was a great annoyance when it blew. I remember the appearance of his coat, which he patched himself upstairs in his room, and which, before the end, was nothing but patches. He never wrote or received a letter, and he never spoke with any but the neighbours, and with these, for the most part, only when drunk on rum. The great sea-chest none of us had ever seen open. He was only once crossed, and that was toward the end when my father was far gone in a decline that took him off. Dr. Livesey came late one afternoon to see the patient, took a bit of dinner from my mother, and went into the parlour to smoke a pipe, until his horse should come down from the hamlet, for we had no stabling at the old Benbow. I followed him in, and I remember observing the contrast, the neat bright doctor with his powder as white as snow, and his bright black eyes and pleasant manners, made with the cultish country folk, and above all that filthy, heavy, bleared scarecrow of a pirate of ours, sitting far gone in rum with his arms on the table. Finally he, the captain that is, began to pipe his eternal song. Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum, drink, and the devil have done for the rest, yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum. At first I had supposed the dead man's chest to be that identical big box of his upstairs in the front room, and the thought had been mingled in my nightmares with that of the one-legged seafaring man. But by this time we had all long ceased to pay any particular notice to the song. It was new that night to nobody but Dr. Livesey, and on him I observed it did not produce an agreeable effect, for he looked up for a moment quite angrily before he went on with his talk to old Taylor, the gardener, on a new cure for rheumatics. In the meantime the captain gradually brightened up at his own music, and at last flapped his hand upon the table before him in a way we all knew to mean silence. The voices stopped at once, all but Dr. Livesey's. He went on as before, speaking clear and kind, and drawing briskly at his pipe between every word or two. The captain glared at him for a while, flapped his hand again, glared still harder, and at last broke out with a villainous oath, "'Silence there between decks!' "'You were addressing me, sir,' said the doctor, and when the ruffian had told him with another oath that this was so, replied, "'I have only one thing to say to you, sir, that if you keep on drinking rum the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel.'" The old fellow's fury was awful. He sprang to his feet, drew and opened a sailor's clasp-knife, and, balancing it open on the palm of his hand, threatened to pin the doctor to the wall. The doctor never so much as moved. He spoke to him as before over his shoulder, and in the same tone of voice rather high so that all the room might hear, but perfectly calm and steady. "'If you do not put that knife this instant into your pocket, I promise, upon my honour, you shall hang at the next ascises.'" Then followed a battle of looks between them, but the captain soon knuckled under, put up his weapon, and resumed his seat grumbling like a beaten dog. "'And now, sir,' continued the doctor, "'since I now know there's such a fellow in my district, you may count I'll have an eye upon you day and night. I'm not a doctor only, I'm a magistrate, and if I catch a breath of complaint against you, it's only for a piece of incivility like to-night's. I'll take effect to all means to have you hunted down and routed out of this. Let that suffice!" Soon after Dr. Livesey's horse came to the door, and he rode away, but the captain held his peace that evening, and for many evenings to come. End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Black Dog Appears and Disappears. It was not very long after this that there occurred the first of the mysterious events that rid us at last of the captain, though not, as you will see, of his affairs. It was a bitter cold winter with long hard frosts and heavy gales, and it was plain from the first that my poor father was little likely to see the spring. He sank daily, and my mother and I had all the inn upon our hands, and were kept busy enough without paying much regard to our unpleasant guest. It was one January morning, very early, a pinching frosty morning. The cove all grey with hoarfrost, the ripple lapping softly on the stones, the sun still low, and only touching the hilltops, and shining far to seaward. The captain had risen earlier than usual, and set out down the beach, his cutlass swinging under the broad skirts of the old blue coat, his brass telescope under his arm, his hat tilted back upon his head. I remember his breath hanging like smoke in his wake as he strode off, and the last sound I heard of him as he turned the big rock was a loud snort of indignation, as though his mind was still running upon Dr. Livesey. Well, mother was upstairs with father, and I was laying the breakfast table against the captain's return, when the parlor door opened, and a man stepped in on whom I had never set my eyes before. He was a pale, tallowy creature, wanting two fingers of the left hand, and though he wore a cutlass, he did not look much like a fighter. I had always my eyes open for seafaring men, with one leg or two, and I remember this one puzzled me. He was not salary, and yet he had a smack of the sea about him, too. I asked him what was for his service, and he said he would take rum, but as I was going out of the room to fetch it, he sat down upon a table, and motioned to me to draw near. I paused where I was with my napkin in my hand. Come here, sonny," said he, come nearer here. I took a step nearer. Is this here table for my mate Bill? He asked with a kind of leer. I told him I did not know his mate Bill, and this was for a person who stayed at our house whom we called the captain. Well, said he, my mate Bill would be called the captain like as not. He has a cut on one cheek, and a mighty pleasant way with him, particularly in drink, as my mate Bill. We'll put it for argument like that your captain has a cut on one cheek, and we'll put it, if you like, that that cheek's the right one. Ah, well, I told you. Now is my mate Bill in this here house? I told him he was out walking. Which way, sonny? Which way is he gone? And when I pointed out the rock and told him how the captain was likely to return, and how soon, and answered a few other questions, ah, said he, this'll be as good as drink to my mate Bill. The expression of his face as he said these words was not at all pleasant, and I had my own reasons for thinking that the stranger was mistaken, even supposing he meant what he said, but it was no affair of mine, I thought, and besides it was difficult to know what to do. The stranger kept hanging about just inside the indoor, peering round the corner like a cat waiting for a mouse. Once I stepped out myself into the road, but he immediately called me back. And as I did not obey quick enough for his fancy, a most horrible change came over his tallowy face, and he ordered me in with an oath that made me jump. As soon as I was back again he returned to his former manner, half thawning, half sneering, patted me on the shoulder, and told me I was a good boy, and he had taken quite a fancy to me. I have a son of my own, said he, as like to you as two blocks, and he's all the pride of my art. But the great thing for boys is discipline, sonny, discipline. Now, if you had sailed along of Bill, you wouldn't have stood there to be spoke to twice, not you. That was never Bill's way, nor the way of Sitch has sailed with him. And here, sure enough, is my mate Bill, with a spy-glass under his arm, bless his old art to be sure. You and me just go back into the parlour, sonny, and get behind the door, and we'll give Bill a little surprise, bless his heart, I say, again. So saying, the stranger backed along with me into the parlour, and put me behind him into the corner, so that we were both hidden by the open door. I was very uneasy and alarmed, as you may fancy, but it rather added to my fears to observe that the stranger was certainly frightened himself. He cleared the hilt of his cutlass, and loosened the blade in the sheath. And all the time we were waiting there, he kept swallowing, as if he felt what we used to call a lump in the throat. At last in strode the captain, slam the door behind him without looking to the right or left, and march straight across the room to where his breakfast waited him. Bill, said the stranger, in a voice that I thought he had tried to make bold and big. The captain spun round on his heel and fronted us. All the brown had gone out of his face, and even his nose was blue, and he had the look of a man who sees a ghost, or the evil one, or something worse, if anything can be. And upon my word I felt sorry to see him all in a moment turn so old and sick. Come, Bill, you know me, you know an old shipmate, Bill, surely, said the stranger. The captain made a sort of gasp. Black dog, said he. And who else? returned the other, getting more at his ease. Black dog as ever was, come for to see his old shipmate, Billy, at the Admiral Bembo in. Oh, Bill, Bill, we have seen a sight of times us too, since I lost them two talons. Holding up his mutilated hand. Now look here, said the captain. You've run me down, here I am. Well then, speak up, what is it? That's you, Bill, returned black dog. You're in the right of it, Billy. I'll have a glass of rum from this dear child here, as I've took such