by Robert Louis Stevenson

TREASURE ISLAND

To

S.L.O.,

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 tales to sailor tunes,

Storm and adventure, heat and cold,

If schooners, islands, and maroons,

And buccaneers, and buried gold,

And all the old romance, retold

Exactly in the ancient way,

Can please, as me they pleased of old,

The wiser youngsters of today:

--So be it, and fall on! If not,

If studious youth no longer crave,

His ancient appetites forgot,

Kingston, or Ballantyne 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!

CONTENTS

PART ONE

The Old Buccaneer

1. THE OLD SEA-DOG AT THE ADMIRAL BENBOW 11

2. BLACK DOG APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS . . . . 17

3. THE BLACK SPOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

4. THE SEA-CHEST . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

5. THE LAST OF THE BLIND MAN . . . . . . . 36

6. THE CAPTAIN'S PAPERS . . . . . . . . . . 41

PART TWO

The Sea Cook

7. I GO TO BRISTOL . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

8. AT THE SIGN OF THE SPY-GLASS . . . . . . 54

9. POWDER AND ARMS . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

10. THE VOYAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

11. WHAT I HEARD IN THE APPLE BARREL . . . . 70

12. COUNCIL OF WAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

PART THREE

My Shore Adventure

13. HOW MY SHORE ADVENTURE BEGAN . . . . . . 82

14. THE FIRST BLOW . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

15. THE MAN OF THE ISLAND. . . . . . . . . . 93

PART FOUR

The Stockade

16. NARRATIVE CONTINUED BY THE DOCTOR:

HOW THE SHIP WAS ABANDONED . . . . . . 100

17. NARRATIVE CONTINUED BY THE DOCTOR:

THE JOLLY-BOAT'S LAST TRIP . . . . . . 105

18. NARRATIVE CONTINUED BY THE DOCTOR:

END OF THE FIRST DAY'S FIGHTING . . . 109

19. NARRATIVE RESUMED BY JIM HAWKINS:

THE GARRISON IN THE STOCKADE . . . . . 114

20. SILVER'S EMBASSY . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

21. THE ATTACK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

PART FIVE

My Sea Adventure

22. HOW MY SEA ADVENTURE BEGAN . . . . . . . 132

23. THE EBB-TIDE RUNS . . . . . . . . . . . 138

24. THE CRUISE OF THE CORACLE . . . . . . . 143

25. I STRIKE THE JOLLY ROGER . . . . . . . . 148

26. ISRAEL HANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

27. "PIECES OF EIGHT" . . . . . . . . . . . 161

PART SIX

Captain Silver

28. IN THE ENEMY'S CAMP . . . . . . . . . . 168

29. THE BLACK SPOT AGAIN . . . . . . . . . . 176

30. ON PAROLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

31. THE TREASURE-HUNT--FLINT'S POINTER . . . 189

32. THE TREASURE-HUNT--THE VOICE AMONG

THE TREES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

33. THE FALL OF A CHIEFTAIN . . . . . . . . 201

34. AND LAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

TREASURE ISLAND

PART ONE

The Old Buccaneer

1

The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral Benbow

SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these

gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole

particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning

to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the

island, and that only because there is still treasure not

yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17__

and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral

Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut

first took up his lodging under our roof.

I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came

plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following

behind him in a hand-barrow--a tall, strong, heavy,

nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the

shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and

scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut

across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him

looking round the cover and whistling to himself as he

did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that

he sang so often afterwards:

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have

been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he

rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike

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 signboard.

"This is a handy cove," says he at length; "and a

pleasant sittyated 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 mought call me?

You mought 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

accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man who

came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down

the morning before at the Royal George, that he had

inquired what inns there were along the coast, and

hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as

lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of

residence. And that was all we could learn of our guest.

He was a very silent man by custom. All day he hung

round the cove or upon the cliffs with a brass

telescope; all evening he sat in a corner of the

parlour next 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 fog-horn; and we and the people who came about

our house soon learned to let him be. Every day when

he came back from his stroll he would ask if any

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 seaman did put

up at the Admiral Benbow (as now and then some did,

making by the coast road for Bristol) he would look in

at him through the curtained door before he entered the

parlour; and he was always sure to be as silent as a

mouse when any such was present. For me, at least,

there was no secret about the matter, for I was, in a

way, a sharer in his alarms. He had taken me aside one

day and promised me a silver fourpenny 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 four-penny 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;

now he 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 fourpenny 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.

There were nights 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 neighbours joining in for dear

life, with the fear of death upon them, and each

singing louder than the other to avoid remark. For in

these fits he was the most overriding companion ever

known; he would slap his hand on the table for silence

all 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.

Dreadful stories they were--about hanging, and walking

the plank, and storms at sea, and the Dry Tortugas, and

wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. By his own

account he must have lived his life among some of the

wickedest men that God ever allowed upon the sea, and

the language in which he told these stories shocked our

plain country people almost as much as the crimes that

he described. My father was always saying the inn

would be ruined, for people would soon cease coming

there to be tyrannized over and put down, and sent

shivering to their beds; but I really believe his

presence did us good. People were frightened at the

time, but on looking back they rather liked it; it was

a fine excitement in a quiet country life, and there

was even a party of the younger men who pretended to

admire him, calling him a "true sea-dog" and a "real

old salt" and such like names, and saying there was the

sort of man that made England terrible at sea.

In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us, for he kept

on staying week after week, and at last month after month,

so that all the money had been long exhausted, and still

my father never plucked up the heart to insist on having

more. If ever he mentioned it, the captain blew through

his nose so loudly that you might say he roared, and stared

my poor father out of the room. I have seen him wringing

his hands after such a rebuff, and I am sure the annoyance

and the terror he lived in must have greatly hastened his

early and unhappy death.

All the time he lived with us the captain made no change

whatever in his dress but to buy some stockings from a

hawker. One of the cocks of his hat having fallen down,

he let it hang from that day forth, though it was a great

annoyance when it blew. I remember the appearance of his

coat, which he patched himself upstairs in his room, and

which, before the end, was nothing but patches. He never

wrote or received a letter, and he never spoke with any

but the neighbours, and with these, for the most part,

only when drunk on rum. The great sea-chest none of us

had ever seen open.

He was only once crossed, and that was towards the end,

when my poor father was far gone in a decline that took

him off. Dr. Livesey came late one afternoon to see

the patient, took a bit of dinner from my mother, and

went into the parlour to smoke a pipe until his horse

should come down from the hamlet, for we had no

stabling at the old Benbow. I followed him in, and I

remember observing the contrast the neat, bright

doctor, with his powder as white as snow and his bright,

black eyes and pleasant manners, made with the 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. Suddenly he--the

captain, that is--began to pipe up his eternal song:

"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 had supposed "the dead man's chest" to be

that identical big box of his upstairs in the front

room, and the thought had been mingled in my nightmares

with that of the one-legged seafaring man. But by this

time we had all long ceased to pay any particular

notice to the song; it was new, that night, to nobody

but Dr. Livesey, and on him I observed it did not

produce an agreeable effect, for he looked up for a

moment quite angrily before he went on with his talk to

old Taylor, the gardener, on a new cure for 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!"

"Were 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

honour, you shall hang at the next assizes."

Then followed a battle of looks between them, but the

captain soon knuckled under, put up his weapon, and

resumed his seat, grumbling like a beaten dog.

"And now, sir," continued the doctor, "since I now know

there's such a fellow in my district, you may count I'll

have an eye upon you day and night. I'm not a doctor only;

I'm a magistrate; and if I catch a breath of complaint

against you, 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.

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 hoar-frost, 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 parlour 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 here table for my mate Bill?" he asked with a

kind of leer.

I told him I did not know his mate Bill, and this was for

a person who stayed in our house whom we called the captain.

"Well," 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 round the corner like a cat waiting

for a mouse. Once I stepped out myself into the road,

but he immediately called me back, and as I did not

obey quick enough for his fancy, a most horrible change

came over his tallowy face, and he ordered me in with

an oath that made me jump. As soon as I was back again

he returned to his former manner, half 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 as two blocks,

and he's all the pride of my 'art. But the great thing

for boys is discipline, sonny--discipline. Now, if you

had sailed along of Bill, you wouldn't have stood there

to be spoke to twice--not you. That was never Bill's

way, nor the way of sich as sailed with him. And here,

sure enough, is my mate Bill, with a spy-glass under

his arm, bless his old 'art, to be sure. You and me'll

just go back into the parlour, sonny, and get behind

the door, and we'll give Bill a little surprise--bless

his 'art, 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.

At last in strode 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 and fronted 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 turn so old and sick.

"Come, Bill, you know me; you know an old shipmate,

Bill, surely," said the stranger.

The captain made a sort of gasp.

"Black Dog!" said he.

"And who else?" returned the other, getting more at his

ease. "Black Dog as ever was, come for to see his old

shipmate Billy, at the Admiral Benbow inn. Ah, Bill,

Bill, we have seen a sight of times, us two, 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 liking 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 gattling; 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 with drawn cutlasses, and

the former streaming blood from the left shoulder. Just

at the door the captain aimed at the fugitive one last

tremendous cut, which would certainly have split him to

the chine had it not been intercepted by our big signboard

of Admiral Benbow. You may see the notch on the lower side

of the frame to this day.

That blow was the last of the battle. Once out upon

the road, Black Dog, in spite of his wound, showed a

wonderful clean pair of heels and disappeared over the

edge of the 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 unsteadied by all

that had fallen out, and I broke one glass and fouled

the tap, and while I was still getting in my own way, I

heard a loud fall in the parlour, and running in, beheld

the captain lying full length upon the floor. At the same

instant my mother, alarmed by the cries and fighting, came

running downstairs to help me. Between us we raised his

head. He was breathing very loud and hard, but his eyes

were closed and his face a horrible colour.

"Dear, deary me," cried my mother, "what a disgrace

upon the house! And your poor father sick!"

In the meantime, we had no idea what to do to help the

captain, nor any other thought but that he had got his

death-hurt in the scuffle with the stranger. I got the

rum, to be sure, and tried to put it down his throat, but

his teeth were tightly shut and his jaws as strong as iron.

It was a happy relief for us when the door opened and Doctor

Livesey came in, on his visit to my father.

"Oh, doctor," we cried, "what shall we do? Where is he wounded?"

"Wounded? A fiddle-stick's 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; 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 his

fancy," were very neatly and clearly executed on the

forearm; and up near the shoulder there was a sketch of

a gallows and a man hanging from it--done, as I

thought, with great spirit.

"Prophetic," said the doctor, touching this picture

with his finger. "And now, Master Billy Bones, if that

be your name, we'll have a look at the colour of your

blood. Jim," he said, "are you afraid of blood?"

"No, sir," said I.

"Well, then," said he, "you hold the basin"; and with

that he took his lancet and opened a vein.

A great deal of blood was taken before the captain

opened his eyes and looked mistily about him. First he

recognized the doctor with an unmistakable frown; then

his glance fell upon me, and he looked relieved. But

suddenly his colour changed, and he tried to raise

himself, crying, "Where's Black Dog?"

"There 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, precisely as I told you;

and I have just, very much against my own will, dragged

you headforemost 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, but if

you take one you'll take another and another, and I

stake my wig if you don't break off short, you'll die--

do you understand that?--die, and go to your own place,

like the man in the Bible. Come, now, make an effort.

I'll help you to your bed for once."

Between us, with much trouble, we managed to hoist him

upstairs, and laid him on his bed, where his head fell

back on the pillow as if he were almost fainting.

"Now, mind you," said the doctor, "I clear my

conscience--the name of rum for you is death."

And with that he went off to see my father, taking me

with him by the arm.

"This is nothing," he said as soon as he had closed the

door. "I have drawn blood enough to keep him quiet

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."

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 fourpenny for

yourself. And now you see, mate, I'm pretty low, and

deserted by all; and Jim, you'll bring me one noggin of

rum, now, won't you, matey?"

"The doctor--" I began.

But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voice

but heartily. "Doctors is all swabs," he said; "and

that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring

men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping

round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving

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 'em still, not I. I

haven't had a drop this blessed day. That doctor's a

fool, I tell you. If I don't have a drain o' rum, Jim,

I'll have the horrors; I seen some on 'em already.

I seen old Flint in the corner there, behind you; as

plain as print, I seen him; and if I get the horrors,

I'm a man that has lived rough, and I'll raise Cain.

Your doctor hisself said one glass wouldn't hurt me.

I'll give you a golden guinea for a noggin, Jim."

He was growing more and more excited, and this alarmed me

for my father, who was very low that day 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.

"Aye, aye," said he, "that's some better, sure enough.

And now, matey, did that doctor say how long I was to

lie here in this old 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 as couldn't keep what they got, and want to

nail what is another's. Is that seamanly behaviour,

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 'em again. I'm not afraid on 'em. I'll

shake out another reef, matey, and daddle 'em again."

As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed with

great difficulty, holding to my shoulder with a grip

that almost made me cry out, and moving his legs like

so much dead weight. His words, spirited as they were

in meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of the

voice in which they were uttered. He paused when he

had got into a sitting position on the edge.

"That doctor's done me," he murmured. "My ears is

singing. Lay me back."

Before I could do much to help him he had fallen back again

to his former place, where he lay for a while silent.

"Jim," he said at length, "you saw that seafaring man today?"

"Black Dog?" I asked.

"Ah! Black Dog," says he. "HE'S a bad un; but there's

worse that put him on. Now, if I can't get away nohow,

and they tip me the black spot, mind you, it's my old

sea-chest they're after; you get on a horse--you can,

can't you? Well, then, you get on a horse, and go to--

well, yes, I will!--to that eternal doctor swab, and

tell him to pipe all hands--magistrates and sich--and

he'll lay 'em aboard at the Admiral Benbow--all old

Flint's crew, man and boy, all on 'em that's left. I

was first mate, I was, old Flint's first mate, and I'm

the on'y one as knows the place. He gave it me at

Savannah, when he lay a-dying, like as if I was to now,

you see. But you won't peach unless they get the black

spot on me, or unless you see that Black Dog again or a

seafaring man with one leg, Jim--him above all."

"But what is the black spot, captain?" I asked.

"That's a summons, mate. I'll tell you if they get

that. But you keep your weather-eye open, Jim, and

I'll share with you equals, upon my honour."

He wandered a little longer, his voice growing weaker;

but soon after I had given him his medicine, which he

took like a child, with the remark, "If ever a seaman

wanted drugs, it's me," he fell at last into a heavy,

swoon-like sleep, in which I left him. What I should

have done had all gone well I do not know. Probably I

should have told the whole story to the doctor, for I

was in mortal fear lest the captain should repent of

his confessions and make an end of me. But as things

fell out, my poor father died quite suddenly that

evening, which put all other matters on one side. Our

natural distress, the visits of the neighbours, the

arranging of the funeral, and all the work of the inn

to be carried on in the meanwhile kept me so busy that

I had scarcely time to think of the captain, far less

to be afraid of him.

He got downstairs next morning, to be sure, and had his

meals as usual, though he ate little and had more, I 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 a case many miles

away and was never near the house after my father's

death. I have said the captain was weak, and indeed he

seemed rather to grow weaker than regain his strength.

He clambered up and down stairs, and went from the

parlour 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 air, a

king 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, "Will any kind friend

inform a poor blind man, who has lost the precious sight

of his eyes in the gracious defence of his native country,

England--and God bless King George!--where or in what part

of this country he may now be?"

"You are at the Admiral Benbow, Black Hill 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 vise. 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.

"Now, boy," he said, "take me in to the captain."

"Sir," said I, "upon my word I dare not."

"Oh," he sneered, "that's it! