 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. www.techsmiths.blogspot.com. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Dedication. To SLO, 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. To the hesitating purchaser. If sailor tails to sailor tunes, storm and adventure, heat and cold, if scoomers to sail, 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 or Valentine the Brave, or Cooper of the Wood and Wave, so be it also! And may I and all my pirates share the grave where these and their creations lie. Treasure Island. Part 1. The Old Buccaneer. Chapter 1. The Old Seedog at the Admiral Bembo. 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 Seventeen-something, and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Bembo in, and the brown old seamen with the saber-cut first took up his lodging under our roof. I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plotting 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 black, broken nails, and the saber-cut 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, Ifteen men on the dead man's chairs, Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! In the high old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars, then he rapped on the door with a bit of 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-situated grog-shop. Much company, mate? My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity. Well, then, said he, this is the berth for me. Here you, matey! he cried to the man who trundled the barrow. Bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit. He continued, I'm a plain man, rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you might call me, you might 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, says 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 skipper, a custom to be obeyed 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 had inquired what ends there were along the coast, and hearing hours 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 a corner of the parlor next to the fire, and drank rum and water very strong. Mostly he would not speak when spoken to, only look up sudden and fierce, and blow through his nose like a foghorn, 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, any seafaring 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 at the Admiral Bembo, as now and then some did, making by the coast road for Bristol, he would look in at him through the curtain door before he entered the parlor, 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 forepenny on the first of every month if I would only keep my weather eye open for a seafaring 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 forepenny piece, and repeat his orders to look out for the seafaring 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. It was a monstrous kind of a creature who had never had but the one leg, and that in the middle of his body. To see him leap and run and pursue me over hedge and ditch was the worst of nightmares, and altogether I paid pretty dear for my monthly forepenny piece in the shape of these abominable fancies. But though I was so terrified by the idea of the seafaring man with one leg, I was far less afraid of the captain himself than anybody else who knew him. He would go through the night when he took a deal more rum and 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 neighbors joining in for dear life with the fear of death upon them were 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 round, 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. What dreadful stories they were about hanging and walking the plank and storms at sea and the dry tortugas and wild deeds in 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, or 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 man 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 he roared and stared my poor father out of the room. I have seen him wringing his hands after such a rebuke, 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 remembered 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 neighbors 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 towards the end when my poor father was far gone in a decline that took him off. Dr. Livese came late one afternoon to see the patient, took a bit of dinner for my mother and went into the parlor to smoke a pipe until his horse should come down from the hamlet, for we had no stabling at the old benbo. 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 with that filthy, heavy, bleared scarecrow of a pirate of ours sitting far gone in rum with his arms on the table. Suddenly he, the captain that is, began to pipe up his eternal song, 15 men on the 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 by 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 the 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 low oath, silence there between decks. What are you addressing me, sir? says the doctor, and when the Ruffian had told him with another oath that this was so, I have only one thing to say to you, sir, replies the doctor, 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 in your pocket, I promise upon my honor you shall hang at the next-ass sizes. 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 that 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, if it's only for a piece of incivility like tonight's, I'll take effectual 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. Part 1, Chapter 2 of Treasure Island. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. 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 whorefrost, 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 eye open for seafaring men with one leg or two, and I remember this one puzzled me. He was not sailorly, 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 me to draw near. I paused where I was with my napkin in my hand. Come here, sonny! says he. Come nearer here! I took a step nearer. Is this your 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 in our house whom we called the captain. Where? said he. My mate, Bill, would be called the captain as like as not. He has a cut on one cheek and a mighty pleasant way with him, particularly in drink, has 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 had 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 inn door, peering around 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 fawning, half sneering, patted me on the shoulder, 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 you is two blocks, and he's all the pride of my heart. But the great thing for boys is discipline, sonny, discipline. Now, if you had sailed along a bill, you wouldn't have stood there to be smoked to twice, not you. That was never Bill's way, nor the way of such as sailed with him. And here, sure enough, is my mate Bill, with his spyglass under his arm, bless his old heart, to be sure. You and me will just go back into the parlour, sonny, and get behind the door, and we'll give Bill a little surprise, as a bless his heart I say again. So saying, the stranger backed along with me into the parlour and put me behind him in the corner so that we were both hidden by the open door. I was very uneasy and alarmed, as you may fancy, and 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. Had last instrued the captain, slammed the door behind him, without looking to the right or left, and marched straight across the room to where his breakfast awaited 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 in front of us. All the brown had gone out of his face, and even his nose was blue. 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 turned 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 gas. 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 Bembow Inn. Ah, Bill, Bill! We have seen us side 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 liken to, 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 old 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, sonny! 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 a low gabbling. But 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 all, 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 cutluses 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 chine had it not been intercepted by our big signboard of Admiral Bembo. 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 hill 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 unsteady 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 parlor, and running in, behold 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 a horrible color. Dear, deary me! cried my mother. What a disgrace upon the house! And your poor father's 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 for us when the door opened and Dr. Lipsy came in, on his visit to my father. Oh, doctor! we cried. What shall we do? Where is he wounded? Wounded? A fiddle sticks end, said the doctor. No more wounded than you or I, 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. Here's luck, a fair wind, and Billy Bones's 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 color 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 landset and opened a vein. A deal of blood was taken before the captain opened his eyes and looked mystically about him. First he recognized the doctor with an unmistakable frown. Then his glance fell upon me and he looked relieved. But suddenly his color changed and he tried to raise himself crying, where's Black Dog? There is 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, you have been 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 call you by it for the sake of shortness, and what I have to say to you is this, one glass of rum won't kill you, 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 were almost fainting. Now, mind you, said the doctor, I clear my conscience, this glass 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 awhile, 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. Chapter 3 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis 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 been always good to you. Never a month but I've given you a silver four-petty for yourself and now, you see, mate, I'm pretty low and deserted by all. Hey, Jim, you'll bring me one nugget 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 do he know about seafaring men? I've been in place as hot as pitch and maids dropping round with yellow jack in the blessed land a heave in like the sea with earthquakes. What do the doctor know of lands like that? And I lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink and 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, nut high. 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. As 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 Cain. Your doctor himself said one glass wouldn't hurt me. I'll give you a golden giddy for a noggin, Jim. He was growing more and more excited and this alarmed me for my father who was very low that day and 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 what 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. Hi! Hi! 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 berth? 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 about to get the wind of me this blessed moment. Lubbers is couldn't keep what they got and want to nail what is another's. Is that seemingly behavior now I want to know? But I'm a saving soul. I never wasted good money of mine nor lost it neither. And I'll trick him again. I'm not afraid on him. I'll shake out another reef, matey, and daddle 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. 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, do you know that sea fairy man today? Black Dog, I asked. Ah, Black Dog, says he. He's a badden, but there's worse that put him on. Now, if I can't get away know-how and they tip 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 yes, I will, to that eternal doctor's swab and tell him to pipe all hands, magistrates and such, 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 at Savannah when he lay a dine, like as if I was to now you see, but you won't peach unless you get the black spot on me, or unless you see that black dog again, or a seafarer 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 keep your weather I open, Jim, and I'll share with you equals upon my honor. He wandered a little longer, his voice growing weaker, but soon after I had given him a listen which he took like a child with 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 neighbors, 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 am 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 at his ugly old sea-song, but weak as he was we were all in the 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 and regain his strength. He clambered up and downstairs and went from the parlor to the bar and back again, and sometimes put his nose out of doors 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 he had as good as forgotten his confidences, but his temper was more flighty, and allowing for his bodily weakness 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 different hair, 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 inn and raising his voice in an odd sing-song addressed the air in front of him. Well, any kind friend informed a poor, blind man who has lost the precious sight of his eyes in the gracious defense of his native country, England, and God bless King George, where or in what part of this country he may now be. You were 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 out 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 up to him with a single action of his arm. No, 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 straight in or I'll break your arm. And 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, March, interrupted he, and I never heard a voice so cruel and cold and ugly as that blind man's. He cowed me more than the pain and I began to obey him at once, walking straight in at the door and towards the parlor where our 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. Lead me straight up to him 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 of the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the captain and as I opened the parlor 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 parlor 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 and the captain seemed to gather our senses but at length and about at 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, We'll do them 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 face foremost 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 as 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. End of chapter 4 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson 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 ordered to mount it 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 and the kitchen grate the very ticking of the clock filled us with alarms. The neighborhood to our ears seemed haunted by approaching footsteps and what between the dead body of the captain on the parlor 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 neighboring 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 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 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 of the 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 bolted away and one at least had seen a little lugger in what we called Kits Hole. For that matter anyone 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 enough to ride to Dr. Livesey's 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 foolhardiness 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 finally when we too set forth in the cold night of a dangerous venture. A full moon was beginning to rise and peered redly 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 as bright as day and our departure exposed to the eyes of any watchers. We slipped along the hedges noiseless and swift nor did we see or hear anything to increase our terrors till to our relief the door of the admiral slipped the bolt at once and we stood impended 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 parlor 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 the 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 tonight 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 a crooked handle a pocket compass and a tinder box were 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 my own gully we found the key at this triumph we were filled with hope and hurried upstairs 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 semen's chest on the outside the initial be burned on the 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 rose 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 a foreign make a pair of compasses mounted with brass and five or six curious West Indian shells I have often wondered since why he should have carried about these shells with him and is wandering guilty and hunted life in the meantime we had 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 widened with sea salt on many a harbor bar my mother pulled it up with impatience and there lay before us the last things in the chest a bundle tied up an oil cloth 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'm an honest woman said my mother I'll have my dues and not a farthing over hold Mrs. Crossley's bag and she began to count over the amount of the captain's score from the sailors bag into the one that I was holding it was a long difficult business for the coins were of all countries and sizes the balloons and Louis door 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 upon her arm for I had heard in the silent frosty air a sound that brought my heart into my mouth the tap tapping of the blind man stick upon the frozen road it drew nearer and nearer while we sat holding our breath then it struck sharp on 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 until 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 was due to her 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 half way 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 look 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 neighbors how I blamed my poor mother for her honesty and her greed for her past full hardiness her present weakness we were just at the little bridge by 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 at 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 farther 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 with an earshot of the inn end of chapter chapter 5 of Treasure Island this LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson 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 a 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 that I was right down with the door he cried answered two or three and a rush was made upon the admiral Bembo 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 issued 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 and 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 your shirking lubbers and the rest of you aloft to get the chest 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 into 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 aloft is it there you? the money's there the blind man cursed the money flint's fist I mean he cried we don't see it here know how returned the man here you below there is it on Bill cried the blind man again at that another fellow probably him who had remained below to search the captain's body came to the door of the inn Bill's been overhauled already said he 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 wrote the house out reiterated pew striking with a stick upon the road then there followed a great to-do through all our old inn heavy feet pounding to and fro furniture 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 towards 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'll have to budge mates budge you skulk cried pew Dirk was a fool in a coward for 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 them dogs oh 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 lumber 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'd be as rich as kings if you could find it and you know it's here and you stand there smoking there wasn't one of you dared 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 when 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 here squalling squalling pews the word for it pews anger rose so high at these objections till it 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 those 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 coral was the saving of us for while it was still raging another sound came from the top 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 seaword along the cove one slant across the hill and so on so that in half a minute not a sign of them 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 dork and other names you won't leave old pew mates not old pew just then the noise of horses topped the rise and four or five riders came in sight in the moonlight swept it 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 leaped to my feet and hailed the riders they were pulling up at any rate horrified at the accident and I soon saw what they were one tailing out behind the rest was a lad that had gone from the hamlet to dr. libsies 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 luggering kits 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 had carried her up to the hamlet a little cold water and salts and that soon brought her back again and she was none the worse for her terror though she continued to deplore the balance of the money in the meantime the supervisor rode on as fast as he could to kits hole he 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 be to warn the cutter and that, said he is just about as good as nothing they've got off clean and there's an end only he added, I'm glad I trod on master pew's corns for by this time he had heard my story I went back with him to the admiral Bembo 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 taking 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 beg nothing of the scene they got the money you say well then Hawkins what infortune 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 he'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 Dugger said Mr. Dance you have a good horse take up this lad behind you as soon as I was mounted holding on to Dugger'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 chapter six of Treasure Island this LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson chapter six 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 a knock and Dugger gave me a stirrup to descend by the door was opened almost at once by the 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 past 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 Dugger'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 here Mr. Dance dismounted and taking me along with him was admitted at a word into the house the servant let us down a matted passage and showed us at the end into a great library all lined with bookcases and busts upon the top of them where the squire and Dr. Livesey said pipe in 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 reddened 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 says he very stately and condescending good evening dance says the doctor with a nod and good evening to you friend Jim what good wind brings you here the supervisor stood up straight and stiff and told his story like a lesson and 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 fairly slapped his thigh and the squire cried and broke his long pipe against the grate long before it was done 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 regarded as an act of virtue sir like stamping on a cockroach 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 at 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 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 you will live see 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 live see said the Squire in the same breath one at a time left doctor live see 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 he was an Englishman I've seen his topsoils with these eyes off Trinidad and the cowardly son of a rum punch that I sailed with put back put back sir into port of Spain well I've 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 but money what do they care for but 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 supposing that I have here in my pocket some clue to where Flint buried his treasure will that treasure amount to much amount sir cried the Squire it will amount to this if we have the clue you talk about I fit out a ship in Bristol dock and take you and Hawkins here along and I'll have that treasure if I search a year very well said the doctor now then if Jim is agreeable will 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 observe the doctor the Squire and I were both peering over his shoulder as he opened it for Dr. Livesey had kindly motioned 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 was only some scraps of writing such as a man with a pan 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 mostly single words and unintelligible I could not help wondering who it was that had got it and what it was that he got a knife in his back as like as not not much instruction there said Dr. Livesey as he passed on the next 10 or 12 pages were filled with a curious species of entries there was a dated one end of the line and at the other 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 12th of June 1745 for instance a sum of 70 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 off Caracas or a mere entry of latitude and longitude as 62 degrees 17 minutes 20 seconds 19 degrees 2 minutes 40 seconds the record lasted over nearly 20 years the amount of the separate entries growing larger as time went on and at the end total had been made out after 5 or 6 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 noon day cried the squire this is the black-hearted hounds account book these crosses stand for the names of ships or towns that they sank or plundered the Psalms are the scoundrels share and where he offered 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 manned her coral long ago right said the doctor see what it is to be a traveler right and the amounts increase you 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 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 this 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 harbors and a hill in the center part marked the spyglass 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 southwest and beside this last in the same red ink and in a small neat hand very different from the captain's pottery characters these words bulk of treasure here over on the back the same hand had written this further information tall tree spyglass shoulder bearing a point to the north of north northeast skeleton island east southeast and by east ten feet the bar silver is in the north cash you can find it by the trend of the east hummock ten fathoms south of the black crag with the face on it the arms are easy found in the sand hill north point of north inlet cape bearing east and a quarter north JF that was all but brief as it was and to me incomprehensible it filled the squire and doctor live see with delight live see 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 will have the best ship sir and the choices crew in England Hawkins shall come as cabin boy you'll make a famous cabin boy Hawkins you live see our ships doctor I am Admiral will take red roof Joyce and Hunter will have favorable winds a quick passage and not the least difficulty in finding the spot and money to eat to roll in to play duck and Drake with ever after Triloni said the doctor I'll go with you and I'll go bail for it so will Jim and be a credit to the undertaking there's only one man I'm afraid of and who's that cried the squire name the dog sir you replied the doctor for you cannot hold your tongue we are not the only men who know of this paper these fellows who attack the in tonight bold desperate blades for sure and the rest who stayed aboard that lager and more I dare say not far off are one and all through thick and thin bound that they'll get that money we must none of us go alone till we get to see Jim and I shall stick together in the meanwhile you'll take Joyce and Hunter when you ride to Bristol and from to last not one of us must breathe a word of what we found live see return the squire you were always in the right of it I'll be as silent as the grave end of chapter part two chapter seven of Treasure Island this LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson part two the sea cook chapter seven I go to Bristol it was longer than the squire imagined we were ready for the sea and none of our first plans not even Dr. Livesey'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 Red Ruth 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 call the spyglass 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. Livesey with this edition to be opened in the case of his absence by Tom Red Ruth 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 anchor in Bristol March 1st till Livesey as I do not know whether you are at the hall or still in London I send this in double to both places the ship is bought in fitted she lies at anchor ready for sea you never imagined a sweeter schooner a child might sail her 200 tons name Hispaniola I got her through my old 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 Red Ruth said I interrupting the letter Dr. Livesey will not like that the squire has been talking after all well who's a better right groud the gamekeeper a pretty rum go if squire ain't to talk for Dr. Livesey I should think at that I gave up all attempts at commentary and read straight on Blandly himself found the Hispaniola and by the most admirable management got her for the nearest 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 for money that the Hispaniola belonged to him and that he sold it me absurdly high the most transparent calamities 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 rigors and whatnot were most annoyingly slow but time cured that it was the crew that troubled me I wished on score of men in case of natives buccaneers or the odious French and I had the worry of the deuce 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 but the nearest accident I fell in 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 birth 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 is no pension he lives he 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 fought he showed me in a moment that they were 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 trampling around the capstan seaward hoe hang the treasure it's the glory of the sea that has turned my head so now let's see come post do not lose an hour respect me let young Hawkins go at once to see his mother with Red Ruth for a guard and then both come full speed to Bristol John Trelawney Post script I did not tell you the 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 unearth the very competent for a mate a man named Arrow I have a boson who pipes Livesey so things shall go man a 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 bankers account which has never been overdrawn he leaves his wife to manage the inn and as she is a woman of color a pair of old bachelors like you and I may be excused for guessing that it is the wife quite as much self 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 undergain keepers 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 Bembo and there I found my mother in good health in spirits the captain who had so long been a 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 armchair for mother in the bar he had found her a boy as an apprentice also so that she should not want help while 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 as he was new to the work I had a hundred opportunities of setting him right and putting him down and I was not slow to profit by them the night passed and the next day after dinner Redruth and I were a foot again and on the road I said goodbye to mother and the cove where I had lived since I was born and the dear old Admiral Bembo since he was repainted no longer quite so dear one of my last thoughts was of the captain who had so often strode along the beach with his cocked hat his saber cut 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 Redruth and a stout old gentleman and in spite of the swift motion and the cold night air I must have dozed a great deal on the very first and then slept like a log uphill and down dale through stage after stage for 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 the 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 super intend the work upon the schooner there we had now to walk and our way to my great delight lay along the keys and beside 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 seem no thicker than a spiders though I had lived by the shore all my life I seem 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 with a piping boson and pigtailed singing seaman to see bound for an unknown island and to seek for buried treasure while I was still in this delightful dream we came subtly 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 sailors 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 tomorrow end of chapter chapter 8 of treasure island this LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson chapter 8 at the sign of the spyglass when I had done breakfasting the Squire gave me a note addressed to John Silver at the sign of the spyglass and 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 sign I set off overjoyed at this opportunity to see more of the ships and pick my way among a great crowd of people and carts and bails 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 each 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 had a glance I was sure he must be Long John his left leg was cut off close by the hip and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch which he managed with 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 favored 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 Bembo but one look at the man before me 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 then as he saw the Squire's letter he seemed to me to give something almost like a start oh said he quite loud and offering his hand I see you are a new cabin boy pleased I am 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 a moment but his hurry had attracted my notice and I recognized him at glance it was the tallow faced man wanting two fingers who had come first to the admiral bimbo oh I cried stop him it's black dog I don't care to coppers who he is cried silver but he hasn't paid his score Harry run and catch him one of the others who was nearest the door leaped up and started in pursuit if he were admiral hawkey shall pay a score cried silver and then relinquishing my hand who did you say he was he asked black what dog sir 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 gray haired mahogany faced sailor came forward pretty sheepishly rolling his quid now Morgan said long John very sternly you never clap your eyes on that black black dog before did you now not I sir said Morgan with a salute you didn't know his name did you no sir by the powers to Morgan it is good for you exclaim the landlord if you had been mixed up with the lack of that you would never have 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 join voyages kittens ships pipe up what was it he was a talking of keelhauling answered Morgan keelhauling was here 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 oddest man Tom Morgan only stupid and now he ran on again allowed let's see black dog no I don't know the name not high yet I kind of think I yes I've seen the swab he used to come here with a blind beggar he used 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 certain ah he looked a shark he did if we run down this black dog now there will be news for Captain Trelawney Ben's a good runner few seamen run better than Ben he should run him down hand over hand by the powers he talked to keelhauling did he I'll keelhaul him 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 were a bow street runner my suspicions had been thoroughly reawakened on finding black dog at the spyglass 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 see here now Hawkins said he here's a blessed hard thing on a man like me now ain't it there's Captain Trilloni what's he to think here I have this confounded son of a Dutchman sitting in my own house drinking up my own rum here you come and tell 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 come in now here it is what could I do with this old timber I hop on when I was an AB master mariner I'd have come up alongside of him hand over hand and broached him too in a brace of old shakes I would but 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 rum why shiver my timbers if I hadn't forgotten my score and falling on a bench he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks I could not help joining and we laugh together peel after peel until the tavern rang again why what a precious old sea calf 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 chips boy but come now stand by to go about this won't do duty is duty mess mates I'll put on my old cockerel hat and step along of you to Captain Trelawney and report this here affair for mind you it's serious young Hawkins and neither you nor me come out of it with what I should make so bold as to call credit nor you neither says you not smart none of the pair of us smart but dash my buttons that was a goodin 