CHAPTER 1
Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and many people asked me to write down
about Treasure Island.
So at 17 , I started writing about those days which I still remember when he
came to my father's Admiral Benbow inn. He came to the inn door, with his
sea-chest in a hand-barrow. He a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man,
his pigtail ponytail falling over the shoulder of his dirty blue coat,
his hands full of scars, with dirty nails, and the dirty, livid white sabre cut
across one cheek . I remember him looking secretly and whistling to himself and
then sang so often :
Fifteen men on the dead man's chest —
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
In the high, unpleasant voice sung at capstan bars. Then he knocked on the
door with a stick that he carried, and when my father came, he asked for a
glass of rum and when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, relishing on the
taste and looking at the cliffs and up at our signboard.
"This is nice," says he ; "and a pleasant place. Do you have
anybody here?"
The father told only few people came to the inn.
Well, then," said he, "this is the right place for me. Here you, mate,"
he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "come here and help me with
the chest. I'll stay here for a while," he continued. "I'm a simple man;
I need only rum, bacon and eggs and went to watch ships off. What you must call
me? You must call me captain. Oh, I know what you want— there"; and he
threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. "You can ask me
when I have finished for that ," says he, looking as fierce as
a commander.
His clothes and voice were bad, he did not appear to be a captain but a mate who obeys. The man who
came with the barrow told that the new guest has done some investigation before
selecting this secluded place.
He, a silent man hung around the cove or upon the cliff with a microscope
all day. Every evening he would sit next to the fire drinking strong rum. He
would inquiry if we had seen any seafaring men on the road, may be to have
company of same kind but we realized that he wanted to avoid them.
When a seaman did came at the Admiral Benbow he would look through the
curtained door before he entered the parlor; remained silent as a mouse. I
knew everything about this as I was promised silver four penny on the first of
every month for alarming him about a one legged seafaring man.
Although I got silver four penny but I had to pay back in the form of
nightmares which I had on stormy nights. My dream was filled with the monstrous
figure of the one legged man.
I was less afraid of the captain than the one legged seafaring man. Some nights
he would over drink ; he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked, old, wild
sea-songs, minding nobody; and sometimes he would call for glasses round and
force all to listen to his stories or bear a chorus to his singing. Out of
fear all neighbors sang "Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum,".In the
course of time he would slap his hand on the table for silence; he would be
angry at a question, or sometimes because none was along him, and so he thought
none was understanding him. He won't allow anyone to leave the inn till he had
himself sleepy to bed.
People were afraid of his fearful stories of sea, full of evil,and the Dry
Tortugas, and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. According to him he
must have lived his life among some of the wickedest men upon the sea, and both
the language and the crime shocked the simple country people. My father was
always saying the inn would be ruined, for people would stop coming here
because of being tyrannized and listening to dreadful stories ; but I think his
presence did us good. Though people were frightened but they rather
liked it; it was a excitement in a quiet
country life, and even a party of the younger men pretended to admire him,
calling him a "true sea-dog" and a "real old salt" and
similar names.
He continued staying there which ruined us. The money finished long back but my
father never had the courage to ask him. Even if he mentioned it, the captain
blew through his nose so loudly ad if he roared, and stared my poor father
out of the room. I have seen him tremble after such an incident, and I am sure
this resulted in his early death due to terror and annoyance.
When he lived with us the captain made no change in his dress but to buy some
stockings from a hawker. One of the cocks of his hat fell down, but he let it
hang from that day forth, though it was irritating.
I remember his coat was full of patches which he stiched. He never wrote
or received a letter, and he never spoke with any but the neighbors when drunk
on rum. We have never seen the great sea-chest open.
He was only once crossed, and that was when my poor father was far gone in a
decline that took his life. Dr. Livesey came late one afternoon to see my
father, had little dinner from my mother, and went into the parlour to smoke a
pipe until his horse could come down from the hamlet, for we had no stabling at
the old Benbow. I followed him in, and I remember observing the contrast the
neat, bright doctor, with his powder as white as snow and his bright, black
eyes and pleasant manners, made with the coltish 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 and sang:
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of
rum!"
At first I thought "the dead man's chest" was the identical big box
of his upstairs in the front room, and the thought had been mingled in my
nightmares with that of the one-legged seafaring man. But by now we had all
long ceased to pay any particular notice to the song; it was new, for Dr.
Livesey, and I observed that he was indifferent, 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. Meanwhile, the captain brightened at his own
music, and at last flapped his hand upon the table before him in a way for
silence. The voices stopped but Dr. Livesey's; he continued speaking clear
and kind and drawing briskly at his pipe between every word or two. The captain
glared at him, flapped his hand again, glared harder, and at last spoke with a
villainous, low oath, "Silence, there, between decks!"
"Were you addressing me, sir?" said the doctor; and when the ruffian
had told him,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
loose a very dirty scoundrel like you!"
The captain was angry. He got up , drew and opened a sailor's clasp-knife, and
threatened to stab the doctor.
The doctor was moved, over his shoulder he spoke and in the same
tone, 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 assizes."
Then looks exchanged between them, but the captain soon gave up, put his
knife, and say in his seat, grumbling like a beaten dog.
"And now, sir," continued the doctor, "since I now know
there's such a fellow in my district, I’ll watching you always. I'm not only a doctor
but a magistrate too; and if I get a complaint against you, even if it’s a
case like tonight’s, I'll take action to teach you a lesson. Let that be
clear."
Soon after, Dr. Livesey's horse left, the
captain was silent that evening, and for many following evenings.
Chapter 2
Soon there was a mysterious incident which got us rid of the captain though not
completely. It was winter and I knew that my father would not see the
spring. His health was deteriorating, and my mother and I had to look after the
inn which kept us busy, not bothered about the guest.
One frosty January morning , with less of sun. The captain rose early and set
out down the beach, his cutlass swinging, his brass telescope under his arm,
his hat tilted back upon his head. I remember his breath making winter
smoke and the last sound I heard of him as he turned the big rock was a loud
snort of indignation, as though he was remembering Dr. Livesey.
Mother was upstairs with father and I was laying the breakfast-table before
the captain ‘returned when the parlour door opened and I saw a man whom I have
never seen. He was pale, with two fingers missing on his left hand, and he
wore a cutlass, but did not look like a fighter. I had waited for seafaring
men, with one leg or two, and this one puzzled me. He did not look like a
sailor but he had the sailor touch.
I asked him how I can help him, and he asked for rum; but as I was going out
to get it, he sat on a table and asked me to come near. I stopped, with my
napkin in my hand.
"Come here closer, son," says he.
I went closer.
"Is this table for my mate Bill?" he asked .
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.
"Well," said he, "my mate Bill would be called the captain.
He had a cut on one cheek and similar in drink, as my mate Bill. We'll say
that your captain has a cut on one cheek--and that that cheek's the right one.
Ah, well! I told you. Now, is my mate Bill here in the house?"
I told him he was out walking.
"Which way did he go, son?"
I pointed towards the rock and told him the captain was likely to return,
and how soon, and answered a few other questions, "Ah," said he,
"this drink will be as good as my mate Bill’s."
His face was not at all pleasant, and thought that the stranger was
mistaken, but it was not my
business. The stranger stayed inside the inn door, looking around like a cat waiting for a mouse. Once when I
stepped outside, he immediately called me back with threatening when I did not
follow him, he behaved as before when I returned, told me I was a good boy and
he liked me. "I have a son o," said he, "as like you as two
blocks, and he's the pride of my heart. But the important thing for boys is
discipline. Now, if you had not known Bill, you wouldn't have been alive to be
told twice--not you. That was never Bill's way, nor of the people who sailed with him. And here, comes my mate Bill, with a spy-glass under his arm,his
old style. We’ll go back into the parlour, and get behind the door, and surprise
Bill--bless his heart, I repeat.
So saying, the stranger returned into the parlour and put me behind him in
the corner so that we were both hidden by the open door. I felt uneasy and
alarmed, , and after seeing all this the stranger was certainlyfrightening. He
cleared his cutlass and released the swoed from the sheath; and all the time we
were waiting there he was impation and eagerly waiting.
At last came the captain, closed the door behind him, without lookingaround,
and went straight across the room to
where his breakfast was kept.
"Bill," said the stranger in a voice bold and big.
The captain turned and saw us; his face turned pale, and even his nose was
blue; he looked as if he has seen a
ghost or the evil , or something worse, if anything can be; and I felt sorry
for him.
"Come, Bill, you know me; you know an old shipmate, Bill, surely,"
said the stranger.
The captain gasped.
"Black Dog!" said he.
"And who else?" replied the other, getting more at his ease. "Black
Dog as ever was, has come to see his old shipmate Billy, at the Admiral Benbow
inn. Ah, Bill, Bill, we have been together,, us two, since I lost them two
talons," holding up his mutilated hand.
"Now, look here," said the captain; "you've found me ; here I
am; well, then, speak up; what is the matter.