a like into, and we'll sit down, if you please, and talk square like old shipmates. When I returned with the rum they were already seated on either side of the captain's breakfast table. Black dog next to the door and sitting sideways so as to have one eye on his shipmate and one as I thought on his retreat. He bade me go and leave the door wide open. None of your keyholes for me, Sanny, he said, and I left them together and retired into the bar. For a long time, though, I certainly did my best to listen. I could hear nothing but low gabbling, and at last the voices began to grow higher, and I could pick up a word or two, mostly oaths, from the captain. No, no, no, no, and an end of it, he cried once, and again, if it comes to swinging, swing, oh, say I. Then all of a sudden there was a tremendous explosion of oaths and other noises. The chair and table went over in a lump, a clash of steel followed, and then a cry of pain, and the next instant I saw Black Dog in full flight, and the captain hotly pursuing, both withdrawn cutlasses, and the former streaming blood from the left shoulder. Just at the door the captain aimed at the fugitive one last tremendous cut, which would certainly have split him to the chin had it not been intercepted by our big signboard of Admiral Benbow. You may see the notch on the lower side of the frame to this day. That blow was the last of the battle. Once out upon the road Black Dog, in spite of his wound, showed a wonderful clean pair of heels, and disappeared over the edge of the heel in half a minute. The captain, for his part, stood staring at the signboard like a bewildered man. Then he passed his hand over his eyes several times, and at last turned back into the house. Jim, says he, rum. And as he spoke he reeled a little, and caught himself with one hand against the wall. Are you hurt? cried I. Rum! he repeated. I must get away from here. Rum! rum! I ran to fetch it, but I was quite unsteadied by all that had fallen out, and I broke one glass and fouled the tap, and while I was still getting in my own way I heard a loud fall in the parlour, and running in beheld the captain lying full length upon the floor. At the same instant my mother, alarmed by the cries and fighting, came running downstairs to help me. Between us we raised his head. He was breathing very loud and hard, but his eyes were closed, and his face was a horrible colour. Dear, deary me! cried my mother, what a disgrace upon the house, and your poor father sick! In the meantime we had no idea what to do to help the captain, nor any other thought, but that he had got his death hurt in the scuffle with the stranger. I got the rum, to be sure, and tried to put it down his throat, but his teeth were tightly shut, and his jaws as strong as iron. It was a happy relief to us when the door opened, and Dr. Livesey came in on his visit to my father. Oh, doctor! we cried. What shall we do? Where is he wounded? Wounded? A fiddlestick's end, said the doctor. No more wounded than your eye. The man has had a stroke, as I warned him. Now, Mrs. Hawkins, just you run upstairs to your husband and tell him, if possible, nothing about it. For my part I must do my best to save this fellow's trebly worthless life, and, Jim, you get me a basin. When I got back with the basin the doctor had already ripped up the captain's sleeve and exposed his great sinewy arm. It was tattooed in several places. Hears luck, a fair wind, and billy bones his fancy, were very neatly and clearly executed on the forearm, and up near the shoulder there was a sketch of a gallows and a man hanging from it, done, as I thought, with great spirit. Prophetic, said the doctor, touching this picture with his finger, and now, master billy bones, if that be your name, we'll have a look at the colour of your blood. Jim, he said, are you afraid of blood? No, sir, said I. Well then, said he, you hold the basin, and with that he took his lancet and opened a vein. A great deal of blood was taken before the captain opened his eyes and looked mysteriously about him. First he recognised the doctor with an unmistakable frown, then his glance fell upon me, and he looked relieved. But suddenly his colour changed, and he tried to raise himself, crying, Where's Black Dog? There's no Black Dog here, said the doctor, except what you have on your own back. You have been drinking rum. You have had a stroke, precisely as I told you, and I have just very much against my own will, dragged you head foremost out of the grave. Now, Mr. Bones, that's not my name, he interrupted. Much I care, returned the doctor. It's the name of a buccaneer of my acquaintance, and I'll call you by it for the sake of shortness, but what I have to say to you is this. One glass of rum won't kill you, but if you take one you'll take another and another, and I'll stake my wig if you don't break off short, you'll die. Do you understand that? Die, and go to your own place, like the man in the Bible. Come now, make an effort, I'll help you to your bed for once. Between us, with much trouble, we managed to hoist him upstairs, and laid him on his bed, where his head fell back on the pillow as if he was almost fainting. Now, mind you all, said the doctor, I clear my conscience, the name of rum for you is death. And with that he went off to see my father, taking me with him by the arm. This is nothing, he said, as soon as he had closed the door. I have drawn blood enough to keep him quiet a while. He should lie for a week where he is. That is the best thing for him and you. But another stroke would settle him. End of Chapter 2 Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson Chapter 3 The Black Spot About noon I stopped at the captain's door with some cooling drinks and medicines. He was lying very much as we had left him, only a little higher, and he seemed both weak and excited. Jim, he said, you're the only one here that's worth anything, and you know I've always been good to you. Never a month, but I've given you a silver forpenny for yourself. And now you see, mate, I'm pretty low and deserted by all, and Jim, you'll bring me one noggin of rum now, won't you, matey? The doctor, I began. But he broke in, cursing the doctor in a feeble voice but heartily. Doctors is all swabs, he said. And that doctor there, why, what does he know about seafaring men? I've been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with yellow jack, and the blessed land are heaving like the sea with earthquakes. What do the doctor know of lands like that? And I've lived on rum, I can tell you. It's been meat and drink, a man and wife to me, and if I'm not to have my rum now, I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore. My blood'll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab. And he ran on again for a while with curses. Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges. He continued in the pleading tone. I can't keep him still, not I. I haven't had a drop this blessed day. That doctor's a fool, I tell you. If I don't have a drain of rum, Jim, I'll have the horrors. I've seen some on him already. I've seen old Flint in the corner there behind you. Plain as print I've seen him. And if I get the horrors, I'm a man that has lived rough, and I'll raise cane. Your doctor himself said one glass wouldn't hurt me. I'll give you a golden guinea for a noggin, Jim. He was growing more and more excited, and this alarmed me for my father, who was very low that day, needed quiet. Besides, I was reassured by the doctor's words, now quoted to me, and rather offended by the offer of a bribe. I want none of your money, said I, but watch you owe my father. I'll get you one glass and no more. When I brought it to him, he seized it greedily and drank it out. Aye, aye, said he. That's some better sure enough. And now, matey, did that doctor say how long I was to lie here in this old birth? A week at least, said I. Thunder! he cried. A week. I can't do that. They'd have the black spot on me by then. The Lubbers is going to get the wind of me this blessed moment. Lubbers has couldn't keep what they got, and want to nail what is another's. Is that seemingly behaving now, I want to know. But I'm a saving soul. I never wasted good money of mine or lost it neither. And I'll trick him again. I'm not afraid on them. I'll shake out another reef, matey, and dandel him again. As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed with great difficulty, holding to my shoulder with a grip that almost made me cry out, and moving his legs like so much dead weight. His words, spirited as they were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of the voice in which they were uttered. He paused when he had got into a sitting position on the edge. That doctor's done me, he murmured. My ears is singing. Lay me back. Before I could do much to help him, he had fallen back again to his former place, where he lay for a while silent. Jim, he said at length, you saw that seafaring man today. Black dog? I asked. Ah, black dog, said he. He's a badden. But there's worse that put him on. If I can't get away, know how. And they tipped me the black spot, mind you. It's my old sea-chest thereafter. You get on a horse. You can, can't you? Well then, you get on a horse and go to— Well, yes, I will—to that eternal doctor-swab, and tell him to pipe all hands, magistrates, and sitch, and he'll lay him aboard at the Admiral Bembo, all old Flint's crew, man and boy, all on him that's left. I was first mate, I was, old Flint's first mate, and I'm the only one who knows the place. He gave it me to Savannah, when he lay a dine, like as if I was to now, you see. But you won't peach unless they got the black spot on me, or unless you see that black dog again, or a seafaring man with one leg, Jim, him, above all. But what is the black spot, Captain? I asked. That's a summons, mate. I'll tell you if they get that. But you'll keep your weather eye open, Jim, and I'll share with you equals upon my honour. He wanted a little longer his voice growing weaker, but soon after I had given him his medicine, which he took like a child with the remark, If ever a seaman wanted drugs it's me. He fell at last into a heavy, swoon-like sleep in which I left him. What I should have done had all gone well, I do not know. Probably I should have told the whole story to the doctor, for I was in mortal fear lest the Captain should repent of his confessions and make an end of me. But as things fell out my poor father died quite suddenly that evening, which put all other matters on one side. Our natural distress, the visits of the neighbours, the arranging of the funeral, and all the work of the inn to be carried on in the meanwhile, kept me so busy that I had scarcely time to think of the Captain, far less to be afraid of him. He got downstairs next morning to be sure, and had his meals as usual though he ate little, and had more I'm afraid than his usual supply of rum, for he helped himself out of the bar, scowling and blowing through his nose, and no one dared to cross him. On the night before the funeral he was as drunk as ever, and it was shocking in that house of mourning to hear him singing away his ugly old sea-song, but weak as he was we were all in fear of death for him, and the doctor was suddenly taken up with the case many miles away, and was never near the house after my father's death. I have said the Captain was weak, and indeed he seemed rather to grow weaker than to regain his strength. He clambered up and downstairs, and went from the parlour to the bar and back again, and sometimes put his nose out of door to smell the sea, holding on to the walls as he went for support, and breathing hard and fast like a man on a steep mountain. He never particularly addressed me, and it is my belief that he had as good as forgotten his confidences, but his temper was more flighty, and allowing for his bodily weaknesses more violent than ever. He had an alarming way now when he was drunk of drawing his cutlass and laying it bare before him on the table. But with all that he minded people less, and seemed shut up in his own thoughts and rather wandering. Once, for instance, to our extreme wonder, he piped up to a very different air, a kind of country love-song that he must have learned in his youth before he had begun to follow the sea. So things passed until the day after the funeral, and about three o'clock of a bitter, foggy, frosty afternoon I was standing at the door for a moment, full of sad thoughts about my father, when I saw someone drawing slowly near along the road. He was plainly blind, for he tapped before him with a stick, and wore a great green shade over his eyes and nose, and he was hunched as if with age or weakness, and wore a huge old tattered sea-cloak with a hood that made him appear positively deformed. I never saw in my life a more dreadful-looking figure. He stopped a little from the ear-nand, raising his voice in an old sing-song, addressed the air in front of him. Will any kind friend inform a poor, blind man who has lost the precious sight of his eyes in the gracious defence of his native country, England, and God bless King George, where or in what part of this country he may now be? You're at the Admiral Bembo, Blackhill Cove, my good man, said I. I hear a voice, said he, a young voice. Will you give me your hand, my kind, young friend, and lead me in? I held up my hand, and the horrible, soft-spoken, eyeless creature gripped it in a moment like a vice. I was so much startled that I struggled to withdraw, but the blind man pulled me close to him with a single action of his arm. Now, boy, he said, take me in to the captain. Sir, said I, upon my word I dare not. Oh, he sneered. That's it. Take me in, straight, or I'll break your arm. He gave it as he spoke a wrench that made me cry out. Sir, said I, it is for yourself, I mean. The captain is not what he used to be. He sits with a drawn cutlass. Another gentleman, come now, march! Interrupted he, and I never heard a voice so cruel and cold, and ugly as that blind man's. It cowed me more than the pain, and I began to obey him at once, walking straight in at the door and towards the parlour, where the sick old buccaneer was sitting, dazed with rum. The blind man clung close to me, holding me in one iron fist, and leaning almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. Leave me straight up to him, and when I'm in view, cry out, Here's a friend for you, Bill. If you don't, I'll do this. And with that he gave me a twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that I was so utterly terrified by the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the captain, and as I opened the parlour door, cried out the words he had ordered in a trembling voice. The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look the rum went out of him and left him staring sober. The expression of his face was not so much of terror as of mortal sickness. He made a movement to rise, but I do not believe he had enough force left in his body. Now, Bill, sit where you are, said the beggar. If I can't see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take his left hand by the wrist, and bring it near to my right. We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from the hollow of the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain's which closed upon it instantly. And now that's done, said the blind man, and at the words he suddenly left hold of me, and with incredible accuracy and nimbleness skipped out of the parlour and into the road, where as I stood motionless I could hear his stick go tap-tap-tapping into the distance. It was some time before either I or the captain seemed to gather our senses, but at length and about the same moment I released his wrist, which I was still holding, and he drew in his hand and looked sharply into the palm. Ten o'clock, he cried, six hours, we'll do him yet, and he sprang to his feet. Even as he did so he reeled, put his hand to his throat, stood swaying for a moment, and then with a peculiar sound fell from his whole height, faced foremost to the floor. I ran to him at once, calling to my mother, but haste was all in vain. The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy. It is a curious thing to understand, for I had certainly never liked the man, though of late I had begun to pity him, but soon as I saw that he was dead, I burst into a flood of tears. It was the second death I had known, and the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart. Chapter 4 The Sea-Chest I lost no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and perhaps should have told her long before, and we saw ourselves at once in a difficult and dangerous position. Some of the man's money, if he had any, was certainly due to us, but it was not likely that our captain's shipmates, above all the two specimens seen by me, Black Dog and the Blind Beggar, would be inclined to give up their booty in payment of the dead man's debts. The captain's order to mount at once and ride for Dr. Livesey would have left my mother alone and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house. The fall of coals in the kitchen great, the very ticking of the clock filled us with alarm. The neighbourhood to our ears seemed haunted by approaching footsteps, and what between the dead body of the captain on the pile of floor and the thought of that detestable blind beggar hovering near at hand and ready to return, there were moments when, as the saying goes, I jumped in my skin for terror. Something must speedily be resolved upon, and it occurred to us at last to go forth together and seek help in the neighbouring hamlet. No sooner said than done. Bareheaded as we were, we ran out at once in the gathering evening and the frosty fog. The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away, though out of view on the other side of the next cove, and what greatly encouraged me it was in an opposite direction from that whence the old blind man had made his appearance and whether he had presumably returned. We were not many minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped to lay hold of each other and harken, but there was no unusual sound nothing but the low wash of the ripple and the croaking of the inmates of the wood. It was already candlelight when we reached the hamlet, and I shall never forget how much I was cheered to see the yellow shine in doors and windows, but that, as it proved, was the best help we were likely to get in that quarter. For, you would have thought men would have been ashamed of themselves. No soul would consent to return with us to the Admiral Bembo. The more we told of our troubles, the more man, woman, and child they clung to the shelter of their houses. The name of Captain Flint, though it was strange to me, was well enough known to some there and carried a great weight of terror. Some of the men who had been to field work on the far side of the Admiral Bembo remembered, besides, to have seen several strangers on the road, and, taking them to be smugglers, to have bolted away, and one at least had seen a little lugger in what we called Kitt's Hole. For that matter, any one who was a comrade of the captains was enough to frighten them to death, and the short and the long of the matter was that while we could get several who were willing to ride to Dr. Lifses, which lay in another direction, not one would help us to defend the inn. They say cowardice is infectious, but then argument is, on the other hand, a great emboldener, and so when each had said his say, my mother made them a speech. She would not, she declared, lose money that belonged to her fatherless boy. If none of the rest of you dare, she said, Jim and I dare, back we will go, the way we came, and small thanks to you big, hulking, chicken-hearted men, we'll have that chest open if we die for it, and I'll thank you for that bag, Mrs. Crossley, to bring back our lawful money in. Of course I said I would go with my mother, and of course they all cried out at our full hardiness, but even then not a man would go along with us. All they would do was to give me a loaded pistol, lest we were attacked, and to promise to have horses ready-saddled in case we were pursued on our return, while one lad was to ride forward to the doctors in search of armed assistance. My heart was beating fiercely when we two set forth in the cold night upon this dangerous venture. A full moon was beginning to rise, and peered readily through the upper edges of the fog, and this increased our haste, for it was plain, before we came forth again, that all would be brighter's day, and our departure exposed to the eyes of any watchers. We slipped along the hedges, noiseless and swift, nor did we see anything to increase our terrors till to our huge relief. The door of the Admiral Benbow had closed behind us. I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood and panted for a moment in the dark, alone in the house with the dead captain's body. Then my mother got a candle in the bar, and, holding each other's hands, we advanced into the parlour. He lay as we had left him, on his back, with his eyes open, and one arm stretched out. "'Draw down the blind, Jim,' whispered my mother. "'They might come and watch outside. And now,' said she, when I had done so, "'we have to get the key off that. And who's to touch it, I should like to know?' And she gave a kind of sob, as she said the words. I went down on my knees at once. On the floor, close to his hand, there was a little round of paper, blackened on one side. I could not doubt that this was the black spot. And taking it up, I found written on the other side, in a very good, clear hand, this short message. You have till ten to-night.' "'He had till ten, mother,' said I, and just as I said it, our old clock began striking. This sudden noise startled us shockingly, but the news was good, for it was only six. "'Now, Jim,' she said, that key. I felt in his pockets, one after another. A few small coins, a thimble, and some thread-and-big needles. A piece of pigtail tobacco, bitten away at the end, his gully with the crooked handle. A pocket compass and a tinder-box, for all that they contained. And I began to despair. "'Perhaps it's round his neck,' suggested my mother. Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open his shirt at the neck, and there, sure enough, hanging to a bit of tarry string which I cut with his own gully, we found the key. At this triumph we were filled with hope, and hurried downstairs without delay to the little room where he had slept so long, and where his box had stood since the day of his arrival. It was like any other seaman's chest on the outside. The initial bee burned on top of it with a hot iron, and the corners somewhat smashed and broken as by long, rough usage. "'Give me the key,' said my mother. And though the lock was very stiff, she had turned it and thrown back the lid in a twinkling. A strong smell of tobacco and tar arose from the interior, but nothing was to be seen on the top except a suit of very good clothes, carefully brushed and folded. They had never been worn,' my mother said. Under that the miscellany began, a quadrant, a tin canikin, several sticks of tobacco, two brace of very handsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an old Spanish watch, and some other trinkets of little value and mostly foreign make, a pair of compasses mounted with brass, and five or six curious West Indian shells. I've often wondered since why he should have carried about those shells with him in his wandering, guilty, and hunted life. In the meantime we found nothing of any value but the silver and the trinkets, and neither of these were in our way. Underneath there was an old boat-cloak whitened with sea salt on many a harbour-bar. My mother pulled it up with impatience, and there lay before us the last things in the chest, a bundle tied up in an oilcloth and, looking like papers, and a canvas bag that gave forth at a touch the jingle of gold. I'll show these rogues that I am an honest woman,' said my mother. I'll have my due and not a farthing over. Hold Mrs. Crustley's bag. And she began to count over the amount of the captain's score from the sailor's bag into the one that I was holding. It was a long, difficult business for the coins were of all countries and sizes, to bloons and Louis-d'or, and guineas and pieces of eight, and I know not what besides, all shaken together at random. The guineas, too, were about the scarcest, and it was with these only that my mother knew how to make her count. When we were about halfway through I suddenly put my hand under her arm, for I had heard in the silent frosty air a sound that brought my heart into my mouth. The tip-tapping of the blind man's stick upon the foes'n road. It drew nearer and nearer while we sat holding our breath. Then it struck sharp at the indoor, and then we could hear the handle being turned and the bolt rattling as the wretched being tried to enter. And then there was a long time of silence both within and without. At last the tapping recommenced, and to our indescribable joy and gratitude died slowly away again till it ceased to be heard. Mother, said I, take the hole, and let's be going. For I was sure the bolted door must have seemed suspicious, and would bring the whole hornet's nest about our ears, though how thankful I was that I had bolted it, none could tell who had never met that terrible blind man. But my mother, frightened as she was, would not consent to take a fraction more than it was her due, and was obstinately unwilling to be content with less. It was not yet seven, she said, by a long way. She knew her rights, and she would have them, and she was still arguing with me when a little low whistle sounded a good way off upon the hill. That was enough, and more than enough for both of us. I'll take what I have, she said, jumping to her feet. And I'll take this to square the count, said I, picking up the oil-skin packet. Next moment we were both groping downstairs, leaving the candle by the empty chest, and the next we had opened the door, and were in full retreat. We had not started a moment too soon. The fog was rapidly dispersing. Already the moon shone quite clear on the high ground on either side, and it was only in the exact bottom of the dell and round the tavern door that a thin veil still hung unbroken to conceal the first steps of our escape. Far less than halfway to the hamlet, very little beyond the bottom of the hill, we must come forth into the moonlight. Nor was this all, for the sound of several footsteps running came already to our ears, and as we looked back in their direction a light, tossing to and fro, and still rapidly advancing, showed that one of the newcomers carried a lantern. My dear, said my mother suddenly, take the money and run on, I am going to faint. This was certainly the end for both of us, I thought. How I cursed the cowardice of the neighbours, how I blamed my poor mother for her honesty and her greed, for her past full hardiness and present weakness. We were just at the little bridge by a good fortune, and I helped her tottering as she was to the edge of the bank, where sure enough she gave a sigh and fell on my shoulder. I do not know how I found the strength to do it all, and I am afraid it was roughly done, but I managed to drag her down the bank and a little way under the arch. Father, I could not move her, for the bridge was too low to let me do more than crawl below it. So there we had to stay. My mother almost entirely exposed, and both of us, within earshot of the inn. Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson Read by Adrian Pretzelis Chapter 5 The Last of the Blind Man My curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear. For I could not remain where I was, but crept back to the bank again, whence, sheltering my head behind a bush of broom, I might command the road before our door. I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began to arrive, seven or eight of them running hard, their feet beating out of time along the road, and the man with the lantern some paces in front. Three men ran together, hand in hand, and I made out, even through the mist, that the middle man of this trio was the blind beggar. The next moment his voice showed me I was right. Down with the door! he cried. Oi, oi, sir! answered two or three, and a rush was made upon the Admiral Benbow, the lantern bearer following. And then I could see them pause, and hear speeches passed in a lower key, as if they were surprised to find the door open. But the pause was brief, for the blind man again eschewed his commands. His voice sounded louder and higher, as if he were a fire with eagerness and rage. In, in, in! he shouted, and cursed them for their delay. Four or five of them obeyed at once, two remaining on the road with the formidable beggar. There was a pause, then a cry of surprise, then a voice shouting from the house. Bill's dead! But the blind man swore at them again for their delay. Search him, some of you shrinking lubbers, and the rest of you, loft and get the chest! he cried. I could hear their feet rattling up our old stairs, so that the house must have shook with it. Promptly afterwards, fresh sounds of astonishment arose. The window of the captain's room was thrown open with a slam and a jingle of broken glass, and a man leaned out in the moonlight, head and shoulders, and addressed the blind beggar on the road below him. Pew! he cried. They've been before us. Someone's turned the chest out to lie with a loft. Is it there? roared Pew. The money's there! The blind man cursed the money. Flint's fist, I mean! he cried. I don't see it here, no how! returned the man. Here, you below there. Is it on Bill? cried the blind man again. At that another fellow, probably he who had remained below to search the captain's body, came to the door of the inn. Bill's been overhauled already, he said. Nothing left. It's these people of the inn. It's that boy. I wish I had put his eyes out, cried the blind man Pew. They were here no time ago. They had the door bolted when I tried it. Scatter lads and find them. Sure enough, they left their glim here, said the fellow from the window. Scatter and find them. Route the house out! reiterated Pew, striking with his stick upon the road. Then there followed a great to-do through all our old inn. Heavy feet pounding to and fro, furniture all thrown over doors kicked in, until the very rocks re-echoed, and the men came out again, one after another, on the road, and declared that we were nowhere to be found. And just then the same whistle that had alarmed my mother and myself over the dead captain's money was once more clearly audible through the night, but this time twice repeated. I had thought it to be the blind man's trumpet, so to speak, summoning his crew to the assault, but I now found that it was a signal from the hillside toward the hamlet, and from its effect upon the buccaneers a signal to warn them of approaching danger. There's Dirk again, said one, twice. We left to budge, mates. Budge, you skulk, cried Pew. Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first. You wouldn't mind him. They must be close by. They can't be far. You have your hands on it. Scatter and look for him, dogs, or shiver my soul, he cried. If I had eyes. This appeal seemed to produce some effect, for two of the fellows began to look here and there among the timber, but half-heartedly, I thought, and with half an eye to their own danger all the time, while the rest stood irresolute on the road. You have your hands on thousands, you fools, and you hang a leg. You'll be as rich as kings if you could find it, and you stand there skulking. There wasn't one of you dead face, Bill, and I did it a blind man, and I'm to lose my chance for you. I'm to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, and I might be rolling in a coach. If you had the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit, you would catch them still. Hang it, Pew, we've got the doubloons, grumbled one. They might have hid the blessed thing, said another, take the George's pew, and don't stand there squalling. Squalling was the word for it. Pew's anger rose so high at these objections, till at last his passion completely taking the upper hand, he struck at them right and left in his blindness, and his stick sounded heavily on more than one. These, in their turn, cursed back at the blind miscreant, threatened him in horrid terms, and tried in vain to catch the stick and rest it from his grasp. This quarrel was the saving of us. For while it was still raging, another sound came from the top of the hill on the side of the hamlet. The tramp of horses galloping. Almost at the same time a pistol shot, flash and report came from the hedge side, and that was plainly the last signal of danger, for the buccaneers turned at once and ran, separating in every direction, one seaward along the cove, one slant across the hill, and so on, so that in half a minute not a sign of the remained but pew. Him they had deserted, whether in sheer panic or out of revenge for his ill words and blows, I know not. But there he remained behind, tapping up and down the road in a frenzy and groping and calling for his comrades. Finally he took the wrong turn and ran a few steps past me towards the hamlet crying, Johnny, Black Dog, Dirk, and other names, you won't leave old pew, mate, not old pew. Just then the noise of horses topped the rise, and four or five riders came in sight in the moonlight and swept at full gallop down the slope. At this pew saw his error turned with a scream and ran straight for the ditch into which he rolled. But he was on his feet again in a second, and made another dash now utterly bewildered right under the nearest of the coming horses. The rider tried to save him but in vain. Down went pew with a cry that rang high into the night, and the four hoofs trampled and spurned him and passed by. He fell on his side, then gently collapsed upon his face, and moved no more. I leapt to my feet and hailed the riders. They were pulling out at any rate, horrified at the accident, and I soon saw what they were. One trailing out behind the rest was a lad that had gone from the hamlet to Dr. Livses. The rest were revenue officers whom he had met by the way, and with whom he had had the intelligence to return at once. Some news of the Lugger in Kitt's Hole had found its way to Supervisor Dance, and set him forth that night in our direction, and to that circumstance my mother and I owed our preservation from death. Pew was dead. Stone dead. As for my mother, when we carried her up to the hamlet, a little cold water and some salts very soon brought her back again, and she was none the worse for her terror. Though she still continued to deplore the balance of the money. In the meantime the Supervisor rode on as fast as he could to Kitt's Hole, but his men had to dismount and grope down the dingle, leading and sometimes supporting their horses, and in continual fear of ambushes, so it was no great matter for surprise that when they got down to the hole the Lugger was already under way, though still close in. He hailed her, a voice replied telling him to keep out of the moonlight, or he would get some lead in him, and at the same time a bullet whistled close by his arm. Soon after the Lugger doubled the point and disappeared. Mr. Dance stood there as he said, like a fish out of water, and all he could do was to dispatch a man to to warn the cutter, and that, he said, is just about as good as nothing. They've got clean off, and there's an end. Only, he added, I'm glad I trod upon Master Pew's corns. By this time he had heard my story. I went back with him to the Admiral Benbow, and you cannot imagine a house in such a state of smash. The very clock had been thrown down by these fellows in their furious hunt after my mother and myself. And though nothing had actually been taken away, except the Captain's money-bag and a little silver from the till, I could see at once that we were ruined. Mr. Dance could make nothing of the scene. They got the money, you say. Well, then, Hawkins, what in fortune were they after? More money, I suppose. No, sir, not money, I think, replied I. In fact, sir, I believe I have the thing in my breast pocket, and to tell you the truth, I should like to get it put in safety. To be sure, boy, quite right, said he. I'll take it, if you like. I thought perhaps Dr. Livesey, I began. Perfectly right, he interrupted very cheerily. Perfectly right, a gentleman and a magistrate. And now I come to think of it. I might as well ride round there myself and report to him or squire. Master Pew's dead. When all's done? Not that I regret it, but he's dead, you see, and people will make it out against an officer of his Majesty's revenue if make it out they can. Now, I'll tell you, Hawkins, if you like, I'll take you along. I thanked him heartily for the offer, and we walked back to the hamlet where the horses were. By the time I had told my mother of my purpose, they were all in the saddle. Dogger, said Mr. Dance, you have a good horse. Take up this lad behind you. As soon as I was mounted holding on to Dogger's belt, the supervisor gave the word, and the party struck out at a bouncing trot on the road to Dr. Livesey's house. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 The Captain's Papers We rode hard all the way till we drew up before Dr. Livesey's door. The house was all dark to the front. Mr. Dance told me to jump down and knock, and Dogger gave me a stirrup to descend by. The door was opened almost at once by a maid. Is Dr. Livesey in? I asked. No, she said. He had come home in the afternoon, but had gone up to the hall to dine and pass the evening with the squire. So, there we go, boys, said Mr. Dance. This time, as the distance was short, I did not mount, but ran with Dogger's stirrup leather to the lodge gates, and up the long leafless moonlit avenue to where the white line of the hall buildings looked on either hand on great old gardens. There Mr. Dance dismounted, and taking me along with him was admitted at a word into the house. The servant led us down a matted passage, and showed us at the end into a great library, all lined with bookcases and busts on top of them where the squire and Dr. Livesey sat, piping hand on either side of a bright fire. I had never seen the squire so near at hand. He was a tall man, over six feet high, and broad in proportion, and he had a bluff, rough and ready face, all roughened and redded and lined in his long travels. His eyebrows were very black, and moved readily, and this gave him a look of some temper, not bad, you would say, but quick and high. Come in, Mr. Dance, said he, very stately and condescending. Good evening, Dance, said the doctor with a nod, and good evening to your friend, Jim. What good wind brings you here! The supervisor stood up straight and stiff, and told his story like a lesson. But you should have seen how the two gentlemen leaned forward and looked at each other, and forgot to smoke in their surprise and interest. When they heard how my mother went back to the inn, Dr. Livesey fair slapped his thigh, and the squire cried, Bravo! and broke his long pipe against the grate. Long before it was done, a Mr. Trelawney, that you will remember was the squire's name, had got up from his seat, and was striding about the room, and the doctor, as if to hear the better, had taken off his powdered wig, and sat there looking very strange indeed, with his own close-cropped black pole. At last Mr. Dance finished the story. Mr. Dance, said the squire, you are a very noble fellow, and, as for riding down that black atrocious miscreant, I regard it as an act of virtue, sir. Like stamping on a crockroach, this lad Hawkins is a trump, I perceive. Hawkins, will you ring that bell? Mr. Dance must have some ale. And so, Jim, said the doctor, you have the thing that they were after, have you? Here it is, sir, said I, and gave him the oil-skin packet. The doctor looked it all over, as if his fingers were itching to open it, but instead of doing that, he put it quietly in the pocket of his coat. Squire, said he, when Dance has had his ale, he must, of course, be off on his Majesty's service. But I mean to keep Jim Hawkins here to sleep at my house, and, with your permission, I propose we should have up the cold pie, and let him sup. As your will lives here, said the squire, Hawkins has earned better than cold pie. So a big pigeon pie was brought in, and put on a side table, and I made a hearty supper, for I was as hungry as a hawk, while Mr. Dance was further complimented, and at last dismissed. And now Squire, said the doctor. And now Livesey, said the squire, in the same breath. One at a time, one at a time, laughed Dr. Livesey. You have heard of this flint, I suppose? Heard of him? cried the squire. Heard of him, you say? He was the bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed. Blackbeard was a child to flint. The Spaniards were so prodigiously afraid of him, that I tell you, sir, I was sometimes proud that he was an Englishman. I have seen his top sails with these eyes off Trinidad, and the cowardly son of a rum punchin' that I sailed with. Put back, put back, sir, into the port of Spain. Well, I have heard of him myself in England, said the doctor. But the point is, had he money? Money? cried the squire. Have you heard the story? What were these villains after bat money? What do they care for bat money? For what would they risk their rascal carcasses but money? That, we shall soon know, replied the doctor. But you are so confoundedly hot-headed and exclamatory, that I cannot get a word in. What I want to know is this. Suppose that I have here in my pocket some clue to where Flint buried his treasure. Will that treasure amount too much? Amount, sir? cried the squire. It will amount to this. If we have the clue you talk about, I'll fill out a ship in Bristol, dock and take you and Hawkins here along, and we'll have that treasure if I search for a year. Very well, said the doctor. Now then, if Jim is agreeable, we'll open the packet. And he laid it before him on the table. The bundle was sewn together, and the doctor had to get out his instrument case and cut the stitches with his medical scissors. It contained two things, a book and a sealed paper. First of all, we'll try the book, observed the doctor. The squire and I were both peering over his shoulder as he opened it, for Dr. Livesey had kindly motioned to me to come round from the side table where I had been eating to enjoy the sport of the search. On the first page there were only some scraps of writing, such as a man with a pen in his hand might make for idleness or practice. One was the same as the tattoo mark, Billy Bones His Fancy. Then there was Mr. W. Bones' Mate, No More Rum, Off Palm Key He Got It, and some other snatches, most single words and unintelligible. But I could not help wondering who it was that had got it and what it was he got. A knife in his back, as likely as not. Not much instruction there, said Dr. Livesey as he passed on. The next ten or twelve pages were filled with a curious series of entries. There was a date at one end of the line and at the other end a sum of money, as in common account books. But instead of explanatory writing, only a varying number of crosses between the two. On the twelfth of June, 1745, for instance, a sum of seventy pounds had plainly become due to someone, and there was nothing but six crosses to explain the cause. In a few cases, to be sure, the name of a place would be added as of Off Caracas, or a mere entry of latitude or longitude as sixty-two degrees, seventeen minutes twenty seconds, nineteen degrees, two minutes forty seconds. The record lasted over nearly twenty years. The amount of the separate entries growing larger as time went on, and at the end a grand total had been maimed out after five or six wrong additions, and these words appended. Bones his pile. I can't make head or tail of this, said Dr. Livesey. The thing is as clear as Noonday, cried the squire. This is the black-hearted Hound's account book. These crosses stand for the names of ships or towns that they sank or plundered. The sums are the scoundrel's share, and where he filled an ambiguity, you see he added something clearer, Off Caracas now. You see here was some unhappy vessel boarded off that coast. God helped the poor souls that man her coral long ago. Right, said the doctor, see what it is to be a traveller. Right, and the amounts increase, you'll see as he rose in rank. There was little else in the volume, but a few bearings of places noted in the blank leaves toward the end, and a table for reducing French, English and Spanish monies to a common value. Thrifty man, cried the doctor. He wasn't the one to be cheated. And now, said the squire, for the other. The paper had been sealed in several places with a thimble by way of seal, the very thimble perhaps that I had found in the captain's pocket. The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell out the map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names of hills and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores. It was about nine miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon standing up, and had two fine landlocked harbours, and a hill in the centre-park, marked the spy-glass. There were several additions of a later date, but above all, three crosses of red ink, two on the north part of the island, one in the south-west, and, besides this last, in the same red ink, and in a small, neat hand, very different from the captain's tottery characters, these words. Bulk of treasure here. Over the back the same hand had written this further information. Tall tree, spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to the north of Nor-Nor-East, skeleton island, south-south-east by east, ten feet. The bar-silver is in the north cache. You can find it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms south of the black crag with a face on it. The arms are easy found in the sand-hill north point of North Inlet, Cape, bearing east in a quarter north, J. F. That was all. But brief as it was, and to me incomprehensible, it filled the squire and Dr. Livesey with delight. Livesey, said the squire, you will give up this wretched practice at once. Tomorrow I start for Bristol. In three weeks' time, three weeks, two weeks, ten days, we'll have the best ship, sir, and the choicest crew in England. Hawkins shall come as cabin boy. You'll make a famous cabin boy, Hawkins. You'll Livesey, our ship's doctor. I am admiral. We'll take our red-rooth, Joyce and Hunter. We'll have favourable winds, a quick passage, and not the least difficulty in finding the spot and money to eat, to roll in to play duck and drink with ever after. Shall lawn-ear, said the doctor. I'll go with you, and I'll go bail for it, so with Jim and Beard credit the undertaking. There's only one man I'm afraid of. And who's that? cried the squire. Name the doctor. You, replied the doctor, for you cannot hold your tongue. We are not the only men who know of this paper. These fellows who attacked in to-night, bold, desperate blades to be sure. And the rest, who stayed aboard that lugga and more, I daresay, not far off, are, one and all, through thick and thin, bound that they will get that money. We must none of us go alone till we get to see. Jim and I shall stick together in the meantime, and you'll take Joyce and Hunter when you ride to Bristol, and from first to last not one of us must breathe a word of what we've found. Live, say! returned the squire. You are always in the right of it. I'll be silent as the grave. End of Chapter 6 Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson Read by Adrian Pretzellus Part 2 The Seacook Chapter 7 I Go to Bristol It was longer than the squire imagined ere we were ready for the sea, and none of our first plans, not even Dr. Livese's, of keeping me beside him, could be carried out as we intended. The doctor had to go to London for a physician to take charge of his practice. The squire was hard at work at Bristol, and I lived on at the hall, under the charge of old Redruth, the gamekeeper, almost a prisoner, but full of sea-dreams and the most charming anticipations of strange islands and adventures. I brooded by the hour together over the map, all the details of which I well remembered. Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room, I approached that island in my fancy from every possible direction. I explored every acre of its surface. I climbed a thousand times to that tall hill they called the spy-glass, and from the top enjoyed the most wonderful and changing prospects. Sometimes the isle was thick with savages, with whom we fought, sometimes full of dangerous animals that hunted us, but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange and tragic as our actual adventures. So the weeks passed on till one fine day there came a letter addressed to Dr. Livese, with this edition, to be opened in the case of his absence by Tom Redruth or young Hawkins. Obeying this order we found, or rather I found, for the gamekeeper was a poor hand at reading anything but print, the following important news. Old Anker in Bristol, March 1, 17. Dear Livese, as I do not know whether you're at the hall or still in London, I send this in double to both places. The ship is bought and fitted. She lies at Anker ready for sea. You never imagined a sweeter schooner, a child might sail her. Two hundred tons, name Hispaniola. I got her through my friend Blandly, who has proved himself throughout the most surprising Trump. The admirable fellow literally slaved in my interest, and so, I may say, did everyone in Bristol as soon as they got wind of the port we sailed for. Treasure, I mean. Redruth, said I, interrupting the letter. Dr. Livese will not like that. The squire has been talking after all. Well, who's a better right? growled the gamekeeper. A pretty Rome go if squire ain't to talk for Dr. Livese, I should think. At that I gave up all attempt at commentary and read straight on. Blandly himself found Hispaniola, and by the most admirable management, got her for the merest trifle. There is a class of men in Bristol monstrously prejudiced against Blandly. They go the length of declaring that this honest creature would do anything but money, that this Hispaniola belonged to him, and that he sold it to me absurdly high, the most transparent columnies. None of them dare, however, to deny the merits of the ship. So far there was not a hitch. The work people, to be sure, riggers and what not, were most annoyingly slow, but time-cured that it was the crew that troubled me. I wished to round up a score of men, in case of navy's buccaneers or the odious French, and I had the worry of the juice itself to find so much as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke of fortune brought me the very man that I required. I was standing on the dock when, by the merest accident, I fell into talk with him. I found he was an old sailor, kept a public house, knew all the seafaring men in Bristol, had lost his health ashore, and wanted a good berth as cook, to get to see again. He had hobbled down there that morning, he said, to get a smell of the salt. I was monstrously touched, so would you have been, and out of pure pity I engaged him on the spot to be ship's cook, Long John Silver, he is called, and has lost a leg, but that I regarded as a recommendation, since he lost it in his country's service under the immortal hawk. He has no pension, Livesey, imagine the abominable age we live in. Well, sir, I thought I had only found a cook, but it was a crew I had discovered. Between Silver and myself, we got together in a few days a company of the toughest old salts imaginable, not pretty to look at, but fellows by their faces, of the most indomitable spirit. I declare we could fight a frigate. Long John even got rid of two out of the six or seven I had already engaged. He showed me in a moment that they were of just the sort of freshwater swabs we had to fear in an adventure of importance. I am in the most magnificent health and spirits, eating like a bull, sleeping like a tree, yet I shall not enjoy a moment till I hear my old Tarpaulins tramping around the capstan. Seaward Ho, hang the treasure, it's the glory of the sea that has turned my head. So now, Livesey, come post, do not lose an hour if you respect me. Let young Hawkins go at once to see his mother with red roof for a guard, and then both come full speed to Bristol. John Trelordy P.S. I did not tell you that, blandly, who, by the way, is to send a consort after us if we don't turn up by the end of August, had found an admirable fellow for sailing master, a stiff man which I regret, but in all other respects a treasure. Long John Silver unearthed a very competent man for a mate, a man called Arrow. I have a boson who pipes Livesey, so things shall go man-of-war fashion on board the good ship Hispaniola. I forgot to tell you that Silver is a man of substance. I know of my own knowledge that he has a banker's account which has never been overdrawn. He leaves his wife to manage the inn, and as she is a woman of colour, a pair of old bachelor's like you and I may be excused for guessing that he is the wife, quite as much as the health, that sends him back to roving. J.T. P.P.S. Hawkins may stay one night with his mother, J.T. You can fancy the excitement into which that letter put me. I was half beside myself with glee, and if ever I despised a man, it was old Tom Redruth who could do nothing but grumble and lament. Any of the under-gamekeepers would gladly have changed places with him, but such was not the squire's pleasure, and the squire's pleasure was like law among them all. Nobody but old Redruth would have dared so much as even to grumble. The next morning he and I set out on foot for the Admiral Benbow, and there I found my mother in good health and spirits. The captain, who had so long been the cause of so much discomfort, was gone where the wicked cease from troubling. The squire had had everything repaired and the public rooms and the sign repainted, and had added some furniture. Above all, a beautiful armed chair for my mother in the bar. He had found her a boy as an apprentice also, so that she should not want help when I was gone. It was on seeing that boy that I understood for the first time my situation. I had thought up to that moment of the adventures before me, not at all of the home that I was leaving, and now at sight of this clumsy stranger who was to stay here in my place beside my mother, I had my first attack of tears. I am afraid I led that boy a dog's life, for he was new to the work. I had a hundred opportunities for sending him right and putting him down, and I was not slow to profit by them. The night passed, and the next day after dinner Red Ruth and I were a foot again and on the road. I said goodbye to my mother and the cove where I had lived since I was born, and the dear old Admiral Benbow, since he was repainted, not longer quite so dear. One of my thoughts was of the captain, who had so often strode along the beach with his cocked hat, his sabercut cheek, and his old brass telescope. Next moment we had turned the corner, and my home was out of sight. The mail picked us up about dusk at the Royal George on the heath. I was wedged in between Red Ruth and a stout old gentleman, and in spite of the swift motion and the cold night air, I must have dozed a great deal from the very first, and then slept like a log, uphill and down-dale, through stage after stage. But when I was awakened at last, it was by a punch in the ribs, and I opened my eyes to find that we were standing still before a large building in a city street, and that the day had already broken a long time. Where are we? I asked. Bristol, said Tom, get down. Mr. Trelawney had taken up his residence at an inn far down the docks, to superintend the work upon the schooner. There, though, we had now to walk, and our way to my great delight lay upon the keys and besides the great multitude of ships of all sizes and rigs and nations. In one sailors were singing at their work, in another there were men aloft, high over my head, hanging to threads that seemed no thicker than a spider's. Though I had lived by the shore all my life, I seemed never to have been near the sea till then. The smell of tar and salt was something new. I saw the most wonderful figureheads that had all been far over the ocean. I saw besides many old sailors with rings in their ears and whiskers curled in ringlets and tarry pigtails and their swaggering clumsy seawalk, and if I had seen as many kings or archbishops I could not have been more delighted. And I was going to see myself, to see in a schooner and a piping boson and pig-tailed singing seamen to see bound for an unknown island and to seek for buried treasure. While I was still in this delightful dream, we came suddenly in front of a large inn and met Squire Trelawney all dressed out like a sea officer in stout blue cloth, coming out of the door with a smile on his face and a capital imitation of a sailor's walk. Here you are! he cried. And the doctor came last night from London, bravo! The ship's company complete. Oh, sir! cried I. When do we sail? Sail? says he. We sail to-morrow. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 at the sign of the spy-glass When I had done breakfasting, the Squire gave me a note addressed to John Silver at the sign of the spy-glass, and he told me I should easily find the place by following the line of the docks and keeping a bright look out for a little tavern with a large brass telescope for a sign. I set off, overjoyed at this opportunity, to see some more of the ships and seamen, and picked my way among a great crowd of people and carts and bales, for the dock was now at its busiest, until I found the tavern in question. It was a bright enough little place of entertainment, the sign was newly painted, the windows had neat red curtains, the floor was cleanly sanded. There was a street on either side and an open door on both, which made the large, low room pretty clear to see in, in spite of clouds of tobacco smoke. The customers were mostly seafaring men, and they talked so loudly that I hung at the door almost afraid to enter. As I was waiting a man came out of a side room, and at a glance I was sure he must be long John. His leg was cut off close by the hip, and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch, which he managed with a wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it like a bird. He was very tall and strong, with a face as big as a ham, plain and pale, but intelligent and smiling. Indeed he seemed in the most cheerful spirits, whistling as he moved about among the tables with a merry word or a slap on the shoulder for the more favoured of his guests. Now, to tell you the truth from the very first mention of Long John in Squire Trelawney's letter, I had taken a fear in my mind that he might prove to be the very one-legged sailor whom I had watched for so long at the old Benbow. But one look at the man before me was enough. I had seen the captain, and black dog, and the blind man pew, and I thought I knew what a buccaneer was like. A very different creature, according to me, from this clean and pleasant-tempered landlord. I plucked up courage at once, crossed the threshold, and walked right up to the man where he stood, propped on his crutch, talking to a customer. Mr. Silver, sir? I asked, holding out the note. Yes, my lad, said he, such is my name to be sure, and who may you be? And when he saw the Squire's letter, he seemed to me to give something almost like a start. Oh! said he, quite aloud, and offering his hand. I see! You are a new cabin-boy! Please do yam to see you! And he took my hand in his large firm grasp. Just then one of the customers at the far side rose suddenly and made for the door. It was close by him, and he was out in the street in a moment. But his hurry had attracted my notice, and I recognized him at a glance. It was the tallow-faced man wanting two fingers who had come first to the Admiral Benbow. Oh! I cried, stop him! It's Black Dog! I don't care two coppers who he is! cried Silver, but he hasn't paid his score. Errie! Run and catch him! One of the others, who was nearest the door, leapt up and started in pursuit. If he were Admiral Hawke, he shall play his score, said Silver, and then relinquishing my hand. Who did you say he was? he asked. Black what? Black Dog! said I. Has Mr. Trelawney not told you of the buccaneers? He was one of them. So cried Silver. In my house! Ben! Run and help Harry! One of those swabs, was he? Was that you drinking with him, Morgan? Step up here! The man whom he called Morgan, an old grey-haired mahogany-faced sailor, came forward pretty sheepishly, rolling his quid. Nail, Morgan, said Long John, very sternly. You never clapped your eyes on that Black Black Dog before, did you, Nail? No, sir, said Morgan with a salute. You didn't know his name, did you? No, sir. By the powers, Tom Morgan, it's good for you, exclaimed the landlord. If you had been mixed up with the like of that, you would never had put another foot in my house, you may lay to that. And what was he saying to you? I don't rightly know, sir, answered Morgan. Do you call that a head on your shoulders or a blessed dead eye? cried Long John. Don't rightly know, don't you? Perhaps you don't happen to rightly know who you were speaking to, perhaps. Come now! What was he jarring? Voyages, captain ships? Pipe-up! What was it? We was a talking of Keele-hauling, answered Morgan. Keele-hauling, was ye? And a mighty suitable thing, too, and you may lay to that. Get back to your place for a lover, Tom. And then, as Morgan rolled back to his seat, Silver added to me in a confidential whisper that was very flattering, as I thought. He's quite an honest man, Tom Morgan. Only stupid. And now he ran on again loud. Let's see, Black Dog? No, I don't know that name, not I. Yeah, I kind of think yes. Yes, I've seen the swab. He used to come here with a blowing beggary-oost. That he did, you may be sure, said I. I knew that blind man, too. His name was Pew. It was, cried Silver, now quite excited. Pew! That was his name for a certain. He looked a shark, he did. And if we run down this Black Dog now, there'll be news for Captain Trelawney. Ben's a good runner. Few seem and run better than Ben. He should have run him down hand over hand by the powers. He talked a keel all in, did he? I'll keel all in. All the time he was jerking out these phrases, he was stomping up and down the tavern on his crutch, slapping tables with his hand, and giving such a show of excitement as would have convinced an old Bailey judge or a Beau Street runner. My suspicions had been thoroughly reawakened on finding Black Dog at the spy-glass, and I watched the cook narrowly. But he was too deep and too ready and too clever for me, and by the time the two men had come back out of breath and confessed that they had lost the track in a crowd and been scolded like thieves, I would have gone bail for the innocence of Long John Silver. Now see here, Hawkins, said he. Here's a blessed hard thing on a man like me now, ain't it? There's Captain Trelawney. What's he to think? Here I have this confounded son of a Dutchman sitting here in my own house, drinking of my own rum. Here he comes and tells me of it plain, and here I let him give us all the slip before my blessed deadlights. Now, Hawkins, you do me justice with the Captain. You're a lad you are, but you're as smart as paint. I see that when you first came in. Now here it is. What could I do with this old timber-eye hobble-on? When I was a AB master-mariner, I had a cummel-up beside him, hand over hand, and broached him into a brace of old shakes I would, and now—and then all of a sudden he stopped, and his jaw dropped as though he had remembered something. The score! he burst out. Three goes a rub. Why shiver my timbers if I hadn't forgotten my score! And falling on a bench he laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. I could not help joining, and we laughed together, peel after peel, till the tavern rang again. Why, what a precious old sea-carf I am! he said at last, wiping his cheeks. You and me should get on well, Hawkins, for I'll take my Davey, I should be rated ship's boy. But come now, stand by to go about. This won't do. Duty is duty, mess-mates. I'll put on my old cock-tatt, and step along you to Captain Trelawney, and repart this here affair. For, mind you, it's serious, young Hawkins, and neither you nor me's come out of it with what I should make so bold as to call credit. No, you neither says you, not smart, none of the pair of a smart, but dash my buttons, that were a gooden about my score. And he began to laugh again, and that so heartily, that though I did not see the joke as he did, I was again obliged to join him in his mirth. On our little walk along the keys, he made himself the most interesting companion, telling me about the different ships that we passed by, their rig, tonnage, nationality, explaining the work that was going forward, how one was discharging another taking in cargo, and a third making ready for sea, and every now and then telling me some little anecdote of ships or seamen, or repeating a nautical phrase till I had learned it perfectly. I began to see that here was one of the best of possible ship-mates. When we got to the inn, the squire and Dr. Livesey were seated together, finishing a quarter-veil with a toast in it, before they should go aboard the schooner on a visitive inspection. Long John told the story from first to last, with a great deal of spirit and the most perfect truth. That was how it were now, weren't it, Hawkins, he would say now and again, and I could always bear him entirely out. The two gentlemen regretted that Black Dog had got away, but we all agreed that there was nothing to be done, and after he had been complimented, Long John took up his crutch and departed. All hands aboard for far this afternoon, shouted the squire after him. Aye, aye, sir, cried the cook in the passage. Well, squire, said Dr. Livesey, I don't put much faith in your discoveries as a general thing, but I will say this, John Silver suits me. That man's a perfect trump, declared the squire. And now, added the doctor, Jim may come on board with us, may he not? To be sure he may, said the squire, take your hat, Hawkins, and we'll see the ship. End of Chapter 8