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 pass by their rig tonnage and 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 semen or repeating a nautical phrase till I had learned it perfectly I began to see that here was one of the best of possible shipmates when we got to the inn the squire and Dr. Livesey were seated together finishing a quart of ale with a toast in it before they should go aboard the schooner on a visit of 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 there was nothing to be done and after he had been complimented long John took up his crutch and departed all hands aboard by four 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 the 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 say squire take your hat Hawkins and we'll see the ship End of chapter Chapter 9 of Treasure Island This Libre Box recording is in the public domain by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 9 Powder and Arms The Hispaniola lay some way out and we went under the figureheads and round the sterns of many other ships and their cables sometimes graded underneath our keel and sometimes swung above us at last however we got alongside and were met and saluted as we stepped aboard by the mate Mr. Arrow the young old sailor with earrings in his ears and a squint he and the squire were very thick and friendly but I soon observed that things were not the same between Mr. Trelawney and the captain this last was a sharp looking man who seemed angry with everything on board and was soon to tell us why for we had hardly got down into the cabin when a sailor followed us Captain Smallert sir asked him to speak with you said he I am always at the captain's orders come in said the squire the captain who was close behind his messenger entered it once and shot the door behind him well Captain Smallert what have you to say all ship shape and sea worthy well sir said the captain better speak plain I believe even at the risk of a fence I don't like this cruise I don't like the men and I don't like my officer perhaps sir you don't like the ship inquired the squire very angry as I could see I can't speak as to that sir not having seen her tried said the captain she seems a clever craft more I can't say possibly sir you may not like your employer either said the squire but here Dr. Livesey cut in stay a bit said he a bit no use of such questions as that but to produce ill feeling the captain has said too much or he has said too little and I'm bound to say that I require an explanation of his words you don't you say like this cruise now why I was engaged sir on what we call sealed orders to sail the ship for that gentleman where he should bid me said the captain so far so good but now I find that every man before the mass knows more than I do I don't call that fair now do you no said Dr. Livesey I don't next said the captain I learn we are going after treasure hear it from my own hands mind you now treasure is ticklish work I don't like treasure voyages on any account and I don't like them above all when they are secret and when begging your pardon Mr. Chiloni the secret has been told to the parrot silver's parrot asked the squire it's a way of speaking said the captain blabbed I mean it's my belief neither of you gentlemen know what you are about but I'll tell you my way of it life or death at a close run that is all clear and I dare say enough replied Dr. Livesey we take the risk but we are not so ignorant as you believe us next you say you don't like the crew are they not good seamen I don't like them sir returned captain small it and I think I should have had the choosing of my own hands if you go to that perhaps you should replied the doctor my friend should perhaps have taken you along with him if there be one was unintentional and you don't like Mr. Arrow I don't sir I believe he's a good seamen but he's too free with the crew to be a good officer a mate should keep himself to himself shouldn't drink with the men before the mast do you mean he drinks cried the squire no sir replied the captain only that he's too familiar well now and the short and long of it captain asked the doctor tell us what you want well gentlemen are you determined to go on this cruise like iron answered the squire very good said the captain then as you've heard me very patiently saying things that I could not prove hear me a few words more they are putting the powder and the arms in the forehold now you have a good place under the cabin why not put them there first point then you are bringing four of your own people with you and they tell me some of them are to be birthed forward why not give them the births here beside the cabin second point any more one more said the captain there's been too much blabbing already too much agreed the doctor I'll tell you what I've heard myself continued captain Smollett that you have a map of an island that there's crosses on the map to show where treasure is and that the island lies and then he named the latitude and longitude exactly I never told that cried the squire to us all the hands know it sir returned the captain let him see that must have been you or Hawkins cried the squire it doesn't much matter who it was replied the doctor and I could see that neither he nor the captain paid much regard to Mr. Trelawney's protestations neither did I to be sure he was so loose a talker yet in this case I believe it was really right and that nobody had told the situation of the island well gentlemen continued the captain I don't know who has this map but I make it to point it shall be kept secret even from me and Mr. Arrow otherwise I would ask you to let me resign I see said the doctor you wish us to keep this matter dark and to make a garrison of the stern part of the ship manned with my friends own people and provided with all the arms and powder on board in other words you fear a mutiny sir said captain Smollett no intention to take offense I deny your right to put words into my mouth no captain sir would be justified in going to see it all if he had ground enough to say that as for Mr. Arrow I believe him thoroughly honest some of the men are the same all may be for what I know but I am responsible for the ship's safety in the life of every man jacker board of her I see things going as I think not quite right and I ask you to take certain precautions or let me resign my birth and that's all captain Smollett began the doctor with a smile did ever you hear the fable of the mountain and the mouse you'll excuse me I dare say but you remind me of that fable when you came in here I'll stick my wig you met more than this doctor said the captain you are smart when I came in here I meant to get discharged I had no thought that Mr. Cialoni would hear a word no more I would cried the squire had Livesey not been here I should have seen you to the deuce as it is I have hurt you I will do as you desire but I think the worse of you that's as you please sir said the captain you'll find I do my duty and with that he took his leave Cialoni said the doctor contrary to all my notions I believed you have managed to get two honest men on board with you that man and John Silver Silver if you like cried the squire but as for that intolerable humbug I declare I think his conduct unmanly, un-sailorly and downright un-English well says the doctor we shall see when we came on deck when we came on deck the men had begun already to take out the arms and powder yo-ho-ing at their work while the captain and Mr. Arrow stood by super-intending the new arrangement was quite to my liking the whole schooner had been overhauled six births had been made a stern out of what had been the after part of the main hold and this set of cabins was only joined to the galley and forecastle by a sparred passage on the port side it had been originally meant that the captain, Mr. Arrow, Hunter Joyce, the doctor and the squire were to occupy these six births now Redruth and I were to get two of them and Mr. Arrow and the captain were to sleep on deck in the companion which had been enlarged on each side till you might have almost have called it a roundhouse very low it was still of course but there was room to swing two hammocks and even the mate seemed pleased with the arrangement even he perhaps had been doubtful as to the crew but that is only guess here we had not long the benefit of his opinion we were all hard at work changing the powder and the births when the last man or two and Long John along with them came off in a shoreboat the cook came up the side like a monkey for cleverness and as soon as he saw what was doing so ho mates says he what's this we're a change in the powder Jack answers one why by the powers and long John if we do will miss the morning tide my orders said the captain shortly you may go below my man hands will want supper I I sir answered the cook and touching his forelock he disappeared at once in the direction of his galley that's a good man captain said the doctor very likely sir replied captain small it easy with that easy he ran on to the fellows who were shifting the powder and then suddenly observing me examining the swivel we carried amid ships along brass nine here you ships boy he cried out of that off with you to the cook and get some work and then as I was hurrying off I heard him say quite loudly to the doctor I'll have no favorites on my ship I assure you I was quite of the squires way of thinking the captain deeply end of chapter chapter ten of treasure island this LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simsonville, South Carolina treasure island by Robert Louis Stevenson chapter ten the voyage all that night we were in a great bustle getting things stowed in their place and boat fulls of the squires friends Mr. like coming off to wish him a good voyage in a safe return we never had a night at the admiral Bembo when I had half the work and I was dog tired when a little before dawn the boson sounded his pipe and the crew began to man the capstan bars I might have been twice as weary yet I would not have left the deck all was so new and interesting to me the brief commands the shrill note of the whistle the men bustling to their places in the glimmer of the ship's lanterns the barbeque tip us a stave cried one voice the old one cried another I I mates said long John who was standing by with his crutch under his arm at it once broke out in the air and words I knew so well 50 men on the dead man's chest and then the whole crew bore course yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum and at the third hoe drove the bars before them with a will even at that exciting moment it carried me back to the old Admiral Bembo in a second and I seem to hear the voice of the captain piping in the course but soon the anchor was short up soon it was hanging dripping at the boughs soon the sails began to draw and the land and shipping to flit by on either side and before I could lie down to snatch an hour of slumber the Hispaniola had begun her voyage to the Isle of Treasure and the captain was going to relate that voyage in detail it was fairly prosperous the ship proved to be a good ship the crew were capable seaman and the captain thoroughly understood his business but before we came the length of Treasure Island two or three things had happened which require to be known Mr. Arrow first of all turned out even worse than the captain had feared he had no command among the men and people did what they pleased or after a day or two at sea he began to appear on deck with hazy eye red cheeks stuttering tongue and other marks of drunkenness time after time he was ordered below in disgrace sometimes he fell and cut himself sometimes he lay all day long in his little bunk at one side of the companion sometimes for a day or two he would be almost sober and attend to his work at least passably in the meantime we could never make out where he got that was the ships mystery watch him as we pleased we could do nothing to solve it and when we asked him to his face he would only laugh if he were drunk and if he were sober deny solemnly that he had ever tasted anything but water he was not only useless as an officer and a bad influence amongst the men but it was plain that at this rate he must soon kill himself outright so nobody was much surprised nor very sorry when one dark night with a head sea he disappeared entirely and was seen no more over board said the captain well gentlemen that saves the trouble of putting him in irons but there we were without a mate and it was necessary of course to advance one of the men the boson Job Anderson was the likeliest man on board and though he kept his old title he served in a way as mate Mr. Trelawney had followed the sea and his knowledge made him very useful for he often took a watch himself in easy weather and the coxswain Israel hands was a careful, wily, old experienced seaman who could be trusted at a pinch with almost anything he was a great confidant of long john silver and so the mention of his name leads me on to speak of our ship's cook, barbecue as the men called him aboard ship he carried his crutch by a lanyard round his neck both hands as free as possible it was something to see him wedge the foot of the crutch against the bulkhead and propping against it yielding to every movement of the ship get on with his cooking like someone's safe assure still more strange was it to see him in the heaviest of weather across the deck he had a line or two rigged up to help him across the whitest spaces long john's earrings they were called and he would hand himself from one place to another now using the crutch now trailing it alongside by the lanyard as quickly as another man could walk yet some of the men who had sailed with him before expressed their pity to see him so reduced he's no common man barbecue said the coxswain to me he had good schooling in his young days and could speak like a book when so minded and brave a lion's nothing alongside of long john I seen him grapple four and knock their heads together him unarmed all the crew respected and even obeyed him he had a way of talking to each and doing everybody some particular service to me he was unwirriedly kind and always glad to see me in the galley which he kept as clean as a new pin the dishes hanging up burnished and his parrot in a cage in one corner come away Hawkins he would say calm and have a yarn with John nobody more welcome than yourself my son sit you down and hear the news here's Captain Flint I call my parrot Captain Flint after the famous buccaneer here's Captain Flint predicting success to our voyage wasn't your captain and the parrot would say with great rapidity pieces of eight pieces of eight pieces of eight till you wonder that it was not out of breath or till John threw his handkerchief over the cage now that bird he would say is maybe two hundred years old Hawkins they live forever mostly and if anybody seen more wickedness it must be the devil himself she sailed with England the great Captain England the pirate she's been at Madagascar and at Malabar and Suriname and Providence and Portobello she was at the fishing up of the wrecked plate ships it's there she learned pieces of eight a little wonder and fifty thousand of them Hawkins she was at the border of the viceroy of the Indies out of Goa she was and to look at her you would think she was a babby but you smelt powder didn't you Captain stand by to go about the parrot would scream ah she's a handsome craft she is the cook would say and give her sugar from his pocket and then the bird would peck at the bars and swear straight on passing belief for wickedness there John would add you can't touch pitch and not be mucked lad there's this poor old innocent bird of mine swear in blue fire and none the wiser you may lay to that she would swear the same in a manner of speaking before chaplain and John would touch his forelock with a solemn way he had that made me think he was the best of men in the meantime the squire and Captain Smollett were still on pretty distant terms with one another the squire made no bones about the matter he despised the Captain the Captain on his part never spoke but when he was spoken to and then sharp and short and dry and not a word wasted he owned when driven into a corner that he seemed to have been wrong about the crew that some of them were as brisk as he wanted to see and all had behaved fairly well as for the ship he had taken a downright fancy to her she'll lie a point nearer the wind that a man has a right to expect of his own married wife sir but he would add all I say is we're not home again and I don't like the cruise the squire at this would turn away and march up and down the deck chin in air a trifle more of that man he would say and I shall explode we had some heavy weather which only proved the qualities of the Hispaniola every man on board seemed well content and they must have been hard to please if they had been otherwise for it is my belief there was never a ship's company so spoiled since Noah put to sea double grog was going on the least excuse there was duff on odd days as for instance if the squire heard it was any man's birthday and always a barrel of apples standing broached in the waist for anyone to help himself that had a fancy never knew good come of it yet the captain said to Dr. Livese spoiled four castle hands make devils that's my belief but good did come of the apple barrel as you shall hear for if it had not been for that we should have had no note of warning and might all have perished by the hand of treachery this was how it came about we had run up the trades to get the wind of the island we were after I'm not allowed to be more plain and now we were running down for it with a bright lookout day and night it was about the last day of our outward voyage by the largest computation sometime that night or at latest before noon of the morrow we should sight the treasure island we were heading south southwest and had a steady breeze a beam and a quiet sea the Hispaniola rolled steadily dipping her bow spirit now and then with a whiff of spray all was drawing a low and a loft everyone was in the bravest spirits because we were now so near an end of the first part of our adventure now just after sundown when all my work was over and I was on my way to my birth it occurred to me that I should like an apple I ran on deck the watch was all forward looking out for the island the man at the helm was watching the luff of the sail and whistling away gently to himself and that was the only sound accepting the swish of the sea against the bows and around the sides of the ship in I got bodily into the apple barrel and found there was scarce an apple left but sitting down there in the dark what with the sound of the waters and the rocking movement of the ship I had either fallen asleep or was on the point of doing so when a heavy man sat down with rather a clash close by the barrel shook as he leaned his shoulders against it and I was just about to jump up when the man began to speak it was silver's voice I had heard a dozen words I would not have shown myself for all the world but lay there trembling and listening in the extreme of fear and curiosity for from these dozen words I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended upon me alone End of chapter Chapter 11 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 11 What I Heard in the Apple Barrel No, not I said silver Flint was captain, I was quarter master along on my timber leg the same broadside I lost my leg old pew lost his deadlights it was a master surgeon him that amputated me out of college and all but he was hanged like a dog and sun dried like the rest at Corso Castle that was Robert's men that was and come to change in names to their ships, royal fortune and so on now, what a ship was christened so let her stay, I says so it was with the Cassandra as brought us all safe home from Malabar after England took the viceroy of the Indies so it was with the old walrus ship as I've seen him up with the red blood and fit to sink with gold ah cried another voice that of the youngest hand on board and evidently full of admiration he was the flower of the flock was Flint Davis was a man too by all accounts said silver I never sailed along at him first with England then with Flint that's my story and now here on my own account in a manner of speaking by nine hundred safe from England and two thousand after Flint that ain't bad for a man before the mast, all safe in bank, ain't earning now it's saving does it you may lay to that where's all England's men now I don't know where's Flint's why most on him aboard here and glad to get the duff been begging before that some on him oh pew as had lost his sight it might have thought shame spends twelve hundred pound in a year like a lord in parliament where is he now well he's dead now and under hatches but for two year before that shiver my timbers the man was starving he begged and he stole and he cut throats and starved at that by the powers well it ain't much use after all said the young seaman take much use for fools you may lay to it that or nothing cried silver but now you look here you're young you are but you're as smart as paint I see that when I set my eyes on you and I'll talk to you like a man you may imagine how I felt when I heard this abominable old rogue addressing another in the very same words of flattery as he had used to myself I think if I had been able that I would have killed him through the barrel meantime he ran on little supposing he was over heard here it is about gentleman a fortune they lives rough and they risk swinging but they eat and drink like fighting cocks and when a cruise is done why it's hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings in their pockets now the most goes for rum and a good fling and to see again in their shirts but that's not the course I lay I puts it all away some here some there and none too much anywhere by reason of suspicion I'm fifth day Markia once back from this cruise I set up gentlemen and earnest time enough to says you ah but I've lived easy in the meantime never denied myself a nothing heart desires and slips off and ain't dainty all my days but when it see and how did I begin before the mast like you well said the other but all the other money's gone now ain't it you daren't show face in Bristol after this why where much you suppose it was as silver derisively at Bristol in banks and places answered his companion it were said the cook it were when we weighed anchor but my old missus has it all by now and the spy glasses sold leasing goodwill and Reagan and the old girls off to meet me I would tell you where for I trust you but it'd make jealousy among the mates and can you trust your missus asked the other gentlemen of fortune return the cook usually trust little among themselves and right they are you may lay to it but I have away with me I have when a mate brings a slip on his cable one is knows me I mean it won't be in the same world with old John there was some that was feared of Pew and some that was feared of Flint but Flint his own self was feared of me feared he was and proud they was the roughest crew afloat was flints the devil himself would have feared to go to see with them well now I tell you I'm not a boasting man and you seen yourself how easy I keep company but when I was quartermaster lambs wasn't the word for Flint's old years ah you may be sure of yourself an old John's ship well I tell you now replied the lad I didn't half a quarter like the job till I had this talk with you John but there's my hand on it now and a brave lad you were and smart too answered silver shaking hands so heartily that all the barrels shook and a finer figure head for a gentleman of fortune I never clap my eyes on by this time I had begun to understand the meaning of their terms by a gentleman of fortune they plainly meant neither more nor less than a common pirate and the little scene that I had overheard was the last act in the corruption of one of the honest hands perhaps of the last one left aboard but on this point I was soon to be relieved for silver giving a little whistle a third man strolled up and sat down by the party Dick's square said silver over oh I know Dick was square returned the voice of the coxswain Israel hands he's no fool he's Dick and he turned his quid and spat but look here he went on here's what I want to know barbecue how long are we going to stand off and on like a blessed bomb boat I had almost enough of kept them small it he's hazed me long enough by thunder I want to go into that cabin I do I want their pickles and wines in that Israel said silver your head ain't much account nor ever was but you're able to hear I reckon least ways your ears is big enough now here's what I say you'll berth forward and you'll live hard and you'll speak soft and you'll keep sober till I give the word and you may lay to that my son well I don't say no do I growl the coxswain what I say is when that's what I say when by the powers cried silver well now if you want to know I'll tell you when the last moment I can manage and that's when here's a first rate seaman captain small it sails the blessed ship for us here's this squire and doctor with a map and such I don't know where it is do I or do you says you well then I mean this squire and doctor shall find the stuff and help us to get it aboard by the powers then we'll see if I was sure of you all sons of double Dutchman I'd have captain small it navigate us half way back again before I struck why we're all seaman aboard here I should think said the lad dick we're all four castle hands you mean snap silver we can steer a course but who's to set one that's what all you gentlemen split on first and last if I had my way I'd have captain small it work us back into the trades at least then we'd have no blessed miscalculations and a spoonful of water a day but I know the sort you are I'll finish with them at the island as soon as the blunts on board and pity it is but you're never happy till you're drunk split my sides I've a sick heart to sail with the likes of you easy all long John cried Israel who's it crossing of your why how many tall ships thinking out have I seen later board and how many brisk lads drying in the sun at execution dock cried silver and all for this same hurry and hurry and hurry you hear me I seen a thing or two at sea I have if you would only lay your course and a pint of windward you would ride in carriage is your word but not you I know you you'll have your mouth full of rum tomorrow and go hang everybody node you was a kind of a chapling John but there's others as good hand in steer as well as you said Israel they like to be the fun they did they wasn't so high and dry know how but took their fling like jolly companions every one so says silver well and where are they now pew was that sort and he died a beggar man flint was he died of rum at Savannah ah they was a sweet crew they was only where are they but as dick when do we lay him a thwart and what are we to do with them anyhow there's the man for me to cook admiringly that's what I call business well what would you think put him ashore like maroons that would have been england's way or cut him down like that much pork that would have been flints or billy bones is Billy was the man for that said Israel dead men don't bites is he well he's dead now himself he knows the long and short on it now and if ever a rough hand come to port it was Billy right you are since over rough and ready but mark you here I'm an easy man I'm quite the gentleman says you but this time it's serious duty is duty mates I give my vote death when I'm in parliament and riding in my coach I don't want none of these sea lawyers in the cabin to come and home and look for like the devil in prayers wait is what I say but when the time comes why let her rip John cries the coxswain you're a man you'll say so Israel when you see said silver only one thing I claim I claim Trelawney I'll ring his calf's head off his body with these hands dick he added breaking off you just jump up like a sweet lad and get me an apple to wet my pipe like you may fancy the terror I was in I should have leaped out and run for it if I had found the strength but my limbs and heart alike misgave me I heard dick begin to rise and then someone seemingly stopped him and the voice of hands exclaimed oh stow that don't you get suckin of that bilge John let's have a go of the rum dick said silver I trust you I have a gauge the keg mind there's the key you fill a panic in and bring it up terrified as I was I could not help thinking to myself that this must have been how Mr. Arrow got the strong waters that destroyed him dick was gone but a little while and during his absence Israel spoke straight on in the cooks ear it was but a word or two that I could catch and yet I gathered some important news for besides other scraps that tended to the same purpose this whole clause was audible not another man of them will join hence there were still faithful men on board when dick returned one after another of the trio took the panic in and drank one to luck another with a here's to old flint and silver himself saying in a kind of song here's to ourselves and hold your love plenty of prizes and plenty of duff just then a sort of brightness fell upon me in the barrel and looking up I found the moon had risen and was silvering the mizzen top and shining white on the luff of the foresail and almost at the same time the voice of the look out shouted land ho end of chapter chapter 12 of treasure island this LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville South Carolina treasure island by Robert Louis Stevenson chapter 12 council of war there was a great rush of feet across the deck I could hear people tumbling up from the cabin in the forecastle and slipping in an instant outside my barrel I dived behind the foresail made a double towards the stern and came out upon the open deck in time to join Hunter and Dr. Livesey in the rush for the weather bow there all hands were already congregated a belt of fog had lifted almost simultaneously with the appearance of the moon away to the south west of us we saw two low hills about a couple of miles apart and rising behind one of them a third and higher hill whose peak was still buried in the fog all three seemed sharp and conical in figure so much I saw almost in a dream for I had not yet recovered from my horrid fear of a minute or two before and then I heard the voice of captain Smollett issuing orders the hispanola was laid a couple of points nearer the island and now sailed a course that would just clear the island on the east and now men said the captain when all was sheeted home has any one of you ever seen that land ahead I have sir said silver I've watered there with a trader I was cooking the anchorage is in the south behind an islet I fancy asked the captain yes sir skeleton island they calls it it were a main place for pirates once and a hand we had on board note all their names for it that hill to the northward they call the four mast hill there are three hills in a row running southward four main in business sir but the main that's the big and with the cloud on it they usually calls the spyglass by reason of a look out they kept when they was in the anchorage cleaning for it's there they clean their ships asking your pardon I have a chart here said captain small it see if that's the place long john's eyes burned in his head as he took the chart but by the fresh look of the paper I knew he was doomed to disappointment this was not the map we found in billy bones' chest but an accurate copy complete in all things names and heights and soundings with a single exception of the red crosses and the written notes sharp as must have been his annoyance silver had the strength of mind to hide it yes sir said he this is the spot to be sure and very prettily drawed out who might have done that I wonder the pirates were too ignorant I reckon ah here it is captain kids anchorage just the name my ship may called it there's a strong current runs along the south and then away north and up the west coast right you was sir says he to haul your wind and keep the weather of the island least ways if such was your intention as to enter and careen and there ain't no better place for that in these waters thank you my man said captain small it I'll ask you later on to give us a help you may go I was surprised at the coolness with which John avowed his knowledge of the island and I own I was half frightened when I saw him drawing nearer to myself he did not know to be sure that I had overheard his counsel from the apple barrel and yet I had by this time taken such a horror of his cruelty duplicity and power that I could scarce conceal a shutter when he laid his hand upon my arm ah says he this here is a sweet spot this island a sweet spot for a lad to get a shore on you'll bathe and you'll climb trees and you'll hunt goats you will and you'll get a loft on them hills like a goat yourself why it makes me young again I was going to forget my timber leg I was it's a pleasant thing to be young and have ten toes and you may lay to that when you want to go a bit of explore and you just ask old John and he'll put up a snack for you to take along and clapping me in the friendliest way upon the shoulder he hobbled off forward and went below Captain Smollett the squire and Dr. Livesey were talking together on the quarter-deck and anxious as I was to tell them my story I durst not interrupt them openly while I was still casting about of my thoughts to find some probable excuse Dr. Livesey called me to his side he had left his pipe below and being a slave to tobacco had meant that I should fetch it but as soon as I was near enough to speak and not be overheard I broke immediately Dr. let me speak get the captain and squire down to the cabin and then make some pretense to send for me I have terrible news the doctor changed countenance a little but next moment he was master of himself thank you Jim said he quite loudly that was all I wanted to know as if he had asked me a question and with that he turned on his heel and rejoined the other two they spoke together for a little and though none of them started or raised his voice or so much as whistled it was plain enough that Dr. Livesey had communicated my request for the next thing that I heard was the captain giving an order to Jabba Anderson and all hands were piped on deck my lads said captain Smollett I have a word to say to you this land that we have sighted is the place we have been sailing for Mr. Trillone being a very open-handed gentleman as we all know has just asked me a word or two and I was able to tell him that every man on board had done his duty a low and a loft as I never asked to see it done better why he and I and the doctor are going below to the cabin to drink your health and luck and you'll have Grog served out for you to drink our health and luck I'll tell you what I think of this I think it handsome and if you think as I do you'll give a good sea cheer for the gentleman that does it the cheer followed that was a matter of course but it rang out so full and hearty that I confess I could hardly believe that these same men were plotting for our blood one more cheer for Captain Smollett cried Long John when the first had subsided and this also was given with a will on the top of that the three gentlemen went below but long after word was sent forward that Jim Hawkins was wanted in the cabin I found them all three seated around the table a bottle of Spanish wine and some raisins before them and the doctor smoking away with his wig on his lap and that I knew was a sign that he was agitated the stern window was open for it was a warm night and you could see the moon shining behind on the ship's wake no Hawkins said the squire you have something to say speak up I did as I was bid and as short as I could make it told the whole details of Silver's conversation nobody interrupted me till I was done nor did any one of the three of them make so much as a movement but they kept their eyes upon my face from first to last Jim said Dr. Livesey take a seat and they made me sit down a 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 return the captain I never heard of a crew that meant to mutiny but what showed signs before for any man that had an eye on 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 return the captain but this is talk this don't lead to anything I see three or four points and with Mr. Cirlani's permission them you sir are the captain it is for you to speak says Mr. Cirlani grandly first point began Mr. Smollett we must go on because we can't 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 treasures 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. Cirlani as upon myself declared the squire three reckon the captain ourselves make seven counting Hawkins here now about the honest hands most likely Cirlani'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 are all Englishmen broke out the squire sir I could fight 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 look out 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 26 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 19 end of chapter chapter 13 of Treasure Island this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson part 3 my shore adventure chapter 13 how my shore adventure began the appearance of the island when I came on deck next morning was all together changed although the breeze had now utterly ceased we had made a great deal of way during the night and we're now lying becalmed about half a mile to the southeast of the low eastern coast gray colored woods covered a large part of the surface this even tent was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sandbreak in the lower lands by many tall trees of the pine family out topping the others some singly, some in clumps but the general coloring was uniform and sad the hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock all were strangely shaped and the spy glass which was by three or four hundred feet the tallest on the island was likewise the strangest in configuration running up sheer from almost every side and then suddenly cut off at the top like a pedestal and put a statue on the Hispaniola was rolling scuppers under in the ocean swell the booms were tearing at the blocks the rudder was banging to and fro and the whole ship creaking, groaning and jumping like a manufactory I had to cling tight to the backstay and the world turned giddily before my eyes for though I was a good enough sailor when there was way on this standing still and being rolled about like a bottle was a thing I never learned to stand without a qualm so above all in the morning on an empty stomach perhaps it was this perhaps it was the look of the island with its gray melancholy woods and wild stone spires and the surf that we could both see and hear foaming and thundering on the steep beach at least although the sun shone bright and hot and the shorebirds were fishing and crying all around us and you would have thought anyone would have been glad to get to land after being so long at sea I sank as the saying is into my boots and from the first look onward I hated the very thought of treasure island we had a dreary morning's work before us for there was no sign of any wind and the boats had to be got out and manned and the ship warped three or four miles round the corner of the island and up the narrow passage to the haven behind Skeleton Island I volunteered for one of the boats where I had of course no business the heat was sweltering and the men grumbled fiercely over their work Anderson was in command of my boat and instead of keeping the crew in order he grumbled as loud as the worst well he said with an oath it's not forever I thought this was a very bad sign for up to that day the men had gone briskly and willingly about their business but the very side of the island had relaxed the cords of discipline all the way in Long John stood by the steersman and conned the ship he knew the passage like the palm of his hand and though the man in the chains got everywhere more water than was down in the chart John never hesitated once there's a strong scour with the ebb he said and this year passage has been dug out in a manner of speaking with a spade we brought up just where the anchor was in the chart about a third of a mile from each shore the mainland on one side and Skeleton Island on the other the bottom was clean sand the plunge of our anchor sent up clouds of birds wheeling and crying over the woods but in less than a minute they were down again and all was once more silent the place was entirely landlocked buried in woods the trees coming right down to high watermark the shores mostly flat and the hilltop standing round at a distance in a sort of amphitheater one here one there two little rivers or rather two swamps emptied out into this pond as you might call it and the foliage round that part of the shore had a kind of poisonous brightness from the ship we could see nothing of the house or stockade for they were quite buried among trees and if it had not been for the chart on the companion we might have been the first that had ever anchored there since the island arose out of the seas there was not a breath of air moving nor a sound but that of the surf booming all the way along the beaches and against the rocks outside a peculiar stagnant smell hung over the anchorage a smell of sodden leaves and rotting tree trunks I observed the doctor sniffing and sniffing like someone tasting a bad egg I don't know about treasure he said but I'll stick my wig there's fever here if the conduct of the men had been alarming in the boat it became truly threatening when they had come aboard they lay about the deck growling together in talk the slightest order was received with a black look and grudgingly and carelessly obeyed even the honest hands must have caught the infection for there was not one man aboard to mend another mutiny it was plain hung over us like a thunder cloud and it was not only we of the cabin party who perceived the danger long john was hard at work going from group to group spending himself in good advice for example no man could have shown a better he fairly outstripped himself in willingness and civility he was all smiles to everyone if an order were given john would be on his crutch in an instant with a cheeriest in the world and when there was nothing else to do he kept up one song after another as if to conceal the discontent of the rest of all the gloomy features of that gloomy afternoon this obvious anxiety on the part of long john appeared the worst we hold a council in the cabin sir said the captain if I risk another order the whole ship will come about our ears by the run you see sir here it is I get a rough answer do I not well if I speak back pikes will be going in two shakes if I don't silver will see there's something under that and the game's up now only one man to rely on and who is that silver sir return the captain he's as anxious as you and I to smother things up this is a tiff he'd soon talk him out of it if he had the chance and what I propose to do is to give him the chance let's allow the men an afternoon assure if they all go well we'll fight the ship if they none of them go well then we hold the cabin and God defend the right if some go you mark my words sir silver will bring him aboard again as mild as lambs it was so decided loaded pistols were served out to all the sure men hunter joys and redruth were taken into our confidence and received the news with less surprise and a better spirit than we had looked for and then the captain went on deck and addressed the crew my lads said he we've had a hot day and are all tired and out of sorts a turn of shore will hurt nobody the boats are still in the water you can take the gigs and as many as please may go ashore for the afternoon I'll fire a gun half an hour before sundown I believe the silly fellows must have thought they would break their shins over treasure as soon as they were landed for they all came out of their sulks in a moment and gave a cheer that started the echo in a far away hill and sent the birds once more flying and squalling round the anchorage the captain was too bright to be in the way he whipped out of sight at a moment leaving silver to arrange the party and I fancy it was as well he did so had he been on deck he could no longer so much as have pretended not to understand the situation it was as plain as day silver was the captain and a mighty rebellious crew he had of it the honest hands and I was soon to see it prove that there were such on board must have been very stupid fellows or rather I suppose the truth was this that all hands were disaffected by the example of the ring leaders only some more some less and a few being good fellows in the main could neither be led nor driven any further it is one thing to be idle and sulk and quite another to take a ship and murder a number of innocent men at last however the party was made up six fellows were to stay on board and the remaining thirteen including silver began to embark then it was that there came into my head the first of the mad notions that contributed so much to save our lives if six men were left by silver it was plain our party could not take and fight the ship and since only six were left it was equally plain that the cabin party had no present need of my assistance it occurred to me at once to go ashore in a jiffy I had slipped over the side and curled up in the four sheets of the nearest boat and almost at the same moment she shoved off no one took notice of me only the bow or sayin' is that you Jim, keep your head down but silver from the other boat looked sharply over and called out to know if that were me and from that moment I began to regret what I had done the crews raced for the beach but the boat I was in having some start and being at once the lighter and the better man shot far ahead of her consort and the bow head struck among the shore side trees and I had caught a branch and swung myself out and plunged into the nearest thicket while silver and the rest were still a hundred yards behind Jim, Jim! I heard him shouting but you may suppose I paid no heed jumping ducking and breaking through I ran straight before my nose till I could run no longer End of chapter 14 of Treasure Island this LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson chapter 14, The First Blow I was so pleased at having given the slip to Longjohn that I began to enjoy myself and look around me with some interest on the strange land that I was in I had crossed a marshy tract full of willows, bullrushes and odd outlandish swampy trees and I had now come out upon the skirts of an open piece of undulating sandy country about a mile long dotted with a few pines and a great number of contorted trees not unlike the oak in growth but pale in the foliage like willows. On the far side of the open stood one of the hills with two quaint craggy peaks shining vividly in the sun I now felt for the first time the discovery of exploration the isle was uninhabited my shipmates I had left behind and nothing lived in front of me but dumb brutes and fowls I turned hither and thither among the trees here and there were flowering plants unknown to me here and there I saw snakes and one raised his head from a ledge of rock and hissed at me with a noise not unlike the spinning of a top little did I suppose that he was a deadly enemy then I came to a long thicket of these oak-like trees live or evergreen oaks I heard afterwards they should be called which grew low along the sand like brambles the bows curiously twisted the foliage compact like thatch the thicket stretched down from the top of one of the sandy nulls spreading and growing taller as it went until it reached the margin of the broad reedy fen through which the nearest of the little rivers soaked its way into the anchorage the marsh was steaming in the strong sun and the outline of the spyglass trembled through the haze all at once there began to go a sort of bustle among the bull rushes a wild duck flew up with a quack another followed and soon over the whole surface of the marsh a great cloud of birds hung screaming and circling in the air I judged at once that some of my shipmates must be drawing near along the borders of the fen nor was I deceived for soon I heard the distant and low tones of a human voice which as I continued to give ear grew steadily louder and nearer this put me in a great fear and I crawled under cover of the nearest live oak and squatted there harkening as silent as a mouse another voice answered and then the first voice which I now recognize to be silvers once more took up the story and ran on for a long while in a stream only now and again interrupted by the other by the sound they must have been talking earnestly and almost fiercely but no distinct word came to my hearing at last the speakers seemed to have paused and perhaps to have sat down for not only did they cease to draw any nearer but the birds themselves began to grow more quiet and to settle again to their places in the swamp and now I began to feel that I was neglecting my business that since I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with these desperados the least I could do was to overhear them at their councils and that my plain and obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage under the favorable ambush of the crouching trees I could tell the direction of the speakers pretty exactly not only by the sound of their voices but by the behavior of the few birds that still hung an alarm above the heads of the intruders crawling on all fours I made steadily but slowly towards them till at last racing my head to an aperture among the leaves I could see clear down into a little green dell beside the marsh and closely set about with trees where Long John Silver and another of the crew stood face to face in conversation the sun beat full upon them Silver had thrown his hat beside him on the ground and his great smooth blonde face all shining with heat was lifted to the other man's in a kind of appeal wait he was saying it's because I think gold dust of you gold dust and you may lay to that if I hadn't took to you like pitch do you think I'd have been hear a warning of ya all's up you can't make nor mend it's to save your neck that I'm a-speaking and if one of the Wildens knew it where'd I be Tom now tell me where'd I be Silver said the other man and I observed he was not only red in the face but spoke as a crow and his voice shook too like a taut rope Silver says he you're old and you're honest or has the name for it and you've money too which lots of poor sailors hasn't and you're brave or I mistook and will you tell me you'll let yourself be led away with that kind of a mess of swabs not you as sure as God sees me I'd sooner lose my hand if I turn again my duty and then all of a sudden he was interrupted by a noise I had found one of the honest hands well here at that same moment came news of another far away out in the marsh there arose all of a sudden a sound like the cry of anger then another on the back of it and then one horrid long drawn scream the rocks of the spyglass re echoed at a score of times the whole troop of marsh birds rose again darkening heaven with a simultaneous were and long after that death yell was still ringing in my brain silence had reestablished its empire and only the rustle of the redescending birds and the boom of the distant surges disturbed the langer of the afternoon Tom had leaped at the sound like a horse at the spur but silver had not winked an eye he stood where he was resting lightly on his crutch watching his companion like a snake about to spring John said the sailor stretching out his hand hands off cried silver leaping back a yard as it seemed to me with the speed and security of a trained gymnast hands off if you like John Silver said the other it's a black conscience that can make you feared of me but in heaven's name tell me what was that that returned silver smiling away but wearier than ever is I a mere pinpoint in his big face but gleaming like a crumb of glass that oh I reckon that'll be Alan and at this point Tom flashed out like a hero Alan he cried the rest is sold for a true seaman and as for you John Silver long you've been a mate of mine but you're a mate of mine no more if I die like a dog I'll die in my duty you've killed Alan have you kill me too if you can but I defies you and with that this brave fellow turned his back directly on the cook and set off walking for the beach but he was not destined to go far with a cry John seized the branch of a tree whipped the crutch out of his armpit and sent that uncouth missile hurtling through the air it struck poor Tom point foremost and with stunning violence right between the shoulders in the middle of his back his hands flew up he gave a sort of gasp and fell whether he were injured much or little none could ever tell like enough to judge from the sound his back was broken on the spot but he had no time given him to recover Silver, agile as a monkey even without leg or crutch was on the top of him next moment and had twice buried his knife up to the hilt in that defenseless body from my place of ambush I could hear him pant aloud as he struck the blows I do not know what it rightly is to faint but I do know that for the next little while the whole world swam away from before me in a whirling mist Silver and the birds and the tall spyglass hilltop going round and round and topsy-turvy before my eyes and all manner of bells ringing and distant voices shouting in my ear when I came again to myself the monster had pulled himself together his crutch under his arm his hat upon his head just before him Tom lay motionless upon the sword but the murderer minded him not a wit cleansing his bloodstained knife the while upon a wisp of grass everything else was unchanged the sun still shining mercilessly on the steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the mountain and I could scarce persuade myself that murder had been actually done and a human life cruelly cut short a moment since before my eyes but now John put his hand into his pocket brought out a whistle and blew upon it several modulated blasts that rang far across the heated air I could not tell of course the meaning of the signal but it instantly awoke my fears more men would be coming I might be discovered they had already slain two of the honest people after Tom and Alan might not I come next instantly I began to extricate myself and crawl back again with what speed and silence I could manage to the more open portion of the wood as I did so I could hear hails coming between the old buccaneer and his comrades and the sound of danger lent me wings as soon as I was clear of the thicket I ran as I never ran before scarce minding the direction of my flight so long as it led me from the murderers and as I ran fear grew and grew upon me until it turned into a kind of frenzy indeed could anyone be more entirely lost than I when the gun fired how should I dare to go down to the boats among those fiends still smoking from their crime would not the first of them who saw me ring my neck like a snipes would not my absence itself be an evidence to them of my alarm and therefore of my fatal knowledge it was all over I thought goodbye to the Hispaniola goodbye to the squire the doctor and the captain there was nothing left for me but death by starvation or death by the hands of the mutineers all this while as I say I was still running and without taking any notice I had drawn near to the foot of the little hill with the two peaks and it got into a part of the island where the live oaks grew more widely apart and seen more like forest trees and their bearing and dimensions mingled with these were a few scattered pines some 50 some near 70 feet high the air too smelt more freshly than down beside the marsh and here a fresh alarm brought me to a stand with a thumping heart end of chapter chapter 15 of Treasure Island this LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson chapter 15 the man of the island from the side of the hill which was here steep and stony a spout of gravel was dislodged and fell rattling and bounding through the trees my eyes turned instinctively in that direction and I saw a figure leap with great rapidity behind the trunk of a pine what it was whether bear or man or monkey I could in no wise tell it seemed dark and shaggy more I knew not but the terror of this new apparition brought me to a stand I was now it seemed cut off upon both sides behind me the murderers before me this lurking nondescript and immediately I began to prefer the dangers that I knew to those I knew not Silver himself appeared less terrible in contrast with this creature of the woods and I turned on my heel and looking sharply behind me over my shoulder began to retrace my steps in the direction of the boats instantly the figure reappeared and making a wide circuit began to head me off I was tired at any rate but had I been as fresh as when I rose I could see it was in vain for me to contend in speed with such an adversary from trunk to trunk the creature flitted like a deer running men like on two legs but unlike any man that I had ever seen stooping almost double as it ran yet a man it was I could no longer be in doubt about that I began to recall what I had heard of cannibals I was within an ace of calling for help but the mere fact that he was a man however wild had somewhat reassured me and my fear of Silver began to revive in proportion I stood still therefore and cast about for some method of escape and as I was so thinking the recollection of my pistol flashed into my mind as soon as I remembered I was not defenseless courage glowed again in my heart and I set my face resolutely for this man of the island and walked briskly towards him he was concealed by this time behind another tree trunk but he must have been watching me closely for as soon as I began to move in his direction he reappeared and took a step to meet me then he hesitated drew back came forward again and at last to my wonder and confusion threw himself on his knees and held out his clasped hands in supplication at that I once more stopped who are you I asked Ben Gunn he answered and his voice sounded hoarse and awkward like a rusty lock Ben Gunn I am and I haven't spoke with a Christian these three years I could now see that he was a white man like myself and that his features were even pleasing his skin wherever it was exposed was burnt by the sun even his lips were black and his fair eyes looked quite startling in so dark a face of all the beggar men that I had seen or fancied he was the chief for raggedness he was clothed with tatters of old ships canvas and old sea cloth and this extraordinary patchwork was all held together by a system of the most various and incongruous fastenings brass buttons bits of stick and loops of tarry gaskin about his waist he wore an old brass buckled leather belt which was the one thing solid in his whole accoutrement three years I cried were you shipwrecked nay mate said he marooned I had heard the word and I knew it stood for a horrible kind of punishment common enough among the buccaneers in which the offender is put ashore with a little powder in shot and left behind on some desolate and distant island marooned three years ago he continued and lived on goats since then and berries and oysters wherever a man is says I a man can do for himself but mate my heart is sore for Christian diet you mightn't happen to have a piece of cheese what's about you now no well many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese toasted mostly and woke up again and here I were if ever I can get a board again says I you shall have cheese by the stone all this time he had been feeling the stuff of my jacket smoothing my hands looking at my boots and generally in the intervals of his speech showing a childish pleasure in the presence of a fellow creature my last words he perked up into a kind of startled slinus if ever you can get a board again says you he repeated why now what's to hinder you not you I know was my reply and right you was he cried now you what do you call yourself mate Jim I told him Jim Jim says he quite pleased apparently well now Jim I've lived that rough as you'd be ashamed of now for instance you wouldn't think I had had a pious mother to look at me he asked why no not in particular I answered ah well said he but I had remarkable pious and I was a civil pious boy and could rattle off my catechism that fast as you couldn't tell one word from another and here's what come to Jim and it begun with Chuck Farthen on the Blessed Gravestones that's what it begun with with her in that and so my mother told me and predicted the whole she did the pious woman but it were providence that put me here I thought it all out in this here lonely island and I'm back on piety you don't catch me tasting rum so much but just a thimbleful for luck of course the first chance I have I'm bound I'll be good and I see the way too and Jim looking all round him and lowering his voice to a whisper I'm rich I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone crazy in his solitude and I suppose I must have shown the feeling in my face for he repeated the statement hotly rich rich I says and I'll tell you what I'll make a man of you Jim ah Jim you'll bless your stars you will you was the first that found me and at this there came suddenly a lowering shadow over his face and he tightened his grasp upon my hand and raised a forefinger threateningly before my eyes now Jim you tell me true that ain't Flint ship he asked at this I had a happy inspiration I began to believe that I had found an ally and I answered him at once it's not Flint ship and Flint is dead but I'll tell you true as you ask me there are some of Flint's hands aboard worse luck for the rest of us not a man with one leg he gasped silver I asked ah silver says he that were his name he's the cook and the ringleader too he was still holding me by the wrist and at that he gave it quite a ring if you was sent by Long John he said I'm as good as pork and I know it but where was you do you suppose I had made my mind up in a moment and by way of answer told him the whole story of our voyage and the predicament in which we found ourselves he heard me with the keenest interest and when I had done he patted me on the head you're a good lad Jim he said and you're all in a clove hitch ain't ya well you just put your trust in Ben Gunn Ben Gunn's the man to do it what you think it likely now that your squire would prove a liberal minded one in case of help him being in a clove hitch as you remark I told him the squire was the most liberal of men I but you see returned Ben Gunn I didn't mean giving me a gate to keep and a suit of livery clothes and such that's not my mark Jim what I mean is would he be likely to come down to the tune of say one thousand pounds out of money that's as good as a man's own already I am sure he would said I as it was all hands were to share and a passage home he added with a look of great shrewdness why I cried the squire's a gentleman and besides if we got rid of the others we should want you to help work the vessel home ah said he so you would and he seemed very much relieved now I'll tell you what he went on so much I'll tell you and no more I were in Flint ship when he buried the treasure he and six along six strong seamen he was a sure nigh on a week and us standing off and on in the old walrus one fine day up went the signal and here comes Flint by himself in a little boat and his head done up in a blue scarf the sun was getting up and mortal white he looked about the cut water but there he was you mind and the six all dead dead and buried how he'd done it not a man abortus could make out it was battle, murder and sudden death least ways and six Billy bones was the mate long John he was quarter master and they asked him where the treasure was ah says he you can go ashore if you like and stay he says but as for the ship she'll beat up for more by thunder that's what he said well I was in another ship three years back and we sighted this island boys said I here's Flint's treasure let's land and find it the captain was displeased at that but my mess mates were all of a mind and landed twelve days they looked for it and every day they had the worst word for me until one fine morning all hands went aboard as for you Benjamin Gunn says they here's a musket they says and a spade and pickaxe you can stay here and find Flint's money for yourself they says well Jim three years have I been here and not a bite of Christian diet from that day to this but now you look here look at me do I look like a man before the mast no says you nor I warrant neither I says and with that he winked and pinched me hard just you mentioned them words to your squire Jim he went on nor he warrant neither that's the words three years he were the man of this island light and dark fair and rain and sometimes he would maybe think upon a prayer says you and sometimes he would maybe think of his old mother so be as she's alive you'll say but the most part of Gunn's time this is what you'll say the most part of his time was took up with another matter and then you'll give him a nip like I do and he pinched me again in the most confidential manner then he continued then you'll up and you'll say this Gunn is a good man you'll say and he puts a precious sight more confidence precious sight mind that in a gentleman born then in these gentlemen of fortune having been one himself well I said I don't understand one word that you've been saying but that's neither here nor there for how am I to get on board ah said he that's the hitch for sure well there's my boat that I made with my two hands I keep her under the white rock if the worst come to the worst after dark hi he broke out what's that for just then although the sun had still an hour or two to run all the echoes of the island awoke and bellowed to the thunder of a cannon they have begun to fight I cried follow me and I began to run towards the anchorage my terrors all forgotten while close at my side the marooned man in his goat skins trotted easily and lightly left left says he heaped to your left hand mate Jim under the trees with you there's where I killed my first goat they don't come down here now they're all mass-tended on them mountains for the fear of Benjamin Gunn ah and there's the sedimary cemetery he must have met you see the mounds I come here and prayed nows and thens when I thought maybe a Sunday would be about due it weren't quite a chapel but it seemed more solemn like and then says you no chapling nor so much as a Bible in a flag you says so he kept talking as I ran neither expecting nor receiving any answer the cannon shot was followed after a considerable interval by a volley of small arms another pause and then, not a quarter of a mile in front of me I beheld the Union Jack flutter in the air above a wood End of chapter Chapter 16 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Part 4 The Stockade Chapter 16 Narrative continued by the doctor how the ship was abandoned it was about half past one three bells in the sea-phrase that the two boats went ashore from the Hispaniola the captain, the squire and I were talking matters over in the cabin had there been a breath of wind we should have fallen on the six mutineers who were left aboard with us slipped our cable at a way to sea but the wind was wanting and to complete our helplessness down came Hunter with the news that Jim Hawkins had slipped into a boat and was gone ashore with the rest it never occurred to us to doubt Jim Hawkins but we were alarmed for his safety with the men in the temper they were in it seemed an even chance if we should see the lad again we ran on deck the pitch was bubbling in the seams the nasty stench of the place turned me sick if ever a man smelt fever and dysentery it was in that abominable anchorage the six goundrels were sitting grumbling under a sail in the forecastle ashore we could see the gigs made fast and a man sitting in each hard by where the river runs in one of them was whistling lila bolero waiting was a strain Hunter and I should go ashore with a jolly boat in quest of information the gigs had leaned to their right but Hunter and I pulled straight in in the direction of the stockade upon the chart the two who were left guarding their boats seemed in a bustle at our appearance lila bolero stopped off and I could see the pair discussing what they ought to do had they gone and told Silver all might have turned out differently but they had their orders I suppose and decided to sit quietly where they were and hark back again to lila bolero there was a slight bend in the coast and I steered so as to put it between us even before we landed we had thus lost sight of the gigs I jumped out and came as near running as I durst with a big silk handkerchief under my hat for coolness's sake an abrasive pistols ready primed for safety I had not gone a hundred yards when I reached the stockade this was how it was a spring of clear water rose almost at the top of a knoll well on the knoll and in closing the spring they had clapped a stout log house fit to hold two score of people on a pinch and loophole for musketry on either side all round this they had cleared a wide space and then the thing was completed by a paling six feet high without door or opening too strong to pull down without time and labour and too open to shelter the besiegers the people in the log house had them in every way they stood quiet in shelter and shot the others like partridges all they wanted was a good watch and food for short of a complete surprise they might have held the place against a regiment what particularly took my fancy was the spring for though we had a good enough place of it in the cabin of the Hispaniola with plenty of arms and ammunition and things to eat and excellent wines there had been one thing overlooked we had no water I was thinking this over when there came ringing over the island the cry of a man at the point of death I was not new to violent death I have served as royal highness the Duke of Cumberland and got a wound myself at Fontanoy but I know my pulse went dotting carry one Jim Hawkins is gone was my first thought it is something to have been an old soldier but more still to have been a doctor there is no time to dilly-dally in our work but now I made up my mind instantly and with no time lost returned to the shore and jumped on board the jolly boat by good fortune Hunter pulled a good oar we made the water fly and the boat was soon alongside and I aboard the schooner I found them all shaken as was natural the squire was sitting down as white as a sheet thinking of the harm he had led us to the good soul and one of the six forecastle hands was little better there's a man, said Captain Smollett nodding towards him, new to this work he came nigh-hand fainting doctor when he heard the cry another touch of the rudder and that man would join us I told my plan to the captain and between us we settled on the details of its accomplishment we put old Redruth in the gallery between the cabin and the forecastle with three or four loaded muskets and a mattress for protection Hunter brought the boat round under the stern port and Joyce and I set to work loading her with powder tins muskets, bags of biscuits, kegs of pork a case of cognac and my invaluable medicine chest in the meantime the squire and the captain stayed on deck and the latter hailed the coxswain who was the principal man aboard Mr. Hans, he said here are two of us with a brace of pistols each if any one of you six make a signal of any description that man's dead they were a good deal taken aback and after a little consultation one and all tumbled down the four companion thinking no doubt to take us on the rear but when they saw Redruth waiting for them in the sparred gallery they went about ship at once and a head popped out again on deck down dog, cries the captain and the head popped back again and we heard no more for the time of these six very faint-hearted seamen by this time tumbling things in as they came we had the jolly boat loaded as much as we dared Joyce and I got out through the stern port and we made for sure again as fast as oars could take us this second trip fairly aroused the watchers along shore Lily Bullero was dropped again and just before we lost sight of them behind the little point one of them whipped the shore and disappeared I had half a mind to change my plan and destroy their boats but I feared that Silver and the others might be close at hand and all might very well be lost by trying for too much we had soon touched land in the same place as before and set to provision the blockhouse all three made the first journey, heavily laden and tossed our stores over the palisade then, leaving Joyce to guard them one man to be sure but with half a dozen muskets Hunter and I returned to the jolly boat and loaded ourselves once more so we proceeded without pausing to take breath till the whole cargo was bestowed when the two servants took up their position in the blockhouse and I, with all my power, sculled back to the Hispaniola that we should have risked a second boat load seems more daring than it really was they had the advantage of numbers of course but we had the advantage of arms not one of the men ashore had a musket and before they could get within range for pistol shooting we flattered ourselves we should be able to give a good account of a half dozen at least the squire was waiting for me at the stern window all his faintness gone from him he caught the painter and made it fast and we fell to loading the boat for our very lives pork, powder and biscuit was the cargo with only a musket and a cutlass apiece for the squire and me and Redruth and the captain the rest of the arms and powder we dropped overboard in two fathoms and a half of water so that we could see the bright steel shining far below us in the sun on the clean sandy bottom by this time the tide was beginning to ebb and the ship was swinging round to her anchor voices were heard faintly hallowing in the direction of the two gigs and though this reassured us for Joyce and Hunter who were well to the eastward it warned our party to be off Redruth retreated from his place in the gallery and dropped into the boat which we then brought round to the ship's counter to be handier for captain Smollett now men said he do you hear me there was no answer from the forecastle it's to you Abraham Gray it's to you I am speaking still no reply Gray, resumed Mr. Smollett a little louder I am leaving the ship and I order you to follow your captain I know you are a good man at bottom and I dare say not one of the lot of you is as bad as he makes out I have my watch here in my hand I give you thirty seconds to join me in there was a pause come my fine fellow continued to captain don't hang so long in stays I am risking my life and the lives of these good gentlemen every second there was a sudden scuffle a sound of blows an outburst Abraham Gray with a knife cut on the side of the cheek and came running to the captain like a dog to the whistle I am here with you sir said he and the captain had dropped the board of us and we had shoved off and given way we were clear out of the ship but not yet ashore in our stockade End of chapter Chapter 17 of Treasure Island this LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 17 narrative continued by the doctor the Jolly Boats last trip this fifth trip was quite different from any of the others in the first place the little gala pot of a boat that we were in was gravely overloaded five grown men and three of them Trelawney, Redruth and the captain over six feet high was already more than she was meant to carry add to that the powder, pork and bread bags the gunnel was lipping a stern several times we shipped a little water and my breeches and the tails of my coat were all soaking wet before we had gone a hundred yards the captain made us trim the boat and we got her to lie a little more evenly all the same we were afraid to breathe in the second place the ebb was now making a strong rippling current running westward through the basin and then southward and seaward down the straits by which we had entered in the morning even the ripples were a danger to our overloaded craft but the worst of it was that we were swept out of our true course and away from our proper landing place behind the point if we let the current have its way we should come ashore beside the gigs where the pirates might appear at any moment I cannot keep her head for the stockade, sir said I to the captain I was steering while he and Redruth two fresh men were at the oars the tide keeps washing her down could you pull a little stronger? not without swapping the boat, said he you must bear up, sir, if you please bear up until you see your gaining I tried and found by experiment that the tide kept sweeping us westward until I had laid her head due east or just about right angles to the way we ought to go we'll never get ashore at this rate, said I if it's the only course that we can lie, sir we must even lie it returned the captain we must keep upstream you see, sir, he went on if once we drop to leeward of the landing place it's hard to say where we should get ashore besides the chance of being boarded by the gigs we're asked the way we go the current must slacken and then we can dodge back along the shore the current's less already, sir said the man Gray who was sitting in the four sheets you can ease her off a bit thank you, my man, said I quite as if nothing had happened for we had all quietly made up our minds to treat him like one of ourselves suddenly the captain spoke up again and I thought his voice was a little changed the gun, said he I have thought of that, said I for I made sure he was thinking of a bombardment of the fort they could never get the gun ashore and if they did they could never haul it through the woods look a stern, doctor, replied the captain we had entirely forgotten the long nine and there to our horror were the five rogues busy about her getting off her jacket as they called the stealth tarpaulin cover under which she sailed not only that, but it flashed into my mind at the same moment that the round shot and the powder for the gun had been left behind and a stroke with an axe would put it all in the possession of the evil ones aboard Israel was Flint's gunner, said Gray Horsley at any risk we put the boat's head direct for the landing place by this time we had got so far out of the run of the current that we kept steerage way even at our necessarily gentle rate of rowing and I could keep her steady for the goal but the worst of it was that with the course I now held we turned our broadside instead of our stern to the Hispaniola and offered a target like a barn door I could hear as well as see that brandy faced rascal Israel Hans plumping down a round shot on the deck who's the best shot? asked the captain Mr. Chilani, out and away, said I Mr. Chilani, will you please pick me off one of these men, sir? Hands if possible, said the captain Chilani was as cool as steel he looked to the priming of his gun No! cried the captain Easy with that gun, sir, or you'll swamp the boat all hands stand by to trimmer when he aims the squire raised his gun, the rowing ceased and we leaned over to the other side to keep the balance and all was so nicely contrived that we did not ship a drop they had the gun by this time slewed round upon the swivel and hands who was at the muzzle with the rammer was in consequence the most exposed however we had no luck for just as Chilani fired down he stooped the ball whistled over him and it was one of the other four who fell the cry he gave was echoed not only by his companions on board but by a great number of voices from the shore and looking in that direction I saw the other pirates swooping out from among the trees and tumbling into their places in the boats Here come the gigs, sir, said I Give way, then, cried the captain We mustn't mind if we swamp her now if we can't get ashore, all's up Only one of the gigs is being manned, sir, I added the crew of the other most likely going round by shore to cut us off They'll have a hot run, sir, returned the captain Jack ashore, you know, it's not them I mined It's the round shot Carpet bowls, my lady's maid couldn't miss Tell us, squire, when you see the match and we'll hold water In the meanwhile we had been making headway at a good pace for a boat so overloaded and we had shipped but little water in the process We were now close in, thirty or forty strokes and we should beacher for the ebb had already disclosed a narrow belt of sand below the clustering trees The gig was no longer to be feared The little point had already concealed it from our eyes The ebb tide, which had so cruelly delayed us was now making reparation and delaying our assailants The one source of danger was the gun If I durst, said the captain, I'd stop and pick off another man But it was plain that they meant nothing should delay their shot They had never so much as looked at their fallen comrade though he was not dead and I could see him trying to crawl away Ready! cried the squire Hold! cried the captain, quick as an echo And he and Redruth backed with a great heave that sent her a stern bodily underwater The report fell in at the same instant of time This was the first that Jim heard, the sound of the squire's shot not having reached him Where the ball passed, not one of us precisely knew but I fancy it must have been over our heads and that the wind of it may have contributed to our disaster At any rate, the boat sank by the stern quite gently in three feet of water, leaving the captain and myself facing each other on our feet The other three took complete headers and came up again drenched in bubbling So far there was no great harm No lives were lost and we could wait ashore in safety But there were all our stores at the bottom and to make things worse, only two guns out of five remained in a state for service Mine I had snatched from my knees and held over my head by a sort of instinct As for the captain, he had carried his over his shoulder by a bandelier and like a wise man, lock uppermost The other three had gone down with the boat To add to our concern, we heard voices already drawing near us in the woods along shore and we had not only the danger of being cut off from the stockade in our half-crippled state but the fear before us whether, if Hunter and Joyce were attacked by half a dozen they would have the sense and conduct to stand firm Hunter was steady that we knew Joyce was a doubtful case a pleasant polite man for a valet and to brush one's clothes but not entirely fitted for a man of war With all this in our minds we waited ashore as fast as we could leaving behind us the poor jollyboat and a good half of all our powder and provisions End of chapter Chapter 18 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain It is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 18 Narrative continued by the doctor End of the first days fighting We made our best speed across the strip of wood that now divided us from the stockade and at every step we took, the voices of the buccaneers rang nearer Soon we could hear their footfalls as they ran and the cracking of the branches as they breasted across a bit of thicket I began to see we should have a brush for it in earnest and look to my priming Captain, said I, Trelawney is the dead shot Give him your gun, his own is useless They exchanged guns and Trelawney, silent and cool as he had been since the beginning of the bustle hung a moment on his heel to see that all was fit for service At the same time, observing Gray to be unarmed, I handed him my cutlass It did all our hearts good to see him spit in his hand, knit his brows the blades sing through the air It was plain from every line of his body that our new hand was worth his salt Forty paces farther we came to the edge of the wood and saw the stockade in front of us We struck the enclosure about the middle of the south side and almost at the same time, seven mutineers, Job Anderson, the Bosun at their head appeared in full cry at the southwestern corner They paused as if taken aback and before they recovered not only the squire and I but Hunter and Joyce from the blockhouse had time to fire The four shots came in rather a scattering volley but they did the business, one of the enemy actually fell and the rest, without hesitation, turned and plunged into the trees After reloading, we walked down the outside of the palisade to see to the fallen enemy He was stone dead, shot through the heart We began to rejoice over our good success when just at that moment a pistol cracked in the bush a ball whistled close past my ear and poor Tom Redruth stumbled and fell his length on the ground Both the squire and I returned the shot but as we had nothing to aim at, it is probable we only wasted powder Then we reloaded and turned our attention to poor Tom The captain and Gray were already examining him and I saw with half an eye that all was over I believe the readiness of our return volley had scattered the mutineers once more for we were suffered without further molestation to get the poor old gamekeeper hoisted over the stockade and carried, groaning and bleeding, into the log house Poor old fellow, he had not uttered one word of surprise, complaint, fear or even acquiescence from the very beginning of our troubles till now when we had laid him down in the log house to die He had lain like a trojan behind his mattress in the gallery He had followed every order silently, doggedly and well He was the oldest of our party by a score of years and now, sullen, old, servicable servant, it was he that was to die The squire dropped down beside him on his knees and kissed his hand crying like a child Be I going, doctor? he asked Tom, my man, said I, you're going home I wish I had had a lick at them with the gun first, he replied Tom, said the squire, say you forgive me, won't you? Would that be respectful like from me to you, squire? was the answer Howsoever, so be it, amen After a little while of silence he said he thought somebody might read a prayer It's the custom, sir, he added apologetically and not long afterward, without another word he passed away In the meantime, the captain, whom I had observed to be wonderfully swollen about the chest and pockets had turned out a great many various stores the British colours, a bible, a coil of stoutish rope, pen, ink the log book and pounds of tobacco He had found a longish fir tree lying felled and trimmed in the enclosure and with the help of hunter, he had set it up at the corner of the log house where the trunks crossed and made an angle Then, climbing on the roof, he had with his own hand bent and run up the colours This seemed mightily to relieve him He re-entered the log house and set about counting up the stores as if nothing else existed But he had an eye on Tom's passage for all that and as soon as all was over came forward with another flag and reverently spread it on the body Don't you take on, sir he said, shaking the squire's hand All's well with him No fear for a hand that's been shot down in his duty to captain and owner It may it be good divinity but it's a fact Then he pulled me aside Dr. Lübsi, he said In how many weeks do you and Squire expect the consort? I told him it was a question not of weeks but of months that if we were not back by the end of August Blanley was to send to find us but neither sooner nor later You can calculate for yourself, I said Why, yes returned the captain, scratching his head and making a large allowance, sir for all the gifts of providence I should say we were pretty close hauled How do you mean, I asked It's a pity, sir, we lost that second load That's what I mean, replied the captain As for powder and shot, we'll do But the rations are short, very short So short, Dr. Lübsi that we're perhaps as well without that extra mouth and he pointed to the dead body under the flag Just then with a roar and a whistle a round shot passed high above the roof of the log house and plumped far beyond us and the wood Ho-ho-ho, said the captain Blaze away, you've little enough powder already, my lads At the second trial the aim was better and the ball descended inside the stockade scattering a cloud of sand but doing no further damage Captain, said the Squire The house is quite invisible from the ship It must be the flag they are aiming at Would it not be wiser to take it in? Strike my colours, cried the captain No, sir, not I And as soon as he had said the words I think we all agreed with him for it was not only a piece of stout seemingly good feeling it was good policy besides and showed our enemies that we despised their cannonade All through the evening they kept thundering away Ball after ball flew over or fell short or kicked up the sand in the enclosure but they had to fire so high that the shot fell dead and buried itself in the soft sand We had no ricochet to fear and though one popped in through the roof of the log house and out again through the floor we soon got used to that sort of horse play and minded it no more than cricket There is one good thing about all this observed the captain the wood in front of us is likely clear The ebb is made a good while Our store should be uncovered Volunteers to go and bring in pork Grey and Hunter were the first to come forward Well armed they stole out of the stockade but it proved a useless mission The mutineers were bolder than we fancied or they put more trust in Israel's gunnery for four or five of them were busy carrying off our stores and waiting out with them to one of the gigs that lay close by pulling an ore or so to hold her steady against the current Silver was in the stern sheets in command and every man of them was now provided with a musket from some secret magazine of their own The captain sat down to his log and here is the beginning of the entry Alexander Smollett, master David Livesey, ship's doctor Abraham Gray, carpenter's mate John Trelawney, owner John Hunter and Richard Joyce, owner's servants Landsman being all that is left faithful of the ship's company with stores for ten days at short rations came ashore this day and flew British colours on the log house in Treasure Island Thomas Redruth, owner's servant Landsman, shot by the mutineers James Hawkins, cabin boy and at the same time I was wondering over poor Jim Hawkins' fate a hail on the land side Somebody hailing us, said Hunter, who was on guard Doctor, squire, captain Hello Hunter, is that you? came the cries and I ran to the door in time to see Jim Hawkins safe and sound come the climbing over the stockade End of chapter Chapter 19 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 19 Narrative resumed by Jim Hawkins the garrison in the stockade As soon as Ben Gunn saw the colours he came to a halt stopped me by the arm and sat down Now, said he, there's your friend sure enough Far more likely it's the mutineers, I answered That, he cried Why, in a place like this where nobody puts in but gentlemen of fortune Silver would fly the Jolly Roger, you don't make no doubt of that No, that's your friends, there's been blows too and I reckon your friends has had the best of it and here they are ashore in the old stockade as was made years and years ago by Flint Ah, he was the man to have a headpiece, was Flint Barring Rum, his match were never seen He were afraid of none, not he Only Silver, Silver was that genteel Well, said I That may be so, and so be it All the more reason that I should hurry on and join my friends Nay, mate, returned Ben, not you You're a good boy, or I'm a stook But you're only a boy, all told Now, Ben Gunn is fly Rum wouldn't bring me there where you're going Not Rum wouldn't, till I see your born gentleman and gets it on his word of honour And you won't forget my words A precious sight, that's what you'll say A precious sight, more confidence And then nips him And he pinched me the third time With the same air of cleverness And when Ben Gunn is wanted You know where to find him, Jim Just where you found him today And him that comes is to have a white thing in his hand And he's to come alone Oh, and you'll say this Ben Gunn, says you Has reasons of his own Well, said I I believe I understand You have something to propose And you wish to see the squire or the doctor And you're to be found where I found you Is that all? And when, says you, he added Why, from about noon observation To about six bells Good, said I And now, may I go You won't forget He inquired anxiously Precious sight, and reasons of his own, says you Reasons of his own That's the mainstay Of man and man Well, then, still holding me I reckon you can go, Jim And, Jim, if you Was to see Silver, you wouldn't go For to sell Ben Gunn Wild horses wouldn't draw it from you No, says you And if them pirates can't assure Jim What would you say but there be Witters in the morning Here he was interrupted by a loud report And a cannonball came tearing through the trees And pitched in the sand The guards from where we two were talking The next moment each of us had taken to his heels In a different direction For a good hour to come Frequent reports shook the island And balls kept crashing through the woods I moved from hiding place to hiding place Always pursued, or so it seemed to me By these terrifying missiles But towards the end of the bombardment Though still I durst not venture In the direction of the stockade Where the balls fell oftenest I had begun in a manner to pluck up My heart again, and after a long detour to the east Crept down among the shoreside trees The sun had just set The sea breeze was rustling and tumbling in the woods And ruffling the grey surface of the anchorage The tide too was far out And great tracks of sand lay uncovered The air, after the heat of the day Chilled me through my jacket The Hispaniola still lay where she had anchored But sure enough there was the Jolly Roger The black flag of piracy flying from her peak Even as I looked there came another red flash And another report that sent the echoes clattering And one more round shot whistled through the air It was the last of the cannonade I lay for some time watching the bustle Which succeeded the attack Men were demolishing something with axes On the beach near the stockade The poor Jolly boat I afterwards discovered Away near the mouth of the river A great fire was glowing among the trees And between that point and the ship One of the gigs kept coming and going The men whom I had seen so gloomy Shouting at the oars like children But there was a sound in their voices Which suggested rum At length I thought I might return towards the stockade I was pretty far down on the low sandy spit That encloses the anchorage to the east And has joined at half-water to Skeleton Island And now as I rose to my feet I saw some distance further down the spit And rising from among low bushes An isolated rock, pretty high And peculiarly white in color It occurred to me that this might be The white rock of which Ben Gunn had spoken And that some day or other a boat might be wanted And I should know where to look for one Then I skirted among the woods Until I had regained the rear Or shoreward side of the stockade And was soon warmly welcomed by the faithful party I had soon told my story And began to look about me As made of unsquared trunks of pine Roof, walls, and floor The latter stood in several places As much as a foot or a foot and a half Above the surface of the sand There was a porch at the door And under this porch the little spring Welled up into an artificial basin Of a rather odd kind No other than a great ship's kettle of iron With the bottom knocked out And sunk to her bearings, as the captain said Among the sand Little had been left besides The framework of the house But in one corner there was a stone slab Layed down by way of hearth And an old rusty iron basket to contain the fire The slopes of the knoll And all the inside of the stockade Had been cleared of timber to build the house And we could see by the stumps What a fine and lofty grove had been destroyed Most of the soil had been washed away Or buried and drifted After the removal of the trees Only where the streamlet ran down from the kettle A thick bed of moss and some ferns And little creeping bushes Were still green among the sand Very close around the stockade Too close for defense, they said The wood still flourished high and dense All of fur on the lense side But towards the sea with a large Edd mixture of live oaks The cold evening breeze of which I have spoken Whistled through every chink of the rude building And sprinkled the floor with a continual rain Of fine sand There was sand in our eyes Sand in our teeth Sand in our suppers Sand dancing in the spring At the bottom of the kettle For all the world-like porridge beginning to boil Our chimney was a square hole in the roof It was but a little part of the smoke That found its way out And the rest eddied about the house And kept us coughing and piping the eye Add to this that Gray, the new man Had his face tied up in a bandage For a cut he had got And breaking away from the mutineers And that poor old Tom Redruth Was unburied lay along the wall Stiff and stark under the Union Jack If we had been allowed to sit idle We should all have fallen in the blues But Captain Smollett was never the man for that All hands were called up before him And he divided us into watches The doctor and Gray and I for one The squire, hunter, and Joyce upon the other Tired though we all were Two were sent out for firewood Two more were set to dig a grave For Redruth The doctor was named Cook I was put sentry at the door And the captain himself Went from one to another Keeping up our spirits and lending a hand Wherever it was wanted From time to time the doctor came to the door For a little air and to rest his eyes Which were almost smoked out of his head And whenever he did so He had a word for me That man Smollett, he said once Is a better man than I am And when I say that it means a deal Jim Another time he came And was silent for a while Then he put his head on one side And looked at me Is this been gun a man? He asked I do not know sir, said I I am not very sure whether he's sane If there's any doubt about the matter He is, returns the doctor A man who has been three years Biting his nails on a desert island Jim Can't expect to appear as sane As you or me It doesn't lie in human nature Is it cheese you said he had a fancy for? Yes sir, cheese I answered Well Jim, says he Just see the good that comes of being tainty In your food You've seen my snuff box haven't you And you never saw me take snuff The reason being that in my snuff box I carry a piece of Parmesan cheese A cheese made in Italy very nutritious Well That's for Ben Gunn Before supper was eaten In the sand and stood round him for a while Bareheaded in the breeze A good deal of firewood had been got in But not enough for the captain's fancy And he shook his head over it and told us We must get back to this tomorrow Rather livelier Then when we had eaten our pork and each Had a good stiff glass of brandy grog The three chiefs got together in a corner To discuss our prospects It appears they were at their wits And what to do, the stores being so low That we must have been starved And to surrender long before help came But our best hope, it was decided Was to kill off the buccaneers Until they either hauled down their flag Or ran away with the Hispaniola From nineteen they were already reduced to fifteen Two others were wounded And one at least The man shot beside the gun Severely wounded if he were not dead Every time we had a crack at them We were to take it Saving our own lives with the extremist care And besides that We had two able allies Rum and the climate As for the first Though we were about half a mile away We could hear them roaring and singing Late into the night And as for the second The doctor staked his wig that Camped where they were in the marsh And unprovided with remedies The half of them would be on their backs Before a week So he added If we are not all shot down first And they can get to buccaneering again I suppose First ship that ever I lost Said Captain Smollett I was dead tired, as you may fancy And when I got to sleep Which was not till after a great deal of tossing I slept like a log of wood The rest had been long up And had already breakfasted And increased the pile of firewood By about half as much again When I was wakened by a bustle And the sound of voices I heard someone say And then immediately after with a cry of surprise Silver himself And at that Up I jumped and rubbing my eyes Ran to a loophole in the wall End of chapter Chapter 20 Of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain And is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island By Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 20 Silver's Embassy Sure enough, there were two men Just outside the stockade One of them waving a white cloth The other, no less a person than Silver himself, standing placidly by It was still quite early And the coldest morning that I think I ever was abroad in A chill that pierced into the marrow The sky was bright and cloudless overhead And the tops of the trees Shown rosely in the sun Silver stood with his lieutenant All was still in shadow And they waited knee-deep in a low white vapor That had crawled during the night out of the morass The chill and the vapor taken together Told a poor tale of the island It was plainly a damp, feverish, unhealthy spot Keep indoors men, said the captain Ten to one, this is a trick Then he hailed the buccaneer Who goes, stand or we fire Flag of truce Cried Silver The captain was in the porch Keeping himself carefully out of the way Of a treacherous shot, should any be intended He turned and spoke to us Doctors watch on the lookout Doctor Livesey, take the north side If you please Jim, the east, gray, west Watch below, all hands to load muskets Lively men, and careful And then he turned again To the mutineers And what do you want With your flag of truce? He cried This time it was the other man who replied Captain Silver, sir, to come on board And make terms, he shouted Captain Silver Don't know him, who's he? Cried the captain And we could hear him adding to himself Captain, is it, my heart And here's promotion Long John answered for himself Me, sir, these poor lads Have chosen me captain Your desertion, sir Laying a particular emphasis upon the word desertion We're willing to submit If we can come to terms And no bones about it All I ask is your word, captain Smollett To let me safe and sound out of this year's stock aid And one minute to get out of shot Before a gun is fired My man, said captain Smollett I have not the slightest desire to talk to you If you wish to talk to me You can come, that's all If there's any treachery It'll be on your side and the Lord help you That's enough, captain Shattered Long John cheerily A word from you is enough I know a gentleman, and you may lay to that We could see the man who carried the flag of truce Attempting to hold Silver back Nor was that wonderful Seeing how Cavalier had been the captain's answer But Silver laughed at him aloud And slapped him on the back As if the idea of alarm had been absurd Then he advanced to the stock aid Threw over his crutch, got a leg up And with great vigor and skill Succeeded in surmounting the fence And dropping safely to the other side I will confess That I was far too much taken up With what was going on to be of the slightest use As sentry Indeed, I had already deserted my eastern loophole And crept up behind the captain Who had now seated himself on the threshold With his elbows on his knees His head in his hands And his eyes fixed on the water As it bubbled out of the old iron kettle in the sand He was whistling Cum lasses and lads Silver had terrible hard work Getting up the knoll What were the stateness of the incline The thick tree stumps and the soft sand He and his crutch were as helpless As a ship and stays But he stuck to it like a man in silence And at last arrived before the captain Whom he saluted in the handsomest style He was tricked out in his best An immense blue coat Thick with brass buttons Hung as low as to his knees And a fine laced hat was set on the back of his head Here you are, my man Said the captain, raising his head You had better sit down You ain't a going to let me inside, captain Complayed Long John It's a main cold morning to be sure, sir To sit outside upon the sand Why, Silver Said the captain If you had pleased to be an honest man You might have been sitting in your galley It's your own doing You're either my ship's cook And then you were treated handsome Or Captain Silver A common mutineer and pirate And then you can go hang Well, well, captain Return the sea cook sitting down As he was bidden on the sand You'll have to give me a hand up again, that's all A sweet, pretty place you have of it here Ah, there's Jim The top of the morning to you, Jim Doctor, here's my service Why, there you all are together Like a happy family In a manner of speaking If you have anything to say, my man Better say it, said the captain Right you were, Captain Smollett Replied Silver Duty is duty to be sure Well, now, you look here That was a good lay of yours last night I don't deny it was a good lay Some of you pretty handy with a hence spike end You'll have to be honest Some of you pretty handy with a hence spike end And I'll not deny neither But what some of my people was shook Maybe all was shook Maybe I was shook myself Maybe that's why I'm here for terms But you mark me, Captain It won't do twice by thunder We'll have to do sentry go and ease off a point Or so on the rum Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind's eye But I'll tell you I was sober I was only dog-tired And if I'd awoke a second sooner I'd have caught you at the act, I would He wasn't dead when I got round to him, not he Well, said Captain Smollett As cool as can be All that Silver said was a riddle to him But you would never have guessed it from his tone As for me, I began to have an inkling Ben Gunn's last words came back to my mind I began to suppose That he had paid the buccaneers a visit While they all lay drunk together Round their fire And I reckoned up with glee Had only fourteen enemies to deal with Well, here it is Said Silver We want that treasure, and we'll have it That's our point You would just as soon save your lives, I reckon And that's yours You have a chart, haven't you? That's as may be Replied the Captain Oh, well, you have, I know that Return long, John You needn't be so husky with a man There ain't a particle of service in that I'll be to it What I mean is, we want your chart Now I never met you no harm myself That won't do with me, my man Interrupted the Captain We know exactly what you meant to do And we don't care For now, you see, you can't do it And the Captain looked at him calmly And proceeded to fill a pipe If Abe Gray Silver broke out I've asked there, cried Mr. Smollett Gray told me nothing And I asked him nothing And what's more, I would see you and him And this whole island blown clean out of the water Into blazes first So there's my mind for you, my man On that This little whiff of temper seemed to cool Silver down He had been growing nettle before But now he pulled himself together Like enough, said he I would set no limits to what gentlemen Might consider ship shape Or might not, as the case were And seeing as how you are about to take a pipe, Captain I'll make so free as do likewise And he filled the pipe and lighted it And the two men sat silently Smoking for quite a while Now looking each other in the face Now stopping their tobacco Now leaning forward to spit It was as good as the play to see them Now, resumed Silver Here it is You give us the chart to get the treasure by And drop shooting poor seamen And stoving of their heads in while asleep You do that You will offer you a choice Either you come aboard along of us Wants the treasure shipped And then I'll give you my affidavit upon my word of honour To clap you somewhere safe ashore Or if that ain't to your fancy Some of my hands being rough And having old scores an account of hazing Then you can stay here you can We'll divide stores with you Man for man And I'll give my affidavit as before To speak the first ship by sight And send them here to pick you up Now you'll own that's talking Handsomer you couldn't look to get Now, could ya? And I hope Raising his voice That all hands in this here blockhouse Will overhaul my words For what is spoke to one is spoke to all Captain Smollett rose from his seat And knocked out the ashes of his pipe In the palm of his left hand Is that all? He asked Every last word by thunder Answered John Now you'll hear me If you'll come up one by one Unarmed I'll engage to clap you all In irons and take you home to a fair Trial in England If you won't my name is Alexander Smollett I've flown my sovereign's colours And I'll see you all to Davy Jones You can't find the treasure You can't sail the ship There's not a man among you fit The sail of the ship You can't sail the ship There's not a man among you fit The sail of the ship You can't fight us Gray there got away from five of you Your ships in irons, Master Silver You're on a lee shore And so you'll find I stand here and tell you so And they're the last good words You'll get from me For in the name of heaven I'll put a bullet in your back When next I meet you Trap, my lad Silver's face was a picture His eyes started in his head with wrath He shook the fire out of his pipe Give me a hand up He cried Not I, returned the captain Who give me a hand up He roared Not a man among us moved Growling the foulest implications He crawled along the sand Till he got hold of the porch And could hoist himself again upon his crutch Then he spat into the spring He cried Before an hour's out I'll stove in your old block house Like a rum punchin' Laugh by thunder, laugh Before an hour's out You'll laugh upon the other side Then the dial be the lucky ones And with a dreadful oath He stumbled off, plowed down the sand Was helped across the stuck aid After four or five failures By the man with the flag of truce And disappeared in an instant afterwards End of chapter Chapter 21 of Treasure Island This Leber Fox recording Is in the public domain And is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island By Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 21 The Attack As soon as Silver disappeared The captain who had been closely watching him Turned towards the interior of the house And found not a man of us at his post But Gray Was the first time we had ever seen him angry Quarters! He roared And then as we all slunk back to our places Gray, he said I'll put your name in the log You've stood by your duty like a seaman Mr. Trelawney, I'm surprised at you sir Doctor I thought you had worn the king's coat If that was how you served at Fountainoy, sir You'll have been better in your birth The doctor's watch were all back At their loopholes The rest were busy loading the spare muskets And everyone with a red face You may be certain, and a flea in his ear As the saying is The captain looked on for a while in silence Then he spoke My lads, said he I've given Silver a broadside I pitched it in red hot on purpose And before the hours out As he said, we shall be boarded We're outnumbered, I needn't tell you that But we fight in shelter And a minute ago I should have said We fought with discipline I've no manner of doubt that we can Drub them if you choose Then he went the rounds and saw As he said, that all was clear On the two short sides of the house East and west, there were only two loopholes On the south side where the porch was Two again And on the north side, five There was a round score of muskets For the seven of us The fire would have been built into four piles Tables, you might say One about the middle of each side And on each of these tables some ammunition And four loaded muskets were laid Ready to the hand of the defenders In the middle, the cutlasses lay ranged Toss out the fire, said the captain The chill is past and we mustn't Have smoke in our eyes The iron firebasket was carried Bottily out by Mr. Trelawney And the embers smothered among sand Hawkins hasn't had his breakfast Hawkins, help yourself And back to your post to eat it Continued Captain Smollett Lively now, my lad You'll want it before you've done Hunter, serve out a round of brandy To all hens And while this was going on The captain completed, in his own mind The plan of the defense Doctor, you will take the door He resumed See and don't expose yourself Keep within and fire through the porch Hunter, take the east side There, Joyce You stand by the west, my man Mr. Trelawney, you are the best shot You and Gray will take this long Northside with the five loopholes It's there the danger is If they can get up to it And fire in upon us through our own ports Things would begin to look dirty Hawkins, neither you nor I Are much account at the shooting We'll stand by to load and bear a hand As the captain had said The chill was past As soon as the sun had climbed Above our girdle of trees It fell with all its force upon the clearing And drank up the vapors at a draft Soon the sand was baking And the resin melting in the logs Of the blockhouse Jackets and coats were flung aside Shirts thrown open at the neck And rolled up to the shoulders And we stood there, each at his post In a fever of heat and anxiety An hour passed away Hang them, said the captain This is as dull as the doldrums Gray whistle for a wind And just at that moment came The first news of the attack If you please, sir, said Joyce If I see anyone, am I to fire? I told you so, cried the captain Thank you, sir Returned Joyce with the same quiet civility Nothing followed for a time But the remark had set us all On the alert, straining ears and eyes The muscle of the captain Was in a hurry Draining ears and eyes The musketeers with their pieces Balanced in their hands The captain out in the middle of the blockhouse With his mouth very tight And a frown on his face So some seconds passed Till suddenly Joyce whipped up his musket and fired The report had scarcely died away Eret was repeated and repeated From without in a scattering volley Shot behind shot Like a string of geese From every side of the enclosure But not one entered And as the smoke cleared away and vanished The stockade and the woods around it Looked as quiet and empty as before Not a bow waved Not the gleam of a musket barrel Betrayed the presence of our foes Did you hit your man? Asked the captain No, sir, replied Joyce I believe not, sir Next best thing to tell the truth Mothered captain Smollett Loaded his gun to Hawkins Your side, doctor? I know precisely, said Dr. Livesey Three shots were fired on this side I saw the three flashes Two close together One farther to the west Three, repeated the captain And how many on yours, Mr. Trelawney? But this was not so easily answered There had come many from the north Seven by the squire's computation Eight or nine according to Gray From the east and west Only a single shot had been fired It was plain, therefore, that the attack Would be developed from the north And that on the other three sides We were only to be annoyed by a show of hostilities But captain Smollett made no change In his arrangements If the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, He argued, they would take possession Of any unprotected loophole And shoot us down like rats In our own stronghold Nor had we much time left to us for thought Suddenly, with a loud hazzah A little cloud of pirates leaped From the woods on the north side And ran straight on the stockade At the same moment the fire was once more Open from the woods And a rifle ball sang through the doorway And knocked the doctor's musket into bits The borders swarmed over the fence Like monkeys, squire and gray Fired again and yet again Three men fell, one forwards Into the enclosure, two back On the outside, but of these One was evidently more frightened Than hurt, for he was on his feet again In a crack and instantly disappeared Among the trees Two had bit the dust, one had fled Four had made good their footing Inside our defenses, while from The shelter of the woods seven or eight men Each evidently supplied with Several muskets, kept up a hot Though useless fire on the log house The four who had boarded Made straight before them for the building Shouting as they ran, and the men Among the trees shouted back to encourage them Several shots were fired But such was the hurry of the marksman That not one appears to have taken effect In a moment the four pirates had Swarmed up the mound and were upon us The head of Job Anderson, the Bosun Appeared at the middle loophole Adam, all hands, all hands! He roared in a voice of thunder At the same moment another Pirate grasped Hunter's musket By the muzzle, wrenched it from his hands Plucked it through the loophole And with one stunning blow Laid the poor fellow senseless on the floor Meanwhile a third Running unharmed all around the house Appeared suddenly in the doorway And fell with his cutlass on the doctor Our position was utterly reversed A moment since we were firing Under cover at an exposed enemy Now it was we who lay Uncovered and could not return a blow The log house was full of smoke To which we owed our comparative safety Cries in confusion The flashes and reports of pistol shots And one Lao groan rang in my ears Out, lads! Out and fight him in the open! Cutlasses! cried the captain I snatched a cutlass from the pile And someone, at the same time snatching another Gave me a cut across the knuckles Which I hardly felt I dashed out of the door into the clear sunlight Someone was close behind I know not whom Right in front the doctor was pursuing His assailant down the hill And just as my eyes fell upon him Beat down his guard and sent him Sprawling on his back with a great slash Across the face Round the house, lads! Round the house! Cried the captain And even in the hurly burly I perceived a change in his voice Mechanically I obeyed Turned eastwards and with my cutlass Raised ran round the corner of the house Next moment I was face to face With Anderson. He roared Allowed and his hanger went up above His head flashing in the sunlight I had not time to be afraid But as the blow still hung impending Leaped in a trice upon one side And missing my foot in the soft sand Rolled headlong down the slope When I had first sallied from the door The other mutineers had been already Swarming up the palisade to make an end of us One man in a red nightcap With his cutlass in his mouth Had even got upon the top And thrown a leg across Well, so short had been the interval That when I found my feet again All was in the same posture The fellow with the red nightcap Over another still just showing his head Above the top of the stockade And yet in this breath of time The fight was over and the victory Was ours Gray following close behind me had cut Down the big boson ere he had time To recover from his last blow Another had been shot at a loophole In the very act of firing into the house And now lay in agony the pistol Still smoking in his hand A third as I had seen The doctor had disposed of at a blow Of the four who had scaled the palisade One only remained unaccounted for And he, having left his cutlass on the field Was now clambering out again With the fear of death upon him Fire, fire from the house Cried the doctor Had new lads back into cover But his words were unheeded No shot was fired And the last border made good his escape And disappeared with the rest into the wood In three seconds nothing remained Of the attacking party but the five Who had fallen four on the inside And one on the outside of the palisade The doctor and Gray and I Ran full speed for shelter The survivors would soon be back where they Had left their muskets and at any moment The fire might recommence The house was by this time Somewhat cleared of smoke and we saw At a glance the price we had paid for victory Hunter laid beside his loophole Stunned, joiced by his Shot through the head, never to move again While right in the center The squire was supporting the captain One as pale as the other The captain's wounded Said Mr. Trelawney Have they run? asked Mr. Smollett All that good you may be bound Returned the doctor But there's five of them will never run again Five! cried the captain Come, that's better Five against three leaves us Four to nine That's better odds than we had at starting We were seven to nineteen then Or thought we were And that's as bad to bear The mutineers were soon only eight in number For the man shot by Mr. Trelawney On board the schooner Died that same evening of his wound But this was, of course, not known Till after by the faithful party End of chapter Chapter 22 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording Is in the public domain And is read by Mark Smith Of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island By Robert Louis Stevenson Part 5 My Sea Adventure Chapter 22 How My Sea Adventure began There was no return of the mutineers Not so much as another shot Out of the woods They had got their rations for that day As the captain put it And we had the place to ourselves And a quiet time to overhaul the wounded And get dinner Squire and I cooked outside in spite of the danger And outside we could hardly tell what we were at For horror of the loud groans That reached us from the doctor's patients Out of the eight men who had fallen In the action, only three still breathed That one of the pirates Who had been shot at the loophole Hunter and captain Smollett And of these the first two were as good as dead The mutineer indeed died Under the doctor's knife And Hunter, do what we could Never recover consciousness in this world He lingered all day Even loudly like the old buccaneer at home In his apoplectic fit But the bones of his chest had been crushed by the blow And his skull fractured and falling And some time in the following night Without sign or sound He went to his maker As for the captain His wounds were grievous indeed But not dangerous No organ was fatally injured Anderson's ball, for it was job that shot him first Had broken his shoulder blade And touched the lung, not badly The second had only torn and displaced Some muscles in the calf He was sure to recover, the doctor said But in the meantime, and for weeks to come He must not walk nor move his arm Nor so much as speak when he could help it My own accidental cut across the knuckles Was a flea bite Doctor Livesey patched it up with plaster And pulled my ears for me into the bargain After dinner, the squire and the doctor Sat by the captain's side a while In consultation After their hearts content It being then a little past noon The doctor took up his hat and pistols Girt on the cutlass Put the chart in his pocket And with a musket over his shoulder Crossed the palisade on the north side And set off briskly through the trees Gray and I were sitting together At the far end of the block house To be out of earshot of our officers consulting And Gray took his pipe out of his mouth And fairly forgot to put it back again So thunderstruck he was at this occurrence Why, in the name of Davy Jones, said he Is Doctor Livesey mad? Why, no, says I He's about the last of this crew for that, I take it Well, shipmate, said Gray Mad he may not be, but if he's not You mark my words, I am I take it, replied I The doctor has his idea And if I'm right, he's going now to see Ben Gunn I was right, as appeared later But in the meantime, the house being stifling hot And the little patch of sand inside the palisade A blaze with midday sun I began to get another thought into my head Which was not by any means so right What I began to do was to envy the doctor Walking in the cool shadow of the woods With the birds about him And the pleasant smell of the pines While I sat grilling With my clothes stuck to the hot resin And so much blood about to burn And I sat in the middle of the house With this resin and so much blood about me And so many poor dead bodies Lying all around that I took a disgust Of the place that was almost as strong As fear All the time I was washing out the blockhouse And then washing up the things from dinner This disgust and envy Kept growing stronger and stronger Till it last Being near a bread bag and no one Then observing me, I took the first Step towards my escapade And filled both pockets of my coat with Biscuit I was a fool, if you like And certainly I was going to do a foolish Over-bold act But I was determined to do it with all the Precautions in my power These biscuits, should anything befall me Would keep me at least from starving Till far on in the next day The next thing I laid hold of Was a brace of pistols And as I already had a powder horn And bullets, I felt myself well supplied With arms It was not a bad one in itself I was to go down the sandy Spit that divides the anchorage on the east From the open sea Find the white rock I had observed last evening And ascertain whether it was there Or not, that Ben Gunn had hidden His boat, a thing quite worth doing As I still believe But as I was certain I should not be Allowed to leave the enclosure My only plan was to take French leave And slip out when nobody was watching And that was so bad a way of doing it As made the thing itself wrong But I was only a boy And I had made my mind up Well, as things at last fell out I found an admirable opportunity The squire and Grey were busy Helping the captain with his bandages The coast was clear I made a bolt for it over the stockade And into the thickest of the trees And before my absence was observed I was out of cry of my companions This was my second folly Far worse than the first As I left but two sound men To guard the house But, like the first, it was a help Towards saving all of us I took my way straight for the east coast Of the island, for I was determined To go down the seaside of the spit To avoid all chance of observation From the anchorage It was already late in the afternoon Although still warm and sunny As I continued to thread the tall woods I could hear from far before me Not only the continuous thunder of the surf Tossing a foliage and grinding of boughs Which showed me the sea breeze Had set in higher than usual Soon cooled drafts of air began to reach me And a few steps farther I came forth into the open borders of the grove And saw the sea lying blue And sunny to the horizon And the surf tumbling and tossing its foam Along the beach I have never seen the sea quiet Round treasure island The sun might blaze overhead The air be without a breath And blue, but still these great rollers Would be running along all the external coast Thundering and thundering By day and night And I scarce believe there is one spot In the island where a man would be Out of earshot of their noise I walked along beside the surf With great enjoyment till thinking I was now got far enough to the south I took the cover of some thick bushes And crept warily up to the ridge Of the spit Behind me was the sea The front, the anchorage The sea breeze as though it had the sooner Blown itself out by its unusual violence Was already at an end It had been succeeded by light, variable airs From the south and southeast Carrying great banks of fog And the anchorage, under lee of skeleton island Lay still and ledden as when first we entered it The Hispaniola in that unbroken mirror Was exactly portrayed From the truck to the waterline The Jolly Roger hanging from her peak Alongside lay one of the gigs Silver in the stern sheets Him I could always recognize While a couple of men were leaning over The stern bulwarks One of them with a red cap The very rogue that I had seen some hours before Stride legs upon the palisade Apparently they were talking and laughing Though at that distance, upwards of a mile I could of course hear no word of what was said All at once there began the most Horrid, unearthly screaming Which at first lay one of the gigs Unarthly screaming, which at first startled me badly Though I had soon remembered the voice of Captain Flint And even thought I could make out the bird By her bright plumage as she sat perched Upon her master's wrist Soon after, the jolly boat shoved off And pulled for shore And the man with the red cap and his comrade Went below by the cabin companion Just about the same time The sun had gone down behind the spyglass And as the fog was collecting rapidly It began to grow dark and earnest I saw I must lose no time if I were to find the boat that evening The white rock, visible enough above the brush Was still some eighth of a mile further down the spit And it took me a goodish while to get up with it Crawling, often on all fours, among the scrub Night had almost come when I laid my hand on its rough sides Right below it there was an exceedingly small hollow of green turf Hidden by banks and a thick underwood about knee deep That grew there very plentifully And in the center of the dell, sure enough A little tent of goatskins Like what the gypsies carry about with them in England I dropped into the hollow, lifted the side of the tent And there was Ben Gunn's boat Homemade if ever anything was homemade A rude, lopsided framework of tough wood And stretched upon that a covering of goatskin With the hair inside The thing was extremely small, even for me I can hardly imagine that it would have floated with a full-sized man There was one thwart set as low as possible A kind of stretcher in the boughs And a double paddle for propulsion I had not then seen a coracle such as the ancient Britons made But I have seen one since And I can give you no fairer idea of Ben Gunn's boat Than by saying it was like the first and the worst coracle ever made by man But the great advantage of the coracle it certainly possessed For it was exceedingly light and portable Well, now that I had found the boat You would have thought I had had enough of true entry for once But in the meantime I had taken another notion And become so obstinately fond of it That I would have carried it out, I believe In the teeth of Captain Smollett himself This was to slip out under cover of the night Cut the Hispaniola adrift And let her go ashore where she fancied I had quite made up my mind that the mutineers After their repulse of the morning Had nothing nearer their hearts than to up anchor And away to sea This I thought it would be a fine thing to prevent And now that I had seen how they left their watchmen Unprovided with a boat I thought it might be done with little risk Down I sat to wait for darkness And made a hearty meal of biscuit It was a night out of ten thousand for my purpose The fog had now buried all heaven As the last rays of daylight dwindled and disappeared The blue-blackness settled down on Treasure Island And when, at last, I shouldered the coracle And groped my way stumblingly out of the hollow Where I had supped There were but two points visible on the whole anchorage One was the great fire on shore By which the defeated pirates lay carousing in the swamp The other, a mere blur of light upon the darkness Indicated the position of the anchored ship She had swung round to the ebb Her bow was now towards me Some board were in the cabin And what I saw was merely a reflection on the fog Of the strong rays that flowed from the stern window The ebb had already run some time And I had to wade through a long belt of swampy sand Where I sank several times above the anchor Before I came to the edge of the retreating water And wading a little way in With some strength and dexterity Set my coracle keeled downwards on the surface End of chapter 23 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain And it's read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 23, The Ebb Tide Runs The coracle, as I had ample reason to know Before I was done with her, was a very safe boat For a person of my height and weight Both buoyant and clever in a seaway But she was the most cross-grained Lopsided craft to manage Do as you pleased, she always made more leeway Than anything else, and turning round and round Was the maneuver she was best at Even Ben Gunn himself has admitted that she was Queer to handle till you knew her way Certainly I did not know her way She turned in every direction but the one I was bound to go The most part of the time we were broadside on And I am very sure I never should have made the ship At all but for the tide The fortune, paddle as I pleased The tide was still sweeping me down And there lay the Hispaniola right in the fairway Hardly to be missed First she loomed before me like a blot of something Yet blacker than darkness Then her spars and hull began to take shape And the next moment, as it seemed For the farther I went the brisker grew The current of the ebb I was alongside of her hauser and had laid hold The hauser was as taught as a bowstring The current so strong she pulled upon her anchor All round the hull, in the blackness The rippling current bubbled and chattered Like a little mountain stream One cut with my sea gully And the Hispaniola would go humming down the tide So far so good, but it next occurred to my recollection That a taught hauser, suddenly cut Is a thing as dangerous as a kicking horse Ten to one, if I were so foolhardy As to cut the Hispaniola from her anchor Then the coracle will be knocked clean out of the water This brought me to a full stop And if fortune had not again particularly favored me I should have had to abandon my design But the light airs which had begun blowing From the south-east and south Had hauled round after nightfall into the south-west Just while I was meditating A puff came, caught the Hispaniola And forced her up into the current And to my great joy I felt the hauser Slacken in my grasp The hand by which I held it Dipped for a second underwater With that I made my mind up, took out my gully Opened it with my teeth, and cut one strand after another Till the vessel swung only by two Then I lay quiet, waiting to sever these last When the strain should be once more lightened By a breath of wind All this time I had heard the sound of loud voices From the cabin, but to say truth My mind had been so entirely taken up with other thoughts That I had scarcely given ear Now, however, when I had nothing else to do I began to pay more heed One I recognized for the coxons, Israel hands That had been Flint's gunner in former days The other was, of course, my friend of the red nightcap Both men were plainly the worse of drink And they were still drinking For even while I was listening One of them, with a drunken cry Opened the stern window and threw out something Which I'd divine to be an empty bottle But they were not only tipsy It was plain that they were furiously angry Oaths flew like hailstones And every now and then came forth such an explosion As they thought was sure to end in blows But each time the quarrel passed off And the voices grumbled lower for a while Until the next crisis came and in its turn Passed away without result On shore I could see the glow of the great campfire Burning warmly through the shore-side trees Someone was singing a dull old droning sailor's song With a droop and a quaver at the end of every verse And seemingly no end to it at all But the patience of the singer I had heard it on the voyage more than once And remembered these words But one man of her crew alive What put to sea with seventy-five And I thought it was a diddy Rather too dolefully appropriate for a company That had met such cruel losses in the morning But indeed from what I saw All these buccaneers were as callous As the sea they sailed on At last the breeze came The schooner sidled and drew nearer in the dark I felt the hauser slacken once more And with a good tough effort Cut the last fibers through The breeze had but little action on the quarrel And I was almost instantly swept Against the boughs of the Hispaniola At the same time the schooner began To turn upon her heel, spinning slowly End for end across the current I wrought like a fiend For I expected every moment to be swamped And since I found I could not push The quarrel directly off I now shoved straight a stern At length I was clear of my dangerous neighbor And just as I gave the last impulsion My hands came across a light cord That was trailing overboard Across the stern bow works Instantly I grasped it Why I should have done so I can hardly say It was at first mere instinct But once I had it in my hands and found it fast Curiosity began to get the upper hand And I determined I should have one look Through the cabin window I pulled in hand over hand on the cord And when I judged myself near enough Rosed at infinite risk to about half my height And thus commanded the roof And a slice of the interior of the cabin By this time the schooner and her little consort Were gliding pretty swiftly through the water Indeed we had already fetched up level with the campfire The ship was talking, as sailors say, loudly Treading the innumerable ripples With an incessant weltering splash And until I got my eye above the windowsill I could not comprehend why the watchman Had taken no alarm One glance, however, was sufficient And it was only one glance that I durst take From that unsteady skiff It showed me hands and his companion Locked together in deadly wrestle Each with a hand upon the other's throat I dropped upon the thwart again None too soon, for I was near overboard I could see nothing for the moment But these two furious and crimsoned faces Swaying together under the smoky lamp And I shut my eyes to let them grow Once more familiar with the darkness The endless ballad had come to an end at last And the whole diminished company about the campfire Had broken into the chorus I had heard so often Fifty men on the dead man's chairs Yo-ho-ho in the bottle of rum Drink and the devil have done for the rest Yo-ho-ho in the bottle of rum I was just thinking how busy Drink and the devil were at that very moment In the cabin of the Hispaniola When I was surprised by a sudden lurch of the coracle At the same moment she yawned sharply And seemed to change her course The speed in the meantime had strangely increased I opened my eyes at once All round me were little ripples Combing over with a sharp bristling sound And slightly phosphorescent The Hispaniola herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled along Seemed to stagger in her course And I saw her spars toss a little Against the blackness of the night Nay, as I looked longer I made sure she also was wheeling to the southward I glanced over my shoulder And my heart jumped against my ribs There, right behind me Was the glow of the campfire The current had turned at right angles Sweeping round along with it The tall schooner and the little dancing coracle Ever quickening, ever bubbling higher Ever muttering louder It went spinning through the narrows For the open sea Suddenly the schooner in front of me Gave a violent yawn Turning perhaps through twenty degrees And almost at the same moment One shout followed another from on board I could hear feet pounding on the companion letter And I knew that the two Druckerds Had at last been interrupted in their quarrel And awakened to a sense of their disaster I lay down flat in the bottom of that wretched skiff And devoutly recommended my spirit to its maker At the end of the straits I made sure we must fall into some bar Of raging breakers where all my troubles Would be ended speedily And though I could perhaps bear to die I could not bear to look upon my fate As it approached So I must have lain for hours Continually beaten to and fro upon the billows Now and again wedded with flying sprays And never ceasing to expect death At the next plunge Gradually weariness grew upon me A numbness, an occasional stupor Fell upon my mind even in the midst Of my terrors Until sleep at last supervened And in my sea-tossed coracle I lay and dreamed of home And the old abrolbembo End of chapter Chapter 24 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain And is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island By Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 24 The Cruise of the Coracle It was broad day when I awoke And found myself tossing at the southwest end Of Treasure Island The sun was up but was still hid from me Behind the great bulk of the spyglass Which on this side descended almost to the sea In formidable cliffs Hall-bowlin head and mizzen-mast hill Were at my elbow, the hill, bare and dark The head, bound with cliffs 40 or 50 feet high And fringed with great masses of fallen rock I was scarce a quarter of a mile to seaward And it was my first thought to paddle in and land That notion was soon given over Among the fallen rocks the breaker spouted and bellowed Loud reverberations, heavy sprays flying and falling Succeeded one another from second to second And I saw myself, if I ventured nearer Dash to death upon the rough shore Or spending my strength in vain to scale the beatling cracks Nor was that all For crawling together on flat tables of rock-core And letting themselves drop into the sea with loud reports I beheld huge, slimy monsters Soft snails, as it were, of incredible bigness Two or three score of them together Making the rocks to echo with their barkings I have understood since that they were sea lions And entirely harmless, but the look of them Added to the difficulty of the shore And the high running of the surf Was more than enough to disgust me of that landing-place Well, willing rather to starve at sea than to confront such perils In the meantime I had a better chance, as I supposed, before me North of Hall-Bowlin Head, the land runs in a long way Leaving at low tide a long stretch of yellow sand To the north of that again there comes another cape Cape of the woods, as it was marked upon the chart Buried in tall green pines Which descended to the margin of the sea I remembered what Silver had said about the current That sets northward along the whole west coast of Treasure Island And seeing from my position that I was already under its influence I preferred to leave Hall-Bowlin Head behind me And reserve my strength for an attempt to land Upon the kindlier looking Cape of the woods There was a great smooth swell upon the sea The wind blowing steady and gentle from the south There was no contrariety between that and the current And that billows rose and fell unbroken Had it been otherwise I must long ago have perished But as it was it is surprising how easily and securely My little and light boat could ride Often, as I still lay at the bottom And kept no more than an eye above the gunnel I would see a big blue summit heaving close above me Yet the coracle would but bounce a little Dance as if on springs And subside on the other side into the trough Lightly as a bird I began after a little to grow very bold And sat up to try my skill at paddling But even a small change in the disposition of the weight Will produce violent changes in the behavior of a coracle And I had hardly moved before the boat Giving up at once her gentle dancing movement Ran straight down a slope of water so steep That it made me giddy And struck her nose with a spout of spray Deep into the side of the next wave I was drenched and terrified And fell instantly back into my old position Whereupon the coracle seemed to find her head again And led me as softly as before among the billows It was plain she was not to be interfered with And at that rate, since I could in no way influence her course What hope had I left of reaching land I began to be horribly frightened But I kept my head for all that First, moving with all care I gradually bailed out the coracle with my sea cap Then, getting my eye once more above the gunnel I set myself to study how it was She managed to slip so quietly through the rollers I found each wave Instead of the big smooth glossy mountain it looks from shore Or from a vessel's deck Was for all the world like any range of hills on dry land Full of peaks and smooth places and valleys The coracle, left to herself Turning from side to side Threaded, so to speak, her way through these lower parts And avoided the steep slopes and higher toppling summits of the wave Well now, thought I to myself It is plain I must lie where I am and not disturb the balance But it is plain also that I can put the paddle over the side And from time to time, in smooth places Give her a shove or two towards land No sooner thought upon than done There I lay on my elbows in the most trying attitude And every now and again gave a weak stroke or two To turn her head to shore It was very tiring and slow work Yet I did visibly gain ground And as we drew near the cape of the woods Though I saw I must infallibly miss that point I had still made some hundred yards of easting I was indeed close in I could see the cool green treetops swaying together in the breeze And I felt sure I should make the next promontory without fail It was high time For I now began to be tortured with thirst The glow of the sun from above Its thousandfold reflection from the waves The sea water that fell and dried upon me Caking my very lips with salt Combined to make my throat burn and my brain ache The sight of the trees so near at hand It almost made me sick with longing But the current had soon carried me past the point And as the next reach of sea opened out I beheld a sight that changed the nature of my thoughts Right in front of me, not half a mile away I beheld the Hispaniola under sail I made sure, of course, that I should be taken But I was so distressed for want of water That I scarce knew whether to be glad or sorry at the thought And long before I had come to a conclusion Surprise had taken entire possession of my mind And I could do nothing but stare and wonder The Hispaniola was under her mainsail and two jibs And a beautiful white canvas shown in the sun Like snow or silver When I first sighted her, all her sails were drawing She was lying a course about northwest And I presumed the men on board were going round the island On their way back to the anchorage Presently she began to fetch more and more to the westward So that I thought they had sighted me And were going about in chase At last, however, she fell right into the wind's eye Was taken dead aback and stood there a while helpless With her sails shivering Clumsy fellows, said I, they must still be drunk as owls And I thought how Captain Smollett would have set them skipping Meanwhile, the schooner gradually fell off And filled again upon another tack Sailed swiftly for a minute or so And brought up once more dead in the wind's eye Again and again was this repeated Two and fro, up and down, north, south, east and west The Hispaniola sail by swoops and dashes And at each repetition ended as she had begun With idly-flapping canvas It became plain to me that nobody was steering And if so, where were the men? Either they were dead drunk or had deserted her, I thought And perhaps if I could get on board I might return the vessel to her captain The current was bearing coracle and schooner southward At an equal rate As for the latter sailing, it was so wild and intermittent And she hung each time so long in irons That she certainly gained nothing if she did not even lose If only I dared to sit up and paddle I made sure that I could overhaul her The scheme had an air of adventure that inspired me And the thought of the water-breaker beside the four companion Doubled my growing courage Up I got, was welcomed almost instantly by another cloud of spray But this time stuck to my purpose and set myself With all my strength and caution to paddle after the unsteered Hispaniola Once I shipped a sea so heavy that I had to stop and bail With my heart fluttering like a bird But gradually I got into the way of the thing And guided my coracle among the waves With only now and then a blow upon her boughs And a dash of foam in my face I was now gaining rapidly on the schooner I could see the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about And still no soul appeared upon her decks I could not choose but suppose she was deserted If not the men were lying drunk below Where I might batten them down perhaps And do what I chose with the ship For some time she had been doing the worst thing possible for me Standing still She headed nearly dooth south, yawing of course all the time Each time she fell off, her sails partly filled And these brought her in a moment right to the wind again I have said this was the worst thing possible for me For helpless as she looked in this situation With the canvas cracking like cannon And the blocks trundling and banging on the deck She still continued to run away from me Not only with the speed of the current But by the whole amount of her leeway Which was naturally great But now at last I had my chance The breeze fell for some seconds very low And the current gradually turning her The Hispaniola revolved slowly around her center And at last presented me her stern With the cabin window still gaping open And the light over the table still burning on into the day The mainsail hung drooped like a banner She was stuck still but for the current For the last little while I had even lost But now redoubling my efforts I began once more to overhaul the chase I was not a hundred yards from her When the wind came again in a clap She filled on the port tack and was off again Stooping and skimming like a swallow My first impulse was one of despair But my second was towards joy Round she came till she was broadside on to me Round still till she had covered a half And then two thirds and then three quarters Of the distance that separated us I could see the waves boiling white under her forefoot Immensely tall she looked to me From my low station in the coracle And then of a second I began to comprehend I had scarce time to think, scarce time To act and save myself I was on the summit of one swell When the schooner came stooping over the next The bow sprit was over my head I sprang to my feet and leaped Stamping the coracle underwater With one hand I caught the jib boom While my foot was lodged between the stay and the brace And as I still clung their panting A dull blow told me that the schooner Had charged down upon and struck the coracle And that I was left without retreat on the Hispaniola End of chapter I had scarce gained a position on the bow sprit When the flying jib flapped and filled upon the other tack With a report like a gun The schooner trembled to her keel under the reverse But next moment the other sails still drawing The jib flapped back again and hung idle This had nearly tossed me off into the sea And now I lost no time, crawled back along the bow sprit And tumbled head foremost on the deck I was on the lee side of the forecastle And the mainsail, which was still drawing Concealed from me a certain portion of the afterdeck Not a soul was to be seen Which had not been swabbed since the mutiny Bore the print of many feet And an empty bottle broken by the neck Tumbled to and fro like a live thing in the scuppers Suddenly the Hispaniola came right into the wind The jib's behind me cracked aloud The rudder slammed too The whole ship gave a sickening heave and shutter And at the same moment the main boom swung inboard The sheik groaning in the blocks And showed me the lee afterdeck There were the two watchmen, sure enough Red cap on his back, as stiff as a hand spike With his arms stretched out like those of a crucifix And his teeth showing through his open lips Israel hands propped against the bulwarks His chin on his chest His hands lying open before him on the deck His face as white under its tan as a tallow candle For a while the ship kept bucking And sidling like a vicious horse The sails filling, now on one tack Now on another, and the boom swinging too And fro till the mass groaned aloud under the strain Now on again too there would come a cloud Of light sprays over the bulwark And a heavy blow of the ship's bows against the swells So much heavier weather was made of it By this great rig's ship than by my home-made Lopsided coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea At every jump of the schooner Red cap slipped too and fro But, what was ghastly to behold Neither his attitude nor his fixed teeth This closing grin was any way disturbed By this rough usage At every jump too, hands appeared still more To sink into himself and settle down upon the deck His feet sliding ever the farther out And the whole body canting towards the stern So that his face became little by little Hid from me, and at last I could see Nothing beyond his ear and the frayed ringlet Of one whisker. At the same time I observed around both of them Washes of dark blood upon the planks And began to feel sure that they had killed each other In their drunken wrath. While I was thus looking and wondering In a calm moment when the ship was still Israel hands turned partly round And with a low moan writhed himself Back to the position in which I had seen him first The moan, which told of pain and deadly weakness And the way in which his jaw hung open Went right to my heart But when I remembered the talk I had overheard The apple barrel, all pity left me I walked daft until I reached the main mast Come aboard, Mr. Hands, I said ironically He rolled his eyes round heavily But he was too far gone to express surprise All he could do was to utter one word Brandy! It occurred to me there was no time to lose And dodging the boom as it once more lurched Across the deck I slipped daft And down the companion stairs into the cabin It was such a scene of confusion As you can hardly fancy All the lock-fast places had been broken open In quest of the chart The floor was thick with mud where ruffians Had sat down to drink or consult After waiting in the marshes round their camp The bulkheads, all painted in clear white And beaded round with guilt Bore a pattern of dirty hands Dozens of empty bottles clinked together In corners to the rolling of the ship One of the doctor's medicinal books On the table half of the leaves gutted out I suppose for pipe lights In the midst of all this The lamp still cast a smoky glow Obscure and brown as umber I went into the cellar All the barrels were gone And of the bottles a most surprising number Had been drunk out and thrown away Certainly since the mutiny began Not a man of them could ever have been sober Foraging about I found a bottle With some brandy left for hands And for myself I routed out some biscuit Some pickled fruits, a great bunch of raisins And a piece of cheese With these I came on deck Put down my own stock behind the rudder head And well out of the coxswain's reach Went forward to the waterbreaker And had a good deep drink of water And then, and not till then Gave hands the brandy He must have drunk a gill Before he took the bottle from his mouth I said he, by thunder But I wanted some of that I had sat down already In my own corner and begun to eat Much hurt, I asked him He grunted, or rather I might say He barked, if that doctor was aboard He said, I'd be right enough In a couple of turns But I don't have no manner of luck You see, and that's what's the matter With me As for that swab He's good and dead he is He added, indicating the man with the red cap He warn't no semen anyhow And where might you have come from? Well, said I I've come aboard to take possession Of the ship, Mr. Hands And you'll please regard me as your captain Until further notice He looked at me sourly enough But said nothing Some of the color had come back into his cheeks Though he still looked very sick And still continued to slip out As the ship banged about By the bye, I continued I can't have these colors, Mr. Hands And by your leave I'll strike them Better none than these And again dodging the boom I ran to the color lines Handed down their cursed black flag And chucked it overboard God save the king, said I Waving my cap, and there's An end to Captain Silver He watched me keenly and slighly His chin all the while on his breast I reckon, he said at last I reckon, Captain Hawkins You'll kind of want to get ashore now Suppose we talks Why, yes, says I With all my heart, Mr. Hands, say on And I went back to my meal with a good appetite This man He began nodding feebly at the corpse O'Brien were his name A rank Irelander This man and me got the canvas on her Meaning to sail her back Well, he's dead now, he is As dead as bilge And who's to sail the ship? I don't see Without I gives you a hint You ain't that man, as far as I can tell Now, look here You gives me food and drink And an old scarf or acature To tie my wound up, you do And I'll tell you how to sail her And that's about square all round I take it I'll tell you one thing, says I I'm not going back to Captain Kidd's anchorage I mean to get into North Inlet And beat your quietly there To be sure you did, he cried Why, I ain't such an infernal lover after all I can see, can't I I've tried my fling I have And I've lost And it's you who has the wind of me North Inlet? Why, I have no choice, not I I'd help you sail her up to execution dock by thunder So I would Well, as it seemed to me There was some sense in this We struck our bargain on the spot In three minutes I had the Hispaniola sailing Easily before the wind along the coast Of Treasure Island, with good hopes Of turning the northern point air noon And beating down again as far as North Inlet Before high water, when we Might beach her safely and wait till The subsiding tide permitted us to land Then I lashed the tiller And went below to my own chest And I got a soft silk handkerchief of my mother's With this and with my aid Hands bound up the great bleeding stab He had received in the thigh And after he had eaten a little And had a swallow or two more of the brandy He began to pick up visibly Sat straighter up, spoke louder and clearer And looked in every way another man The breeze served us admirably We skimmed before it like a bird The coast of the island flashing by And the view changing every minute Soon we were past the highlands And bowling beside low sandy country Sparsely dotted with dwarf pines And soon we were beyond that again And had turned the corner of the rocky hill That ends the island on the north I was greatly elated with my new command And pleased with the bright, sunshiney weather And these different prospects of the coast I had now plenty of water and good things to eat And my conscience, which had smitten me hard For my desertion, was quieted By the great conquest I had made I should, I think, if had nothing left me to desire But for the eyes of the coxswain As they followed me derisively about the deck And the odd smile that appeared continually on his face It was a smile that had in it Something both of pain and weakness A haggard old man's smile But there was, besides that, a grain of derision A shadow of treachery In his expression as he craftily watched And watched, and watched me at my work End of chapter Chapter 26 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain And is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 26 Israel Hands The wind, serving us to a desire, now hauled into the west We could run so much the easier from the northeast corner Of the island to the mouth of the north inlet Only as we had no power to anchor And dared not beatured till the tide had flowed a good deal farther Time hung on our hands The coxswain told me how to lay the ship, too After a good many trials I succeeded And we both sat in silence over another meal Captain, said he at length with that same uncomfortable smile Here's my old shipmate, O'Brien Suppose you was to heave him overboard I ain't particular as a rule And I don't take no blame for settling his hash But I don't reckon him ornamental now, do you? I'm not strong enough and I don't like the job And there he lies for me, said I This here's an unlucky ship, this Hispaniola, Jim He went on, blinking There's a power of men been killed in this Hispaniola A sight of poor seamen dead and gone Since you and me took ship to Bristol I never seen such dirty luck, not I There was this here O'Brien now He's dead, ain't he? Well, now, I'm no scholar and Euraladis can read and figure And to put it straight Do you take it as a dead man is dead for good? Or do we come alive again? You can kill the body, Mr. Hands, but not the spirit You must know that already, I replied O'Brien there is in another world And may be watching us Ah, says he Well, that's unfortunate Appears as if killing parties was a waste of time How smever, spirits don't reckon for much By what I've seen I'll chance it with the spirits, Jim And now you've spoke up free And I'll take it kind if you'd step down into that there cabin And get me, well, uh, shiver my timbers I can't hit the name on it Well, you get me a bottle of wine, Jim This here Brandy's too strong for my head Now the coxswain's hesitation seemed to be unnatural And as for the notion of his preferring wine to Brandy I entirely disbelieved it The whole story was a pretext He wanted me to leave the deck So much was plain But with what purpose I could in no way imagine His eyes never met mine They kept wandering to and fro up and down Now with a look to the sky Now with a flitting glance upon the dead O'Brien All the time he kept smiling and putting his tongue out In the most guilty, embarrassed manner So that a child could have told that he was bent on some deception I was prompt with my answer, however For I saw where my advantage lay And that with a fellow so densely stupid I could easily conceal my suspicions to the end Some wine, I said Far better Will you have white or red? Well, I reckon it's about the blessed same to me, shipmate He replied So it's strong and plenty of it, what's the odds? All right, I answered I'll bring you port, Mr. Hans But I'll have to dig for it With that I scuttled down the companion with all the noise I could Slipped off my shoes, ran quietly along the sparred gallery Mounted the forecastle ladder And popped my head out of the fork companion I knew he would not expect to see me there Yet I took every precaution possible And certainly the worst of my suspicions proved too true He had risen from his position to his hands and knees And though his leg obviously hurt him pretty sharply when he moved For I could hear him stifle a groan Yet it was at a good rattling rate that he trailed himself across the deck In half a minute he had reached the port scuppers And picked, out of a coil of rope, a long knife Or rather a short dirk, discolored to the hilt with blood He looked upon it for a moment, thrusting forth his under jaw And tried the point upon his hand And then, hastily concealing it in the bosom of his jacket Trundled back again into his old place against the bulwark This was all that I required to know Israel could move about, he was now armed And if he had been at so much trouble to get rid of me It was plain that I was meant to be the victim What he would do afterwards Whether he would try to crawl right across the island from North Inlet To the camp among the swamps Or whether he would fire long-time Trusting that his own comrades might come first to help him Was of course more than I could say Yet I felt sure that I could trust him in one point Since in that our interests jumped together And that was in the disposition of the schooner Both desired to have her stranded safe enough In a sheltered place And so that, when the time came She could be got off again with as little labor and danger as might be And until that was done I considered that my life would certainly be spared While I was thus turning the business over in my mind I had not been idle with my body I had stolen back to the cabin Slipped once more into my shoes And laid my hand at random on a bottle of wine And now with this for an excuse I made my reappearance on the deck Hands lay as I had left him All fallen together in a bundle And with his eyelids lowered as though he were too weak to bear the light He looked up, however, at my coming Knocked the neck off the bottle like a man who had done the same thing often And took a good swig with his favorite toast of Here's luck! Then he lay quiet for a little And then, pulling out a stick of tobacco Begged me to cut him a quid Cut me a junk of that, says he For I have it no knife and hardly strength enough so be as I had Ah, Jim, Jim I reckon I've missed stays Cut me a quid, as will likely be the last, lad For I'm for my long home, and no mistake Well, said I I'll cut you some tobacco, but if I was you and thought myself so badly I would go to my prayers like a Christian man Why? said he Now, you tell me why Why? I cried You were asking me just now about the dead You've broken your trust, you've lived in sin and lies and blood There's a man you killed lying at your feet this moment And you asked me why For God's mercy, Mr. Hands, that's why I spoke with a little heat Thinking of the bloody dirt he had hidden in his pocket And designed, in his ill thoughts, to end me with He, for his part, took a great draught of the wine And spoke with the most unusual solemnity For thirty years, he said I've sailed the seas and seen good and bad Better and worse, fair weather and foul Provisions running out, knives going and what not Well, now I tell you I never seen good come of goodness yet Him as strikes first is my fancy And don't bite, them's my views, amen, so be it And now, you look here He added, suddenly changing his tone We've had about enough of this foolery The tide's been made good enough by now You just take my orders, Captain Hawkins And we'll sail slap in and be done with it All told, we had scarce two miles to run But the navigation was delicate The entrance to this northern anchorage Was not only narrow and shoal But lay east and west, so that the schooner Must be nicely handled to be got in I think I was a good prompt subaltern And I am very sure that Hans was an excellent pilot For we went about and about and dodged in Shaving the banks with a certainty and a neatness That were a pleasure to behold Scarcely had we passed the heads Before the land closed around us The shores of North Inlet were as thickly wooded As those of the southern anchorage But the space was longer and narrower And more like what in truth it was The estuary of a river Right before us, at the southern end We saw the wreck of a ship In the last stages of dilapidation It had been a great vessel of three masts But had lain so long exposed To the injuries of the weather That it was hung about with great webs Of dripping seaweed and on the deck of it Shore bushes had taken root And now flourished thick with flowers It was a sad sight But it showed us that the anchorage was calm Now, said Hans, look there There's a pet bit for to beat a ship in Fine flat sand, never a cat's paw Trees all around of it And flowers are blowing like a garden on that old ship And once beached, I inquired How shall we get her off again? Why so, he replied You take a line ashore there on the other side At low water Take a turn about one of them big pines Bring it back Take a turn around the capstan And lay two for the tide Come high water All hands take a pull upon the line And off she comes as sweet as nature And now, boy, you stand by We're near the bit now And she's too much way on her Starboard her little So Steady Starboard Larboard her little Steady Steady So he issued his commands Which I breathlessly obeyed Till all of a sudden he cried Now, my hearty, laugh And I put the helm hard up And the Hispaniola swung round rapidly And ran stem on for the low wooded shore The excitement of these last maneuvers Had somewhat interfered with the watch I had kept hither too, sharply enough Upon the coxswain Even then I was still so much interested Waiting for the ship to touch That I had quite forgot the peril That hung over my head Over the starboard bulwarks And watching the ripples spreading wide Before the boughs I might have fallen without a struggle For my life had not a sudden disquietude Seized upon me and made me turn my head Perhaps I had heard a creak Or seen his shadow moving with the tail Of my eye Perhaps it was an instinct like a cat's But, sure enough, when I looked round There was hands already halfway towards me With the dirk in his right hand We must both have cried out aloud When our eyes met But while mine was the shrill cry of terror His was a roar of fury like a charging bully's At the same instant He threw himself forward And I leaped sideways towards the boughs As I did I let go of the tiller which sprang sharp to leeward And I think this saved my life For it struck hands across the chest And stopped him For the moment dead Before he could recover I was safe out of the corner where he had me trapped With all the deck to dodge about Just forward of the main mast I stopped, drew a pistol from my pocket Took a cool aim, though he had already turned And was once more coming directly after me And drew the trigger The hammer fell, but there followed Neither flash nor sound The priming was useless with seawater I cursed myself from my neglect Wide had not eye long before Reprimed and reloaded my only weapons Then I should not have been as now A mere fleeing sheet before this butcher Wounded as he was It was wonderful how fast he could move His grizzled hair tumbling over his face And his face itself as red as a red ensign With his haste and fury I had no time to try my other pistol Nor indeed much inclination For I was sure it would be useless One thing I saw plainly I must not simply retreat before him Or he would speedily hold me boxed into the boughs As a moment since he had so nearly boxed me in the stern Once so caught and nine or ten inches Of the blood-stained dirk would be my last experience On this side of eternity I placed my palms against the main mast Which was of a goodish bigness And waited every nerve upon the stretch Seeing that I meant to dodge He also paused, and a moment or two passed In faints on his part And corresponding movements upon mine It was such a game as I had often played At home about the rocks of Blackhill Cove But never before you may be sure With such a wildly beating heart as now Still, as I say, it was a boy's game And I thought I could hold my own at it Against an elderly seaman with a wounded thigh Indeed my courage had begun to rise so high That I allowed myself a few darting thoughts On what would be the end of the affair And while I saw certainly that I could spin it out for long I saw no hope of any ultimate escape Well, while things stood thus Suddenly the Hispaniola struck, staggered Ground for an instant in the sand And then, swift as a blow Candid over to the port side till the deck Stood at an angle of 45 degrees And about a punch of water Splashed into the scupper holes And lay in a pool between the deck and bow work We were both of us capsized in a second And both of us rolled almost together Into the scuppers, the dead red cap With his arms still spread out Tumbled stiffly after us So near were we indeed That my head came against the coxswain's foot With a crack that made my teeth rattle Blow and all I was the first to foot again For hands had got involved with the dead body The sudden canting of the ship Had made the deck no place for running on I had to find some new way of escape And that upon the instant For my foe was almost touching me Quickest thought I sprang into the mizzen shrouds Rattled up hand over hand And did not draw a breath till I was seated On the cross-trees I had been saved by being prompt The dirk had struck not a half a foot below me As I pursued my upward flight And there stood Israel hands with his mouth open And his face upturned to mine A perfect statue of surprise and disappointment Now that I had a moment to myself I lost no time in changing the priming of my pistol And then having one ready for service And to make assurance doubly sure I proceeded to draw the load of the other And recharge it afresh from the beginning My new employment struck hands all of a heap He began to see the dice going against him And after an obvious hesitation He also hauled himself heavily into the shrouds And with the dirk in his teeth Began slowly and painfully to mount It cost him no end of time And groans to haul his wounded leg behind him And I had quietly finished my arrangements Before he was much more than a third of the way up Then with a pistol in either hand I addressed him One more step, Mr. Hands, said I And I'll blow your brains out Dead men don't bite, you know I added with a chuckle He stopped instantly I could see by the working of his face That he was trying to think And the process was so slow and laborious That in my newfound security I laughed aloud At last with a swallow or two He spoke, his face still wearing A version of extreme perplexity In order to speak he had to take the dagger From his mouth, but in all else He remained unmoved Jim, says he I reckon we're fouled, you and me And we'll have to sign articles I'd have had you but for that there lurch But I don't have no luck, not I And I reckon I'll have to strike Which comes hard, you see, for a master mariner To a ship's yonker like you, Jim I was drinking in his words And smiling away as conceded As a cock upon a wall When, all in a breath, back Went his right hand over his shoulder Something sang like an arrow through the air I felt a blow and then a sharp pang And there I was, pinned by the shoulder To the mast In the hard pain and surprise of the moment I scarce can say it was by my own volition And I am sure it was without a conscious aim Both my pistols went off And both escaped out of my hands They did not fall alone But with a joked cry The coxswain loosed his grasp upon the shrouds And plunged head-first into the water End of chapter Chapter 27 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain And is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 27, Pieces of Eight Owing to the cant of the vessel The masts hung far out over the water And from my perch on the cross-trees I had nothing below me but the surface of the bay Hands who was not so far up Was in consequence nearer to the ship And fell between me and the bulwarks He rose once to the surface In a lather of foam and blood And then sank again for good As the water settled I could see him lying huddled together On the clean bright sand In the shadow of the vessel's sides A fish or two whipped past his body Sometimes by the quivering of the water He appeared to move a little As if he were trying to rise But he was dead enough for all that Being both shot and drowned And was food for fish in the very place Where he had designed my slaughter I was no sooner certain of this Than I began to feel sick, faint and terrified The hot blood was running over my back and chest The dirk where it had pinned my shoulder to the mast Seemed to burn like a hot iron Yet it was not so much these real sufferings That distressed me, for these it seemed to me I could bear without a murmur It was the horror I had upon my mind Of falling from the cross-trees Into that still green water Beside the body of the coxswain I clung with both hands till my nails ached And I shut my eyes as if to cover up the peril Gradually my mind came back again My pulses quieted down to a more natural time And I was once more in possession of myself It was my first thought to pluck forth the dirk But either it stuck too hard or my nerve failed me And I desisted with a violent shutter Oddly enough that very shutter did the business The knife in fact had come the nearest in the world To missing me altogether It held me by a mere pinch of skin And this the shutter tore away The blood run down the faster to be sure But I was my own master again And only tacked to the mast by my coat and shirt These last I broke through with a sudden jerk And then regained the deck by the starboard shrouds For nothing in the world would I have again ventured Shaken as I was upon the overhanging porch shrouds From which Israel had so lately fallen I went below and did what I could for my wound It pained me a good deal and still bled freely But it was neither deep nor dangerous Nor did it greatly gall me when I used my arm Then I looked around me and as the ship was now In a sense my own, I began to think of clearing it From its last passenger, the dead man O'Brien He had pitched, as I have said, against the bulwarks Where he lay like some horrible, ungainly sort of puppet Life's eyes indeed, but how different from life's color Or life's comeliness In that position I could easily have my way with him And as the habit of tragical adventures Had worn off almost all my terror for the dead I took him by the waist as if he had been a sack of bran And with one good heave, tumbled him overboard He went in with a sounding plunge The red cap came off and remained floating on the surface And as soon as the splash subsided I could see him and Israel lying side by side Both wavering with the tremulous movement of the water O'Brien, though still quite a young man, was very bald There he lay with that bald head across the knees Of the man who had killed him and the quick fishes Steering to and fro over both I was now alone upon the ship The tide had just turned The sun was within so few degrees of setting That already the shadow of the pines upon the western shore Began to reach right across the anchorage And fall in patterns on the deck The evening breeze had sprung up And though it was well warded off by the hill With the two peaks upon the east The cordage had begun to sing a little softly to itself And the idle sails to rattle, to and fro I began to see a danger to the ship The jibs I speedily doused And brought tumbling to the deck But the mainsail was a harder matter Of course when the schooner canted over The boom and swung outboard And the cap of it and a foot or two of sail Hung even underwater I thought this made it still more dangerous Yet the strain was so heavy That I half feared to meddle At last I got my knife and cut the howards The peak dropped instantly This belly of loose canvas floated broad upon the water And since, pull as I liked I could not budge the downhaul That was the extent of what I could accomplish For the rest, the Hispaniola must trust to luck Like myself By this time the whole anchorage had fallen into shadow The last rays I remember Falling through a glade of the wood And shining brightest jewels on the flowery mantle of the wreck It began to be chill The tide was rapidly fleeting seaward The schooner settling more and more on her beam ends I scrambled forward and looked over It seemed shallow enough And holding the cut hauser in both hands For a last security I let myself drop softly overboard The water scarcely reached my waist The sand was firm and covered with ripple marks And I waited ashore in great spirits Leaving the Hispaniola on her side Where their mainsail trailing wide Upon the surface of the bay About the same time I went fairly down and the breeze whistled low in the dusk Among the tossing pines At least, and at last, I was off the sea Nor had I returned thence empty-handed There lay the schooner Clear at last from buccaneers And ready for our own men to board and get to sea again I had nothing nearer my fancy than to get home to the stockade And boast of my achievements Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my true entry But the recapture of the Hispaniola was a clenching answer And I hoped that even Captain Smollett would confess I had not lost my time So thinking, and in famous spirits I began to set my face homeward for the blockhouse in my companions I remembered that the most easterly of the rivers Which drain into Captain Kidd's anchorage Ran from the two-peaked hill upon my left And I bent my course in that direction That I might pass the stream while it was small The wood was pretty open And keeping along the lower spurs In the corner of that hill And not long after waited to the mid-calf Across the water course This brought me near to where I had encountered Ben Gunn, the maroon And I walked more circumspectly, keeping an eye on every side The dusk had come nigh-hand completely And as I opened out the cleft between the two peaks I became aware of a wavering glow against the sky Where, as I judged, the man of the island Was cooking his supper before a roaring fire And wandered in my heart that he should show himself so careless For if I could see this radiance Might it not reach the eyes of Silver himself Where he camped upon the shore among the marshes? Gradually the night fell blacker It was all I could do to guide myself even roughly Towards my destination The double hill behind me And the spyglass on my right hand loomed faint and fainter The stars were few and pale And in the low ground where I wandered Tripping among bushes and rolling into sandy pits Suddenly a kind of brightness fell about me I looked up, a pale glimmer of moonbeams Had alighted on the summit of the spyglass And soon after I saw something broad and silvery Moving low down behind the trees And knew the moon had risen With this to help me I passed rapidly over what remained to me of my journey And sometimes walking, sometimes running Impatiently drew near to the stockade Yet, as I began to thread the grove that lies before it I was not so thoughtless but that I slacked my pace And went a trifle warily It would have been a poor end of my adventures To get shot down by my own party in mistake The moon was climbing higher and higher Its light began to fall here and there In masses through the more open districts of the wood And right in front of me A glow of a different color appeared among the trees It was red and hot And now and again it was a little darkened As it were the embers of a bonfire smoldering For the life of me I could not think what it might be At last I came right down upon the borders of the clearing The western end was already steeped in moonshine The rest and the black house itself Still lay in a black shadow checkered with long silvery streaks of light On the other side of the house An immense fire had burned itself into clear embers And shed a steady red reverberation Contrasted strongly with the mellow paleness of the moon There was not a soul stirring nor a sound beside the noises of the breeze I stopped with much wonder in my heart And perhaps a little terror also It had not been our way to build great fires We were indeed by the captain's orders Somewhat niggardly a firewood And I began to fear that something had gone wrong while I was absent I stole round by the eastern end Keeping close in shadow And at a convenient place where the darkness was thickest Crossed the palisade To make assurance, sureer, I got upon my hands and knees And crawled, without a sound, towards the corner of the house As I drew nearer my heart was suddenly and greatly lightened It was not a pleasant noise in itself And I have often complained of it at other times But just then it was like music to hear my friends Snoring together so loud and peaceful in their sleep The sea cry of the watch, that beautiful all's well Never fell more reassuringly on my ear In the meantime there was no doubt of one thing That kept an infamous bad watch If it had been silver and his lads that were now creeping in on them Not a soul would have seen daybreak That was what it was, thought I, to have the captain wounded And again I blamed myself sharply for leaving them in that danger With so few to mount guard By this time I had got to the door and stood up All was dark within so that I could distinguish nothing by the eye As for sounds there was the steady drone of the snores And a small occasional noise, a flickering or pecking That I could in no way account for With my arms before me I walked steadily in I should lie down in my own place, I thought with a silent chuckle And enjoy their faces when they found me in the morning My foot struck something yielding It was a sleeper's leg and he turned and groaned But without a waking And then, all of a sudden, a shrill voice broke forth out of the darkness Pieces of eight, pieces of eight, pieces of eight, pieces of eight, pieces of eight And so forth without pause or change Like the clacking of a tiny mill Silver's green parrot, Captain Flint It was she whom I had heard pecking at a piece of bark It was she keeping better watch than any human being Who thus announced my arrival with her weary summer fraying I had no time left me to recover At the sharp clipping tone of the parrot The sleepers awoke and sprang up And with a mighty oath the voice of Silver cried Who goes? I turned to run, struck violently against one person Recoiled and ran full into the arms of a second Who for his part closed upon and held me tight Bring a torch, Dick, said Silver when my capture was thus assured And one of the men left the log house And presently returned with a lighted brand End of chapter Chapter 28 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain And is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Part 6, Captain Silver Chapter 28, In the Enemy's Camp The red glare of the torch Lighting up the interior of the block house Showed me the worst of my apprehensions realized The pirates were in possession of the house and stores There was the cask of cognac There were the pork and bread as before And what tenfold increased my horror Not a sign of any prisoner I could only judge that all had perished And my heart smoked me sorely That I had not been there to perish with them There were six of the buccaneers all told Not another man was left alive Five of them were on their feet Flushed and swollen Suddenly called out of the first sleep of drunkenness The sixth had only risen upon his elbow He was deadly pale And the blood-stained bandage round his head Told that he had recently been wounded And still more recently dressed I remembered the man who had been shot Had in rubback among the woods in the great attack And doubted not that this was he The parrot sat, printing her plumage On Long John's shoulder He himself, I thought, looked somewhat paler And more stern than I was used to He still wore the fine brog cloth suit In which he had fulfilled his mission But it was bitterly the worse for wear Dobbed with clay and torn with the sharp Briars of the wood So said he Here's Jim Hawkins shivering my timbers Dropped in like a Welcome, I take that friendly And thereupon he sat down across the brandy cask And began to fill a pipe Give me a loan of the link, Dick Said he And then when he had had a good light That'll do, lad, he added Stick the glim in the wood-heap And you gentlemen, bring yourselves too You needn't stand up for Mr. Hawkins He'll excuse you, you may lay to that And so, Jim, stopping the tobacco Here you are, and quite a pleasant surprise For poor old John I see you were smart when first I set my eyes on you But this here gets away from me clean at due To all this, as may be well-supposed I made no answer They had set me with my back against the wall And I stood there, looking silver in the face Pluckly enough, I hope, to all outward appearance But with black despair in my heart Silver took a whiff or two of his pipe With great composure and then ran on again Now you see, Jim, so be as you are here Said he I give you a piece of my mind I've always liked you, I have For a lad of spirit And your picture of my own self When I was young and handsome I always wanted you to join and take your share And die a gentleman And now, my cock, you've got to Captain Smollett's a fine seaman As I'll own up to any day But stiff on discipline Doty is Doty, says he And right he is Just you keep clear of the captain The doctor himself is gone dead again you Ungrateful scamp was what he said And the short and the long are the whole story Is about here You can't go back to your own lot For they won't have you And without you start a third ship's Company all by yourself Which might be lonely You'll have to join with Captain Silver So far so good My friends then were still alive And though I partly believed the truth Of Silver's statement That the cabin party were incensed at me For my desertion I was more relieved than distressed By what I heard I don't say nothing as to your being In our hands, continued Silver Though there you are And you may lay to it I'm all for argument I never seem good come out of threatening If you like the service, well, you'll join And if you don't, Jim, why? You're free to answer no Free and welcome, shipmate And if Farrah can be said by mortal seaman Shiver my sides Am I to answer then? I asked with a very tremulous voice Through all this sneering talk I was made to feel the threat of death That overhung me And my cheeks burned And my heart beat painfully in my breast Lad! said Silver No one's oppressing of ya Take your bearings None of us won't hurry, ya mate Time goes so pleasant in your company, ya see Well, says I, growing a bit bolder If I'm to choose I declare I have a right to know what's what And why you're here and where my friends are What's what? Repeated one of the buccaneers and a deep growl Oh, he'd be a lucky one, has known that You'll perhaps batten down your hatches Till you're spoke to, my friend Said Silver, truculently to the speaker And then in his first gracious tones He replied to me Yesterday morning, Mr. Hawkins Said he In the dog-watch Downton came Dr. Livesey with a flag of truce Says he Cat and Silver, you're sold out Ship's gone Well, maybe we'd been taken a glass And a song to help it round I won't say no Least ways none of us had looked out We looked out, and by thunder The old ship was gone I never seen a pack of fools look fishier And you may lay to that If I tell you that looked the fishiest Well, says the doctor Let's bargain We bargained him and I And here we are Stores, brandy, blockhouse The firewood you was thoughtful enough to cut And in a manner of speaking The whole blessed boat From cross-trees to kielsen As for them, they've tramped I don't know where's they are He drew again quietly at his pipe Unless you should take it into that head of yours He went on That you was included in the treaty Here's the last word that was said How many are you, says I, to leave Four, says he Four, and one of us wounded As for that boy I don't know where he is confound him Says he Nor I don't much care We're about sick of him These was his words Is that all? I asked Well, it's all that you're to hear, my son Returned silver And now I am to choose And now you are to choose And you may lay to that, says Silver Well, said I I am not such a fool, but I know pretty well What I have to look for Let the worst come to the worst It's little I care I've seen too many die since I fell in with you But there's a thing or two I have to tell you, I said And by this time I was quite excited And the first is this Here you are in a bad way Ship lost, treasure lost, men lost Your whole business gone to wreck And if you want to know who did it It was I I was in the apple barrel the night we sighted land And I heard you, John And you, Dick Johnson And Hans, who was now at the bottom of the sea And told every word you said before the hour was out And as for the scooter It was I who cut her cable And it was I that killed the men you had aboard of her And it was I who brought her where you'll never see her more Not one of you, the laughs on my side I've had the top of this business from the first I no more fear you than I fear a fly Kill me if you please, or spare me But one thing I'll say and no more If you spare me, bygones are bygones And when you fellows are in court for piracy I'll save you all I can It is for you to choose Kill another and do yourselves no good Or spare me and keep a witness to save you from the gallows I stopped for I tell you I was out of breath And to my wonder not a man of them moved But all sat staring at me like as many sheep And while they were still staring I broke out again And now, Mr. Silver, I said I believe you're the best man here And if things go to the worst I'll take it kind of you to let the doctor know The way I took it I'll bear it in mind Said Silver with an accent so curious That I could not, for the life of me Decide whether he were laughing at my request Or had been favorably affected by my courage I have put one to that Cried the old mahogany-faced seaman Morgan by name Whom I had seen in Long John's public house Upon the keys of Bristol It was him that knowed Black Dog Well, and see here Added the sea-cook I'll put another again to that by thunder For it was the same boy that faked the chart From Billy Bones First and last we've split upon Jim Hawkins Then here goes Said Morgan with an oath And he sprang up drawing his knife As if he had been twenty The last there, cried Silver Who are you, Tom Morgan? Maybe you thought you was captain here Perhaps, by the powers But I'll teach you better Cross me and you'll go where many A good man's gone before you First and last, these thirty years back Some to the yard arms, shiver my timbers And some by the board And all to feed the fishes There's never a man look me between the eyes And seen a good day afterwards, Tom Morgan You may lay to that Morgan paused But a horse murmur rose from the others Tom's right Said one I stood hazing long enough from one Added another I'll be hanged if I'll be hazed by you, John Silver Did any of you gentlemen Want to have it out with me? Bending far forward from his position on the keg Were this pipe still glowing in his right hand Put a name on what you're at You ain't dumb, I reckon Him that once shall get it Have I lived this many years And a son of a rum-punchin' cock Is had a thwart my haws At the latter end of it You know the way You're all gentlemen of fortune by your account Well, I'm ready Take a cutlass, him that dares And I'll see the color of his inside Crutch and awe before that pipe's empty Not a man stirred Not a man answered That's your sort, is it? He added, returning his pipe to his mouth Well, you're a gay lot to look at Anyway Not much worth the fight you ate Perhaps you can understand King George's English I'm Captain here by election I'm Captain here because I'm the best man by a long seamile You won't fight As gentlemen of fortune should Then by thunder you'll obey And you may lay to it I like that boy now I never seen a better boy than that He's more a man than any pair Of rats of you in this here house And what I say is this Let me see him that'll lay a hand on him That's what I say And you may lay to it There was a long pause after this I stood straight up against the wall My heart still going like a sledgehammer But with a ray of hope now shining in my bosom Silver leaned back against the wall His arms crossed His pipe in the corner of his mouth As calm as though he had been in church Yet his eye kept wandering furtively And he kept the tail of it on his unruly followers They, on their part Drew gradually together Towards the far end of the block House and the low hiss of their whispering Sounded in my ear continuously Like a stream One after another they would look up And the red light of the torch would fall For a second on their nervous faces But it was not towards me It was towards Silver that they turned their eyes You seem to have a lot to say Remark Silver spitting far into the air Pipe up and let me hear it Or lay to Ex your pardon, sir Return one of the men You're pretty free with some of the rules Maybe you'll kindly keep an eye upon the rest This crew's dissatisfied This crew don't valley-bullying a Marlin spike This crew has its rights like other crews I'll make so free as that And by your own rules I take it we can talk together I ask your pardon, sir Acknowledging you for to be captain at this present But I claim my right And steps outside for a counsel And with an elaborate sea salute This fellow, a long, ill-looking Yellow-eyed man of five and thirty Stepped coolly towards the door And disappeared out of the house One after another the rest followed his example Each making a salute as he passed Each adding some apology According to rules Said one Forecastle counsel Said Morgan And so with one remark or another All marched out and left Silver and me Alone with the torch The sea-cook instantly removed his pipe Now look you hear Jim Hawkins He said in a steady whisper That was no more than audible You're within half a plank of death And what's alongside worse Of torture They're going to throw me off But you mark I stand by you through thick and thin I didn't mean to No, not till you smoke up I was about desperate to lose that much blunt Into the bargain But I see you was the right sort I says to myself You stand by Hawkins, John And Hawkins'll stand by you You're his last card And by the living thunder, John He's yours Back to back, says I You save his witness and he'll save your neck I began dimly to understand You mean all's lost? I asked I, by gum, I do Once the size of it Once I looked into that bay, Jim Hawkins And seen no schooner Well, I'm tough, but I gave out As for that lot and their council Mark me, they're outright fools and cowards I'll save your life If so be as I can from them But see here, Jim Tit for tat, you save Long John From swinging I was bewildered It seemed a thing so hopeless he was asking He, the old buccaneer, the ringleader threw out What I can do, that I'll do I said It's a bargain, cried Long John You speak a plucky, and by thunder I have a chance He hobbled to the torch where it stood Propped among the firewood and took A fresh light to his pipe Understand me, Jim, he said, Returning, I've a head on my shoulders I have, I'm on Squire's side now I know you've got that ship safe Somewhere's How you done it, I don't know How safe it is I guess Hans and O'Brien turned soft I never much believed in neither of them Now you mark me I asked no questions Nor I won't let others I know when a game's up I do And I know a lad that's staunch Ah, you that's young You and me might have done a power of good Together He drew some cognac from the cask Into a tin canikin Will you taste, messmate? Well, I'll take a dream myself, Jim Said he, I need a caulker For there's trouble on hand And talking of trouble Why did that doctor give me the chart, Jim? My face expressed a wonder So unaffected that he saw The needlessness of further questions Ah, well, he did though Said he, and there's Something under that, no doubt Something surely under that, Jim Bad or good And he took another swallow of the brandy And he was doing his great fair-head Like a man who looks forward to the worst End of chapter Chapter 29 of TREASURE island This LibriVox recording is In the public domain and is Read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina TREASURE island, by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 29, the black spot Again, the council of buccaneers Had lasted some time When one of them re-entered the house with the repetition of the same salute, which had in my eyes an ironical air, begged for a moment's loan of the torch. Silver briefly agreed and this emissary retired again, leaving us together in the dark. There's a breeze coming, Jim," said Silver, who had by this time adopted quite a friendly and familiar tone. I turned to the loophole nearest me and looked out. The embers of the great fire had so far burned themselves out, and now glowed so low and duskily that I understood why these conspirators desired a torch. About halfway down the slope to the stockade, they were collected in a group. One held the light, another was on his knees in their midst, and I saw the blade of an open knife shine in his hand with varying colors in the moon and torchlight. The rest were all somewhat stooping, as though watching the maneuvers of this last. I could just make out that he had a book as well as a knife in his hand and was still wondering how anything so incongruous had come in their possession when the kneeling figure rose once more to his feet and the whole party began to move together towards the house. Here they come, said I, and I returned to my former position for it seemed beneath my dignity that they should find me watching them. Well, let them come, lad, let them come, said Silver cheerily. I've still a shot in my locker. The door opened, and the five men, standing huddled together just inside, pushed one of their number forward. In any other circumstances it would have been comical to see his slow advance, hesitating as he sat down each foot, but holding his closed right hand in front of him. Step up, lad! cried Silver. I won't eat you! Hand it over, lover! I know the rules I do! I won't hurt a deputation! Thus encouraged, the buccaneer stepped forth more briskly, and having passed something to Silver, from hand to hand, slipped yet more smartly back again to his companions. The sea-cook looked at what had been given him. The black spot, I thought so, he observed. Where might you have got the paper? Why, hello? Look here now, this ain't lucky! You've gone and cut this out of a Bible! What fools cut up Bible! Ah, there! said Morgan. There! What did I say? No good will come of that, I said. Well, you've about fixed it now among you. Continued Silver. You'll all swing now, I reckon. What soft-headed lover had a Bible? It was Dick, said one. Dick was it. Then Dick can get to prayers, said Silver. He's seen his slice of luck as Dick, and you may lay to that. But here the long man with the yellow eyes struck in. Belay that talk, John Silver, he said. This crew has tipped you the black spot in full council, as in duty bound. Just you turn it over, as in duty bound, and see what's wrote there. Then you can talk. Thank ye, George, replied the sea-cook. Ye always was brisk for business, and has the rules by heart, George, as I'm pleased to see. Well, what is it anyway? Ah, deposed, that's it, is it. Very pretty wrote, to be sure. Like print, I swear. Your hand to write, George? Why, you is getting quite a leading man in this here crew. You'll be catin' next, I shouldn't wonder. Just oblige me with that torch again, will you? This pipe don't draw. Come now, said George. You don't fool this crew no more. You're a funny man by your account, but you're over now, and you'll maybe step down off that barrel and help vote. I thought you said you knowed the rules. Return Silver, contemptuously. Least ways, if you don't, I do, and I wait here, and I'm still your cat in mind, till you outs with your grievances, and I reply. In the meantime, your black spot ain't worth a biscuit. After that, we'll see. Oh, replied George, you don't be under no kind of apprehension. We're all square, we are. First, you've made a hash of this cruise. You'll be a bold man to say no to that. Second, you let the enemy out of this here trap for nothing. Why did they want out? I don't know, but it's pretty plain they wanted it. Third, you wouldn't let us go at them upon the march. Oh, we see through you, John Silver. You want to play booty, that's what's wrong with you. And then fourth, there's this here, boy. Is that all? asked Silver quietly. Enough, too, retorted George. We'll all swing and sun-dry for your bungling. Well, now, look here. I'll answer these four points, one after another, I'll answer them. I made a hash of this cruise, did I? Well, now, you all know what I wanted, and you all know if that had been done, that we'd have been aboard the Hispaniola this night as ever was. Every man of us alive, and fit, and full of good plum duff, and the treasure in the hold of her by thunder. Well, who crossed me? Who forced my hand, as was the lawful captain? Who tipped me the black spot the day we landed and began this dance? Ah, it's a fine dance. I'm here with you there. And looks mighty like a hornpipe in a rope-ended execution dock by Lundantown. It does. But who done it? Why, it was Anderson, and Hans, and you, George Mary, and you're the last aboveboard of that same meddling crew, and you have the David Jones' insolence to up and stand for cat-mover me, you that sank the law of us, by the powers, but this tops the stiffest yarn to nothing. Silver paused, and I could see by the faces of George and his late comrades that these words had not been said in vain. That's for number one, cried the accused, wiping the sweat from his brow, for he had been talking with the vehemence that shook the house. Why, I give you my word, I'm sick to speak to you. You've neither sense nor memory, and I leave it to fancy where your mother's was that lets you come to see. See, gentlemen of fortune, I reckon Taylor's is your trade. Go on, John, said Morgan, speak up to the others. Ah, the others. Return, John. They're a nice lot, ain't they? You say this cruise is bungled. Ah, by gum, if you could understand how bad it's bungled you would see. We're that near the gibbet that my neck stiff with thinking on it. You've seen them, maybe, hanged in chains, birds up out them, seamen piting them out as they go down with the tide. Who's that, says one? That. Why, that's John Silver. I knowed him well, says another, and you can hear the chains that jangle as you go about and reach for the other buoy. Now, that's about where we are, every mother's son of us, thanks to him, and Hans, and Anderson, and other ruination fools of you. And if you want to know about number four and that boy, why, shiver my timbers, isn't he a hostage? Are we going to waste a hostage? No, not us. He might be our last chance, and I shouldn't wonder. Kill that boy, not me, mates. And number three. Ah, well, there's a deal to say to number three. Maybe you don't count it nothing to have a real college doctor to see you every day. You, John, with your head broke, or you, George Mary, that had the agus shakes upon you, not six hours are gone, and has your eyes the color of lemon peel to the same moment on the clock? And maybe, perhaps, you didn't know there was a consort coming, either. But there is, and not so long till then. And we'll see who'll be glad to have a hostage when it comes to that. And as for number two, and why I made a bargain, well, you came a-crawlin' on your knees to me to make it. On your knees you came, you were that downhearted. And you'd have starved, too, if I hadn't. But that's a trifle. You looked there, that's why. And he cast down upon the floor a paper that I instantly recognized. None other than the chart on yellow paper were the three red crosses that I had found in the oil cloth at the bottom of the captain's chest. Why the doctor had given it to him was more than I could fancy. But if it was inexplicable to me, the appearance of the chart was incredible to the surviving mutineers. They leaped upon it like cats upon a mouse. It went from hand to hand, one tearing it from another, and by the oaths and the cries and the childish laughter with which they accompanied their examination, you would have thought not only they were fingering the very gold, but were at sea with it besides in safety. Yes, said one, that's flinch, sure enough, J, F, and a score below with a clove hitch to it, so he's done ever. Mighty pretty, said George, but how are we to get away with it and us no ship? Silver suddenly sprang up and supporting himself with a hand against the wall. Now I give you warning, George, he cried, one more word of your sauce, and I'll call you down in fight you. How? Why, how do I know? You had ought to tell me that. You and the rest that lost me my scooter with your interference, Bernier. But not you, you can't. You ain't got the invention of a cockroach. But civil you can speak and shout, George Mary, you may lay to that. That's fair enough, said the old man Morgan. There, I reckon so, said the sea cook. You lost the ship. I found the treasurer. Who's the better man at that? And now I resign by thunder. Elect whom you please to be your captain now. I'm done with it. Silver, they cried, barbecue forever, barbecue for captain. So, that's the tune, is it? cried the cook. George, I reckon you'll have to wait another turn, friend, and lucky for you as I'm not a revengeful man. But that was never my way. And now, shipmates, this black spot. Take much good now, is it? Dick's crossed his luck and spoiled his Bible, and that's about all. It'll do to kiss the book on still, won't it? Grail Dick, who was evidently uneasy at the curse he had brought upon himself. A Bible with a bit cut out. Returned Silver derisively. Not it. It don't buy no more in a ballot book. Don't it, though? cried Dick with a sort of joy. Well, I reckon that's worth having too. Here, Jim, here's a curiosity for you, said Silver, and he tossed me the paper. It was around about the size of a crown piece. One side was black, for it had been the last leaf. The other contained a verse or two of Revelation. These words among the rest, which struck sharply home upon my mind. Without are dogs and murderers. The printed side had been blackened with wood ash, which already began to come off and soil my fingers. On the blank side had been written with the same material, the one word, deposed. I have that curiosity beside me at this moment, but not a trace of writing now remains beyond a single scratch, such as a man might make with his thumbnail. That was the end of the night's business. Soon after, with a drink all round, we lay down to sleep, and the outside of Silver's vengeance was to put George Mary up for Sentinel and threaten him with death if he should prove unfaithful. It was long ere I could close an eye, and Heaven knows I had matter enough for thought in the man whom I had slain that afternoon, in my own most perilous position, and above all, in the remarkable game that I saw Silver now engaged upon, keeping the mutineers together with one hand, and grasping with the other after every means possible and impossible to make his peace and save his miserable life. He himself slept peacefully and snored aloud, yet my heart was sore for him, wicked as he was, to think on the dark perils that environed and the shameful gibbet that awaited him. End of chapter. Chapter 30 of Treasure Island. This leaper box recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Chapter 30 on parole. I was wakened. Indeed, we were all wakened for I could see even the Sentinel shake himself together from where he had fallen against the doorpost by a clear hearty voice hailing us from the margin of the wood. Blackhouse, ahoy! it cried. Here's the doctor! And the doctor it was. Although I was glad to hear the sound, yet my gladness was not without admixture. I remembered with confusion my insubordinate and stealthy conduct, and when I saw where it had brought me, among what companions and surrounded by what dangers, I felt ashamed to look him in the face. He must have risen in the dark, for the day had hardly come. And when I ran to a loophole and looked out, I saw him standing, like silver once before, up to the mid leg and creeping vapor. You, doctor! Top of the morning to you, sir! cried silver, broad awake and beaming with good nature in a moment, bright and early to be sure. And it's the early bird, as the saying goes, that gets the rations. George, shake up your timber, son, and help Dr. Livesey over the ship side. All are doing well, your patience was, all well and merry. So he pattered on, standing on the hilltop with his crutch under his elbow, and one hand upon the side of the log-house, quite the old John in voice, manner, and expression. We've quite a surprise for you too, sir! he continued. We've a little stranger here. Hee-hee! A new border in lodger, sir, and look and fit and taut as a fiddle. Slept like a supercargo, he did, right alongside of John. Stem to stem we was, all night. Dr. Livesey was by this time across the stockade and pretty near the cook, and I could hear the alteration in his voice as he said, not Jim. The very same Jim as ever was, says silver. The doctor stopped outright, although he did not speak, and it was some seconds before he seemed able to move on. Well, well, he said at last. Duty first and pleasure afterwards, as you might have said yourself, silver, let us overhaul these patients of yours. A moment afterwards he had entered the blockhouse, and with one grim nod to me proceeded with his work among the sick. He seemed under no apprehension, though he must have known that his life, among these treacherous demons, depended on a hair. And he rattled on to his patients as if he were paying an ordinary professional visit in a quiet English family. His manner, I suppose, reacted on the men, for they behaved to him as if nothing had occurred, as if he were still ship's doctor, and they still faithful hands before the mast. You're doing well, my friend, he said to the fellow with the bandaged head. And if ever any person had a close shave, it was you. Your head must be hard as iron. Well, George, how goes it? You're a pretty color, certainly. Why, your liver man is upside down. Did you take that medicine? Did he take that medicine, men? Aye, aye, he took it, sure enough. Return, Morgan. Because, you see, since I am mutineer's doctor, or prison doctor, as I prefer to call it, says Dr. Livesey in his pleasantest way, I make it a point of honor not to lose a man for King George, God bless him, and the gallows. The rogues looked at each other but swallowed the home thrust in silence. Dick don't feel well, sir, said one. Don't he, replied the doctor. Well, step up here, Dick, and let me see your tongue. No, I should be surprised if he did. The man's tongue is fit to frighten the French. Another fever. Ah, there, said Morgan, that come to spoil him bibles. That comes, as you call it, of being errant asses, retorted the doctor, and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous sloth. I think it most probable, though of course it's only an opinion, that you'll all have the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out of your systems. Camp in a bog, would you? Silver, I'm surprised at you. You're less of a fool than many, take you all round, but you don't appear to me to have the rudiments of a notion of the rules of health. Well, he added after he had dosed them round, and they had taken his prescriptions, with really laughable humility, more like charity schoolchildren that had blood-guilty mutineers and pirates. Well, that's done for today, and now I should wish to have a talk with that boy, please. And he nodded his head in my direction carelessly. George Mary was at the door, spitting and spluttering over some bad-tasted medicine, but at the first word of the doctor's proposal, he swung round with a deep flush and cried, No! and swore. Silver struck the barrel with his open hand. Silence! he roared and looked about him positively like a lion. Doctor, he went on in his usual tones. I was a thinker to that, known as how you had a fancy for the boy. We're all humbly grateful for your kindness, and as you see, puts faith in you and takes the drugs down like that much grog. And I take it, I've found a way as I'll suit all. Hawkins, will you give me your word of honor as a young gentleman? For a young gentleman you are, although poor-born, your word of honor not to slip your cable? I readily gave the pledge required. Then, doctor, said Silver, you just step outside of that stockade, and once you're there I'll bring the boy down on the inside, and I reckon you can yarn through the spars. Good day to you, sir, and all our duties to the squire and captain small it. The explosion of disapproval, which nothing but Silver's black looks had restrained, broke out immediately the doctor had left the house. Silver was roundly accused of playing double, of trying to make a separate piece for himself, of sacrificing the interests of his accomplices and victims, and in one word, of the identical exact thing that he was doing. It seemed to me so obvious, in this case, that I could not imagine how he was to turn their anger. But he was twice the man the rest were, and his last night's victory had given him a huge preponderance on their minds. He called them all the fools and dults you can imagine, said it was necessary I should talk to the doctor, flooded the chart in their faces, asked them if they could afford to break the treaty the very day they were bound to treasure hunting. No by thunder, he cried. It's us must break the treaty when the time comes, until then I'll gammon that doctor if I have to aisle his boots with brandy. And then he bade them get the firelit, and stalked out upon his crutch, with his hand on my shoulder, leaving them in a disarray, and silenced by his volubility rather than convinced. Slow lad, slow, he said, they might round upon us in a twinkle of an eye if we were seen to hurry. Very deliberately then did we advance across the sand to where the doctor awaited us on the other side of the stockade, and as soon as we were within easy speaking distance, Silver stopped. You'll make a note of this here also, doctor, says he, and the boy'll tell you how I saved his life, and were deposed for it too, and you may lay to that. Doctor, when a man steering as near the wind as me, playing Chuck Farthing with a last breath in his body like, you wouldn't think it too much, mayhap, to give him one good word? You'll please bear in mind that it's not my life only now, it's that boy's into the bargain, and you'll speak me fair, doctor, and give me a bit of hope to go on for the sake of mercy. Silver was a changed man once he was out there, and had his back to his friends in the blockhouse. His cheeks seemed to have fallen in, his voice trembled, never was a soul more dead in earnest. Why, John, you're not afraid, asked Doctor Livesey. Doctor, I'm no coward, no, not I, not so much. And he snapped his fingers. If I was, I wouldn't say it. But I'll own up fairly, I've the shakes upon me for the gallows. You're a good man and a true, I've never seen a better man, and you'll not forget what I done good, not any more than you'll forget the bad, I know. And I step aside, see here, and leave you and Jim alone, and you'll put that down for me too, for it's a long stretch, is that? So saying he stepped back a little way till he was out of earshot, and there sat down upon a tree stump and began to whistle, spinning round now and again upon his seat, so as to command a sight, sometimes of me and the doctor, and sometimes of his unruly ruffians as they went to and fro in the sand between the fire, which they were busy rekindling, and the house, from which they brought forth pork and bread to make the breakfast. So, Jim, said the doctor sadly, here you are. As you have brewed, so shall you drink, my boy. Heaven knows I cannot find it in my heart to blame you, but this much I will say, be it kind or unkind. When captain's small it was well, you dared not have gone off, and when he was ill and couldn't help it by George, it was downright cowardly. I will own that I here began to weep. Doctor, I said, you might spare me. I have blamed myself enough. My life's forfeit anyway, and I shouldn't have been dead by now if Silver hadn't stood for me. And doctor, believe this, I can die, and I dare say I deserve it, but what I fear is torture. If they come to torture me. Jim, the doctor interrupted, and his voice was quite changed. Jim, I can't have this. Whip over and we'll run for it. Doctor, said I, I pass my word. I know, I know, he cried. We can't help that, Jim, now. I'll take it on my shoulders. Holis, bolis, blame and shame, my boy. But stay here, I cannot let you. Jump. One jump and you're out, and we'll run for it like antelopes. No, I replied. You know right well you wouldn't do the thing yourself. Neither you nor Squire nor Captain, and no more will I. Silver trusted me, I pass my word, and back I go. But doctor, you did not let me finish. If they come to torture me, I might let slip a word of where the ship is, for I got the ship, part by luck and part by risking, and she lies in north inlet on the southern beach, and just below high water, at half tide she must be high and dry. The ship, exclaimed the doctor. Rapidly I described to him my adventures, and he heard me out in silence. There is a kind of fate in this, he observed when I had done. Every step, it's you that saves our lives, and do you suppose by any chance that we are going to let you lose yours? That would be a poor return, my boy. You found out the plot, you found Ben Gunn, the best deed that ever you did, or will do, though you live to ninety. Oh, by Jupiter, and talking of Ben Gunn. Why, this is the mischief in person. Silver, he cried, Silver, I'll give you a piece of advice. He continued as the cook drew near again. Don't you be in any great hurry after that treasure? Why, sir, I do my possible, which that ain't, said Silver. I can only, asking your pardon, save my life and the boys by seeking for that treasure, and you may lay to that. Well, Silver, replied the doctor, if that is so, I'll go one step further. Look out for squalls when you find it. Sir, said Silver, as between man and man, that's too much and too little. What you're after, why you left the blockhouse, why you given me that there chart, I don't know now, do I? And yet I done your bidden with my eyes shut, and never a word of hope. But no, this here's too much. If you won't tell me what you mean plain out, just say so, and I'll leave the helm. No, said the doctor musingly. I've no right to say more. It's not my secret, you see, Silver, or I give you my word, I'd tell it you. But I'll go as far with you as I dare go, and a step beyond, for I'll have my wig sorted by the captain, or I'm mistaken. And first, I'll give you a bit of hope. Silver, if we both get alive out of this wolf trap, I'll do my best to save you short of perjury. Silver's face was radiant. You couldn't say more, I'm sure, sir, not if you was my mother, he cried. Well, that's my first concession, added the doctor. My second is a piece of advice. Keep the boy close beside you, and when you need help, halloo! I'm off to seek it for you, and that itself will show you if I speak at random. Goodbye, Jim. And Dr. Livesey shook hands with me through the stockade, nodded to Silver, and set off at a brisk pace into the wood. End of chapter. Chapter 31 of Treasure Island. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Chapter 31, The Treasure Hunt, Flint's Pointer. Jim, said Silver when we were alone. If I saved your life, you save mine, and I'll not forget it. I've seen the doctor waving you to run for it, with the tail of my eye I did, and I've seen you say no, as plain as herein. Jim, that's one to you. This is the first glint of hope I had since the attack failed, and I owe it you. And now, Jim, we're to go in for this here treasure-haunting, with sealed orders, too, and I don't like it, and you and me must stick close, back to back like, and we'll save our necks in spite of fate and fortune. Just then a man hailed us from the fire that breakfast was ready, and we were soon seated here and there about the sand over biscuit and fried junk. They had lit a fire fit to roast an ox, and it was now grown so hot that they could only approach it from the windward, and even there not without precaution. In the same wasteful spirit they had cooked, I suppose, three times more than we could eat, and one of them, with an empty laugh, threw what was left into the fire, which blazed and roared again over this unusual fuel. I never in my life saw men so careless of the morrow, hand to mouth is the only word that can describe their way of doing, and what with wasted food and sleeping sentries, though they were bold enough for a brush and be done with it, I could see their entire unfitness for anything like a prolonged campaign. Even silver, eating away, with Captain Flint upon his shoulder, had not a word of blame for their recklessness, and this the more surprised me, for I thought he had never shown himself so cunning as he did then. I, mates, said he, it's lucky you have barbecue to think for you with this here head. I got what I wanted, I did. Sure enough, they have the ship. Where they have it, I don't know yet, but once we hit the treasure, we'll have to jump about and find out. And then, mates, us that has the boats, I reckon, has the upper hand. Thus he kept running on, with his mouth full of the hot bacon. Thus he restored their hope and confidence, and, I more than suspect, repaired his own at the same time. As for hostage, he continued, that's his last talk, I guess, with them he loves so dear. I've got my piece of news, and thank you to him for that, but it's over and done. I'll take him in a line when we go treasure hunting, for we'll keep him like so much gold in case of accidents, you mark, and in the meantime. Once we got the ship and treasure both and off to sea like jolly companions, why then we'll talk Mr. Hawkins over, we will, and we'll give him his share to be sure for all his kindness. It was no wonder the men were in such a good humor now. For my part, I was horribly cast down. Should the scheme he had now sketched prove feasible, Silver, already doubly a traitor, would not hesitate to adopt it. He had still a foot in either cap, and there was no doubt he would prefer wealth and freedom with the pirates to a bear escape from hanging, which was the best he had to hope on our side. Nay, and even if things so fell out that he was forced to keep his faith with Dr. Livesey, even then what danger lay before us? What a moment that would be when the suspicions of his followers turned to certainty and he and I should have to fight for dear life, he a cripple and I a boy, against five strong and active seamen. Add to this double apprehension the mystery that still hung over the behavior of my friends, their unexplained desertion of the stockade, their inexplicable session of the chart, or harder still to understand the doctor's last warning to Silver. Look out for squalls when you find it, and you will readily believe how little taste I found in my breakfast, and with how uneasy a heart I set forth behind my captors on the quest for treasure. We made a curious figure, had anyone been there to see us, all in soiled sailor clothes and all but me armed to the teeth. Silver had two guns slung about him, one before and one behind, besides the great cutlass at his waist, and a pistol in each pocket of his square-tailed coat. To complete his strange appearance, Captain Flint sat perched upon his shoulder and gabbling odds and ends of purposeless sea-talk. I had a line about my waist and followed obediently after the sea-cook, who held the loose end of the rope, now in his free hand, now between his powerful teeth. For all the world, I was led like a dancing bear. The other men were variously burdened, some carrying picks and shovels, for that had been the very first necessary they had brought ashore from the Hispaniola, others laden with pork, bread, and brandy for the midday meal. All the stores I observed came from our stock, and I could see the truth of Silver's words the night before. Had he not struck a bargain with the doctor, he and his mutineers, deserted by the ship, must have been driven to subsist on clear water and the proceeds of their hunting. Water would have been little to their taste, a sailor is not usually a good shot, and besides all that, when they were so short of eatables, it was not likely they would be very flush of powder. Well, thus equipped we all set out, even the fellow with the broken head, who should certainly have kept in shadow, and straggled one after another to the beach, where the two gigs awaited us. Even these bore trace of the drunken folly of the pirates, one in a broken thwart, and both in their muddy and unbailed condition. Both were to be carried along with us for the sake of safety, and so, with our numbers divided between them, we set forth upon the bosom of the anchorage. As we pulled over, there was some discussion on the chart. The red cross was, of course, far too large to be a guide, and the terms of the note on the back, as you will hear, admitted of some ambiguity. They ran the reader may remember, thus, tall tree, spyglass shoulder, bearing a point to the north of north northeast, skeleton island, east, southeast, and by east, ten feet. A tall tree was thus the principal mark. Now, right before us, the anchorage was bounded by a plateau from two to three hundred feet high, adjoining on the north the sloping southern shoulder of the spyglass, and rising again toward the south, into the rough, cliffy eminence called the Misenmast Hill. The top of the plateau was dotted thickly with pine trees of varying height. Every here and there, one of a different species rose four or fifty feet clear above its neighbors, and which of these was the particular tall tree of Captain Flint could only be decided on the spot and by the readings of the compass. Yet, although that was the case, every man on board the boats had picked a favorite of his own, ere we were halfway over, Long John alone shrugging his shoulders and bidding them wait till they were there. We pulled easily, by Silver's directions, not to weary the hands prematurely, and after quite a long passage, landed at the mouth of the second river, that which runs down a woody cleft of the spyglass. Thence, bending to our left, we began to ascend the slope towards the plateau. At the first outset, heavy myri ground and a matted, marished vegetation greatly delayed our progress, but by little and little the hill began to steepen and become stony underfoot, and the wood to change its character and to grow in a more open order. It was indeed a most pleasant portion of the island that we were now approaching. A heavy scented broom and many flowering shrubs had almost taken the place of grass. Thickets of green nutmeg trees were dotted here and there with the red columns and the broad shadow of the pines, and the first mingled their spice with the aroma of the others. The air besides was fresh and stirring, and this under the sheer sunbeams was a wonderful refreshment to our senses. The party spread itself abroad in a fan shape, shouting and leaping to and fro, about the center and a good way behind the rest, Silver and I followed. I tethered by my rope, he plowing with deep pants along the sliding gravel. From time to time indeed I had to lend him a hand, or he must have missed his footing and followed backwards down the hill. We had thus proceeded for about half a mile and were approaching the brow of the plateau, when the man upon the farthest left began to cry aloud as if in terror. Shout after shout came from him, and the others began to run in his direction. He could have found the treasure, said old Morgan, hurrying past us from the right, for that's clean atop. Indeed, as we found when we also reached the spot, it was something very different. At the foot of a pretty big pine and involved in a green creeper, which had even partly lifted some of the smaller bones, a human skeleton lay with a few shreds of clothing on the ground. I believe a chill struck for a moment to every heart. He was a seaman, said George Mary, who bolder than the rest had gone up close and was examining the rags of clothing. Laced-wise this is good sea-cloth. Aye, aye, said Silver, like enough, you wouldn't look to find a bishop here, I reckon, but what sort of a way is that for bones to lie, taint in nature? Indeed, on a second glance it seemed impossible to fancy that the body was in a natural position, but for some disarray, the work perhaps of the birds that had fed upon him were of the slow-growing creeper that had gradually enveloped his remains, the man lay perfectly straight, his feet pointing in one direction, his hands raised above his head like a diver's, pointing directly in the opposite. I've taken a notion into my old numbskull. Observe Silver, here's the compass, there's the tip-top point of Skeleton Island, sticking out like a tooth. Just take a baron, will ya, along the line of them bones. It was done. The body pointed straight in the direction of the island, and the compass read Dooley, east, southeast, and by east. I thought so, cried the cook, this here is a pointer, right up there is our line for the pole star and the jolly dollars, but by thunder, if it don't make me cold inside to think a flint. This is one of his jokes, and no mistake. Him and these six was alone here, he killed them every man, and this one he hauled here and laid down by compass, shiver my timbers, their long bones, and the hairs been yellow. Aye, that would be Allardyce, you mined Allardyce, Tom Morgan. Aye, aye, return Morgan, I mined him, he owed me money, he did, and took my knife ashore with him. Speak in a knives, said another, why don't we find his in line round, flint warrant a man to pick a seamen's pocket, and the birds I guess would leave it be. By the powers, and that's true, cried Silver. There ain't a thing left here, said Mary, still feeling round among the bones. Not a copper joie, nor a backy box, it don't look natural to me. No, by God, it don't. Agreed Silver, not natural, nor not nice, says you. Great guns! Mess mates, but if flint was livin', this would be a hot spot for you and me. Six they were, and six are we, and bones is what they are now. I saw him dead with these here deadlights, said Morgan. Billy took me in, there he laid with penny pieces on his eyes. Dead? Aye, sure enough, he's dead and gone below, said the fellow with the bandage, but if ever Spirit walked it would be flints. Dear heart, but he died bad, did flint. Aye, that he did, observed another. Now he raged, and now he hollered for the rum, and now he sang. Fifteen men were his only songmates, and I tell you true I never rightly liked to hear it since. It was main-hot, and the windy was open, and I hear that old song comin' out as clear as clear, and the death-hall on the man already. Come, come, said Silver, stow this talk. He's dead and he don't walk, that I know. Least ways, he won't walk by day, and you may lay to that. Care killed a cat, fetch a head for the doubloons. We started, certainly, but in spite of the hot sun and the staring daylight, the pirates no longer ran separate and shouting through the wood, but kept side by side and spoke with bated breath. The terror of the debb-buccaneer had fallen on their spirits. End of chapter Chapter 32 of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville South Carolina. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Chapter 32 The Treasure Hunt The Voice Among the Trees Partly from the damping influence of this alarm, partly to rest Silver and the sick folk, the whole party sat down as soon as they had gained the brow of the assent. The plateau being somewhat tilted towards the west, this spot on which we had paused commanded a wide prospect on either hand. Before us, over the treetops, we beheld the cape of the woods fringed with surf. Behind, we not only looked down upon the anchorage and skeleton island, but saw, clear across the spit and the eastern low lands, a great field of open sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the spy glass, here dotted with single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound but that of the distant breakers, mounting from all round, and the chirp of countless insects in the brush. Not a man, not a sail upon the sea, the very largeness of the view increased the sense of solitude. Silver, as he sat, took certain bearings with his compass. There are three tall trees, said he, about in the right line from Skeleton Island. Spyglass shoulder, I take it, means that lower point there. It's child's play to find the stuff now. I'd half a mind to dine first. I don't feel sharp, growled Morgan, thinking aflint I think it were as done me. Ah, well, my son, you praise your stars, he's dead. Sits over. They were an ugly devil, cried a third pirate with a shutter. That blew in the face, too. That was how the rum took him, added Mary. Blue! Well, I reckon he was blue. That's a true word. Ever since they had found the Skeleton and got upon this train of thought, they had spoken lower and lower, and they had almost got to whispering by now, so that the sound of their talk hardly interrupted the silence of the wood. All of a sudden, out of the middle of the trees in front of us, a thin, high, trembling voice struck up the well-known air in words. Fifteen men on the dead man's chairs, yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! I never have seen men more dreadfully affected than the pirates. The color went from their six faces like enchantment, some leap to their feet, some clawed hold of others, morking groveled on the ground. It's flint by! cried Mary. The song had stopped, as suddenly as it began, broken off you would have said in the middle of a note, as though someone had laid his hand upon the singer's mouth. Coming through the clear, sunny atmosphere among the green treetops, I thought it had sounded airily and sweetly, and the effect of my companions was the stranger. Come! said Silver, struggling with his ash and lips to get the word out, this won't do! Stand by to go about! This is a rum start and I can't name the voice, but it's someone sky-larking, someone that's flesh in blood and you may lay to that. His courage had come back, as he spoke, and some of the color to his face along with it. Already the others had begun to lend an ear to this encouragement, and were coming a little to themselves when the same voice broke out again, not this time singing, but in a faint distant hail that echoed yet fainter among the cliffs of the spyglass. Darby McGraw! It wailed, for that is the word that best describes the sound. Darby McGraw! Darby McGraw! Again and again and again, and then rising a little higher, and with an oath that I leave out, fetch after-rom, Darby! The buccaneers remain rooted to the ground, their eyes starting from their heads. Long after the voice had died away they still stared in silence dreadfully before them. That fixes it, gassed one. Let's go! They were his last words, moaned Morgan, his last words above board. Dick had his Bible out and was praying volubly. He had been well brought up, had Dick, before he came to see and fell among bad companions. Still Silver was unconquered. I could hear his teeth rattle in his head, but he had not yet surrendered. Nobody in this here island ever heard of Darby. He muttered, not one but us the tear. And then, making a great effort, Shipmates! he cried. I'm here to get that stuff, and I'll not be beat by man or devil. I never was feared of Flint in his life, and by the powers I'll face him dead. There's seven hundred thousand pound not a quarter of a mile from here. When did ever a gentleman of fortune show his stern to that much dollars for a boozy old semen with a blue mug, and him dead too? But there was no sign of reawakening courage in his followers, rather, indeed, of growing terror at the irreverence of his words. Belay there, John, said Mary. Don't you cross a spirit? And the rest were all too terrified to reply. They would have run away severally had they dared, but fear kept them together and kept them close by John, as if his daring helped them. He, on his part, had pretty well fought his weakness down. Spirit! Well, maybe, he said. But there's one thing not clear to me. There was an echo. Now, no man ever seen a spirit with a shadow. Well, then, what's he doing with an echo to him I should like to know. That ain't in nature, surely? This argument seemed weak enough to me, but you can never tell what will affect the superstitious, and to my wonder, George Mary was greatly relieved. Well, that's so, he said. You've a head upon your shoulders John, and no mistake. Bout ship, mates. This here crew is on a wrong tack, I do believe, and come to think on it, it was like Flint's voice, I grant you, but not just so clear away like it after all. It was like her somebody's else's voice now. It was like her by the powers, Ben Gunn, roared Silver. Aye, and so it were, cried Morgan, springing on his knees. Ben Gunn, it were. It don't make much odds, do it now. Ask Dick, Ben Gunn's not here in the body any more in Flint. But the older hands greeted this remark with scorn. Why, nobody minds Ben Gunn, cried Mary, dead or alive, nobody minds him. It was extraordinary how their spirits had returned, and how the natural color had revived in their faces. Soon they were chatting together with intervals of listening, and not long after, hearing no further sound, they shouldered the tools and set forth again, Mary walking first with Silver's compass to keep them on the right line with Skeleton Island. He had said the truth, dead or alive, nobody minded Ben Gunn. Dick alone still held his Bible, and looked around him as he went with fearful glances, but he found no sympathy, and Silver even choked him on his precautions. I told you, said he, I told you you had spoiled your Bible. If it ain't no good to swear by, what do you suppose a spirit would give for it? Not that. And he snapped his big fingers, halting a moment on his crutch. But Dick was not to be comforted, indeed it was soon plain to me that the lad was falling sick, hastened by heat, exhaustion, and the shock of his alarm, the fever, predicted by Dr. Livesey, was evidently growing swiftly higher. It was fine open walking here upon the summit. Our way lay a little down hill, for as I have said, the plateau tilted towards the west, the pines great and small grew wide apart, and even between the clumps of nutmeg and azalea, wide open spaces baked in the hot sunshine. Striking as we did, pretty near northwest across the island, we drew on the one hand ever nearer under the shoulders of the spyglass, and on the other, looked ever wider over that western bay where I had once tossed and trembled in the coracle. The first of the tall trees was reached, and by the bearings proved the wrong one. So with the second, the third rose nearly two hundred feet into the air above a clump of underwood, a giant of a vegetable, with a red column as big as a cottage, and a wide shadow around in which a company could have maneuvered. It was conspicuous far to see, both on the east and west, and might have been entered as a sailing mark upon the chart. But it was not its size that now impressed my companions. It was the knowledge that seven hundred thousand pounds in gold lay somewhere buried below its spreading shadow. The thought of the money, as they drew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors. Their eyes burned in their heads. Their feet grew speedier and lighter. Their whole soul was found up in that fortune, that whole lifetime of extravagance and pleasure that lay waiting there for each of them. Silver hobbled grunting on his crutch. His nostril stood out and quivered. He cursed like a madman when the flies settled on his hot and shiny countenance. He plucked furiously at the line that held me to him, and from time to time turned his eyes upon me with a deadly look. Certainly he took no pains to hide his thoughts, and certainly I read them like print. In the immediate nearness of the gold all else had been forgotten. His promise and the doctor's warning were both things of the past, and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure, find and board the Hispaniola under cover of night, cut every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at first intended, laden with crimes and riches. Shaken as I was with these alarms, it was hard for me to keep up with the rapid pace of the treasure hunters. Now and again I stumbled, and it was then that silver plucked so roughly at the rope and launched at me his murderous glances. Dick, who had dropped behind us and now brought up the rear, was babbling to himself both prayers and curses as his fever kept rising. This also added to my wretchedness, and to crown all, I was haunted by the thought of the tragedy that had once been acted on that plateau, when that ungodly buccaneer with the blue face, he who died at Savanna, singing and shouting for drink, had there, with his own hand, cut down his six accomplices. This grove that was now so peaceful must then have rung with cries, I thought, and even with the thought, I could believe I heard it ringing still. We were now at the margin of the thicket. Huzzah, mates, all together, shouted Mary, and the foremost broke into a run. And suddenly, not ten yards further, we beheld them stop. A low cry arose. Silver doubled his pace, digging away with the foot of his crutch like one possessed, and next moment he and I had come also to a dead halt. Before us was a great excavation, not very recent, for the sides had fallen in and grass had sprouted on the bottom. In this were the shaft of a pick broken in two, and the boards of several packing cases strewn around. On one of these boards I saw, branded with a hot iron, the name Walrus, the name of Flint's ship. All was clear to probation. The cache had been found and rifled, the seven hundred thousand pounds were gone. End of chapter. Chapter 33 of Treasure Island. This Leapervox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Chapter 33 The Fall of a Chieftain There never was such an overturn in this world. Each of these six men was as though he had been struck, but with silver the blow passed almost instantly. Every thought of his soul had been set full stretch like a racer on that money. Well, he was brought up in a single second, dead, and he kept his head, found his temper, and changed his plan before the others had had time to realize the disappointment. Jim, he whispered, take that and stand by for trouble, and he passed me a double-barreled pistol. At the same time he began quietly moving northward, and in a few steps had put the hollow between us two and the other five. Then he looked at me and nodded as much as to say, here is a narrow corner. As indeed I thought it was. His looks were not quite friendly and I was so revolted at these constant changes that I could not forbear whispering, so you've changed sides again. There was no time left for him to answer in. The buccaneers with oaths and cries began to leap one after another into the pit and to dig with their fingers, throwing the boards aside as they did so. Morgan found a piece of gold. He held it up with a perfect spout of oaths. It was a two-ginny piece and it went from hand to hand among them for a quarter of a minute. Two-ginnies! roared Mary, shaking at its over. That's your 700,000 pounds, is it? You're the man for bargains, ain't you? You're him that never bungled nothing, you wooden-headed lubber. Dig away, boys, said Silver with the coolest insolence. You'll find some pig-nuts and I shouldn't wander. Pig-nuts! repeated Mary in a scream. Mates, do you hear that? I tell you now that man there knew it all along. Look in the face of him and you'll see it rope there. Ah, Mary. Remark, Silver. Stand in for Captain again. You're a push-and-lad, to be sure. But this time everyone was entirely in Mary's favor. They began to scramble out of the excavation, darting furious glances behind them. One thing I observed, which looked well for us, they all got out upon the opposite side from Silver. Well, there we stood, two on one side, five on the other, the pit between us, and nobody screwed up high enough to offer the first blow. Silver never moved. He watched them, very upright on his crutch, and looked as cool as ever I saw him. He was brave and no mistake. At last Mary seemed to think a speech might help matters. Mates, says he, there's two of them alone there. One's the old cripple that brought us all here and blundered us down to this. The other's that cub that I mean to have the heart of. Now, Mates. He was raising his arm and his voice, and plainly meant to lead a charge. But just then, crack, crack, crack. Three musket shots flashed out of the thicket. Mary tumbled head foremost into the excavation. The man with the bandage spun round like a teetotem and fell all his length upon his side, where he lay dead, but still twitching. And the other three turned and ran for it with all their might. Before you could wink, Long John had fired two barrels of a pistol into the struggling Mary, and as the man rolled up his eyes at him in the last agony, George, said he, I reckon I settled you. At the same moment, the doctor, Gray, and Ben Gunn joined us with smoking muskets from among the nutmeg trees. Forward, cried the doctor, double quick, my lads, we must head him off the boats. And we set off at a great pace, sometimes plunging through the bushes to the chest. I tell you, but Silver was anxious to keep up with us. The work that man went through, leaping on his crutch till the muscles of his chest were fit to burst, was work no sell man ever equaled, and so thinks the doctor. As it was, he was already thirty yards behind us and on the verge of strangling when we reached the brow of the slope. Doctor, he hailed, see there, no hurry. Sure enough, there was no hurry. In a more open part of the plateau, we could see the three survivors still running in the same direction as they had started, right from Misenmast Hill. We were already between them and the boats, and so we four sat down to breathe, while Long John, mopping his face, came slowly up with us. Thank you kindly, doctor, says he. You came in about the nick, I guess, for me and Hawkins. And so it's you, Ben Gunn, he added. Well, you're a nice one to be sure. I'm Ben Gunn, I am, replied the maroon, wriggling like an eel in his embarrassment, and he added after a long pause. How do, Mr. Silver? Pretty well, I thank you, says you. Ben, Ben, murmured Silver, to thank as you've done me. The doctor sent back gray for one of the pickaxes deserted in their flight by the mutineers, and then as we proceeded leisurely downhill to where the boats were lying, related in a few words what had taken place. It was a story that profoundly interested Silver, and Ben Gunn, the half-idiot maroon, was the hero from beginning to end. Ben, in his long lonely wanderings about the island, had found the skeleton. It was he that had rifled it, he had found the treasure, he had dug it up, it was the half of his pickaxe that lay broken in the excavation. He carried it on his back in many weary journeys from the foot of the tall pine, to a cave he had on the two-pointed hill at the northeast angle of the island, and there it had lain stored in safety since two months before the arrival of the Hispaniola. When the doctor had wormed this secret from him on the afternoon of the attack, and when next morning he saw the anchorage deserted, he had gone to Silver, given him the chart, which was now useless, given him the stores, for Ben Gunn's cave was well supplied with goatsmeat salted by himself, given anything and everything to get a chance of moving in safety from the stockade to the two-pointed hill, there to be clear of malaria and keep a guard upon the money. As for you, Jim, he said, it went against my heart, but I did what I thought best for those who had stood by their duty, and if you were not one of these, whose fault was it? That morning, finding that I was to be involved in the horrid disappointment he had prepared for the mutineers, he had run all the way to the cave, and leaving the squire to guard the captain, had taken Gray and the maroon and started, making the diagonal across the island to be at hand beside the pine. Soon, however, he saw that our party had the start of him, and Ben Gunn, being fleet of foot, had been dispatched in front to do his best alone. Then it had occurred to him to work upon the superstitions of his former shipmates, and he was so far successful that Gray and the Doctor had come up, and were already ambushed before the arrival of the treasure hunters. Ah, said Silver, it were fortunate for me that I had Hawkins here. You would have let old John be cut to bits, and never given it a thought, Doctor. Not a thought, replied Doctor Livesey cheerily, and by this time we had reached the gigs. The Doctor, with the pickaxe, demolished one of them, and then we all got aboard the other, and set out to go round by sea for North Inlet. This was a run of eight or nine miles. Silver, though he was almost killed already with fatigue, was set to an oar, like the rest of us, and we were soon skimming swiftly over a smooth sea. Soon we passed out of the straits and doubled the southeast corner of the island, round which, four days ago, we had towed the Hispaniola. As we passed the two-pointed hill, we could see the black mouth of Ben Gunn's cave, and a figure standing by it, leaning on a musket. It was the squire, and we waved a handkerchief and gave him three cheers, in which the voice of Silver joined as heartily as any. Three miles farther, just inside the mouth of North Inlet, what should we meet but the Hispaniola cruising by herself? The last flood had lifted her, and had there been much wind or a strong tide current, as in the southern anchorage, we should never have found her more, or found her stranded beyond help. As it was, there was little amiss beyond the wreck of the mainsail. Another anchor was got ready, and dropped in a fathom and a half of water. We all pulled round again to Rum Cove, the nearest point for Ben Gunn's treasure house, and then Gray, single-handed, returned with a gig to the Hispaniola, where he was to pass the night on guard. A gentle slope ran up from the beach to the entrance of the cave. At the top, the squire met us. To me, he was cordial and kind, saying nothing of my escapade, either in the way of blame or praise. At Silver's polite salute, he somewhat flushed. John Silver, he said, you're a prodigious villain and imposter, a monstrous imposter, sir. I am told I am not to prosecute you, well then, I will not. But the dead men, sir, hang about your neck like millstones. Thank you kindly, sir, replied Long John, again saluting. I dare you to thank me, cried the squire. It is a gross dereliction of my duty. Stand back. And thereupon we all entered the cave. It was a large airy place, with a little spring and a pool of clear water overhung with ferns. The floor was sand. Before a big fire lay Captain Smollett, and in a far corner, only duskly flickered over by the blaze, I beheld great heaps of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of gold. That was Flint's treasure that we had come so far to seek, and that it cost already the lives of seventeen men from the Hispaniola. How many it had cost in the amassing! What blood and sorrow! What good ships scuttled on the deep! What brave men walking the plank blindfold! What shot of cannon! What shame and lies and cruelty! Perhaps no man alive could tell. Yet there were still three upon that island, Silver and Old Morgan and then Gun, who had each taken his share in these crimes, as each had hoped in vain to share in the reward. Come in, Jim, said the Captain. You're a good boy and you're lying, Jim, but I don't think you and me will go to sea again. You're too much of the born favorite for me. Is that you, John Silver? What brings you here, man? Come back to my duty, sir, returned Silver. Ah, said the Captain, and that was all he said. What a supper I had of it that night, with all my friends around me, and what a meal it was, with Ben Gun's salted goat and some delicacies and a bottle of old wine from the Hispaniola. Never I am sure were people gayer or happier. And there was Silver, sitting back almost out of the firelight, but eating heartily, prompt to spring forward when anything was wanted, even joining quietly in our laughter, the same bland, polite, obsequious semen of the voyage out. End of chapter. Chapter 34 The Final Chapter of Treasure Island This LibriVox recording is in the public domain and is read by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Chapter 34 And Last The next morning we fell early to work, for the transportation of this great mass of gold near a mile by land to the beach, and thence three miles by boat to the Hispaniola, was a considerable task for so small a number of workmen. The three fellows still abroad upon the island did not greatly trouble us. A single sentry on the shoulder of the hill was sufficient to insure us against any sudden onslaught, and we thought besides, they had had more than enough of fighting. Therefore the work was pushed on briskly. Gray and Ben Gunn came and went with the boat, while the rest during their absences piled treasure on the beach. Two of the bars, slung in a rope's end, made a good load for a grown man, one that he was glad to walk slowly with. For my part, as I was not much use at carrying, I was kept busy all day in the cave, packing the minted money into bread bags. It was a strange collection, like Billy Bones's hoard for the diversity of coinage, but so much larger and so much more varied, that I think I never had more pleasure than in sorting them. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moyadors and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last hundred years. Strange oriental pieces stamped with what looked like wisps of string or bits of spider web, round pieces and square pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to wear them round your neck. Nearly every variety of money in the world must, I think, have found a place in that collection, and for number, I am sure they were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping and my fingers with sorting them out. Day after day this work went on, by every evening a fortune had been stowed aboard, but there was another fortune waiting for the morrow, and all this time we heard nothing of the three surviving mutineers. At last, I think it was on the third night, the doctor and I were strolling on the shoulder of the hill where it overlooks the lowlands of the isle, when, from out of the thick darkness below, the wind brought us a noise between shrieking and singing. It was only a snatch that reached our ears, followed by the former silence. Heaven forgive them, said the doctor, tis the mutineers. All drunk, sir, struck in the voice of Silver from behind us. Silver, I should say, was allowed his entire liberty, and in spite of daily rebuffs, seemed to regard himself once more as quite a privileged and friendly dependent. Indeed, it was remarkable how well he bore these slights and with what unwearing politeness he kept on trying to ingratiate himself with all. Yet I think none treated him better than a dog, unless it was Ben Gunn, who was still terribly afraid of his old quartermaster, or myself, who had really something to thank him for. Although for that matter, I suppose, I had reason to think even worse of him than anybody else, for I had seen him meditating a fresh treachery upon the plateau. Accordingly, it was pretty gruffly that the doctor answered him. Drunk or raving, said he. Right you were, sir, replied Silver, and precious little odd's which to you and me. I suppose you would hardly ask me to call you a humane man, return the doctor with a sneer, and so my feelings may surprise you, Master Silver. But if I were sure they were raving, as I am morally certain one at least of them is down with fever, I should leave this camp, and at whatever risk to my own carcass take them the assistance of my skill. Ask your pardon, sir, you would be very wrong, quote Silver. You would lose your precious life, and you may lay to that. I'm on your side now, hand in glove, and I shouldn't wish for to see the party weakened, let alone yourself, seeing as I know what I owes you. But these men down there, they couldn't keep their word. No, not supposing they wished to, and what's more, they couldn't believe as you could. No, said the doctor. You're the man to keep your word, we know that. Well, that was about the last news we had of the three pirates, only once we heard a gunshot a great way off, and suppose them to be hunting. A council was held, and it was decided that we must desert them on the island, to the huge glee, I must say, of Ben Gunn, and with a strong approval of Gray. We left a good stock of powder in shot, the bulk of the salt goat, a few medicines, and some other necessaries, tools, clothing, a spare sail, a fathom or two of rope, and by the particular desire of the doctor, a handsome present of tobacco. That was about our last doing on the island. Before that, we had got the treasure stowed and had shipped enough water and the remainder of the goat meat, in case of any distress. And at last, one fine morning, we weighed anchor, which was about all that we could manage, and stood out of North Inlet, the same colors flying that the captain had flown and fought under at the palisade. The three fellows must have been watching as closer than we thought for, as we soon had proved. For coming through the narrows, we had to lie very near the southern point, and there we saw all three of them kneeling together on a spit of land, with their arms raised in supplication. It went to all our hearts, I think, to leave them in that wretched state, but we could not risk another mutiny, and to take them home for the gibbet would have been a cruel sort of kindness. The doctor hailed them and told them of the stores we had left and where they were to find them, but they continued to call us by name and appeal to us, for God's sake, to be merciful and not leave them to die in such a place. At last, seeing the ship still bore on our course and was now swiftly drawing out of earshot, one of them, I know not which it was, leaped to his feet with a horse cry, whipped his musket to his shoulder, and sent a shot whistling over Silver's head and through the mainsail. After that, we kept under cover of the bulwarks, and when next I looked out, they had disappeared from the spit, and the spit itself had almost melted out of sight in the growing distance. That was at least the end of that, and before noon, to my inexpressible joy, the highest rock of Treasure Island had sunk into the blue round of sea. We were so short of men that everyone on board had to bear a hand, only the captain lying on a mattress in the stern and giving his orders, for though greatly recovered, he was still in want of quiet. We laid her head for the nearest port in Spanish America, for we could not risk the voyage home without fresh hands, and as it was, what with baffling winds and a couple of fresh scales, we were all worn out before we reached it. It was just at sundown when we cast anchor in a most beautiful landlocked gulf, and were immediately surrounded by shoreboats full of Negroes and Mexican Indians and half-bloods selling fruits and vegetables and offering to dive for bits of money. The sight of so many good-humored faces, especially the blacks, the taste of the tropical fruits, and above all the lights that began to shine in the town, made a most charming contrast to our dark and bloody sojourn on the island, and the doctor in the squire, taking me along with them, went ashore to pass the early part of the night. Here they met the captain of an English man of war, fell in talk with him, went on board his ship, and in short, had so agreeable a time that day was breaking when we came alongside the Hispaniola. Ben Gunn was on deck alone, and as soon as we came on board, he began with wonderful contortions to make us a confession. Silver was gone. The maroon had connived at his escape in a shoreboat some hours ago, and he now assured us he had only done so to preserve our lives, which would certainly have been forfeit if that man with a one leg had stayed aboard, and this was not all. The sea cook had not gone empty-handed. He had cut through a bulkhead unobserved, and had removed one of the sacks of coin, worth perhaps three or four hundred guineas, to help him on his further wanderings. I think we were all pleased to be so cheaply quit of him. Well, to make a long story short, we got a few hands on board, made a good cruise home, and the Hispaniola reached Bristol just as Mr. Blanley was beginning to think of fitting out her consort. Five men only of those who had sailed returned with her. Drink and the devil had done for the rest with a vengeance, although to be sure, we were not quite in so bad a case as that other ship they sang about. With one man of her crew alive, what put the sea was seventy-five. All of us had an ample share of the treasure, and used it wisely or foolishly, according to our natures. Captain Smollett is now retired from the sea. Gray not only saved his money, but being suddenly smitten with the desire to rise, also studied his profession, and he is now mate and part owner of a fine, full-rigged ship, married besides, and the father of a family. As for Ben Gunn, he got a thousand pounds, which he spent or lost in three weeks, or to be more exact, in nineteen days, for he was back begging on the twentieth. Then he was given a lodge to keep exactly as he had feared upon the island, and he still lives a great favorite, though something of a but with the country boys, and a notable singer in church on Sundays and Saints' days. Of silver, we have heard no more. That formidable seafaring man with one leg has at last gone clean out of my life, but I dare say he met his old Negress, and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint. It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another world are very small. The bar's silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint buried them, and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and wane-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island, and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts, or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears, Peace is a mate, peace is a mate! End of chapter. End of book. Thank you for listening.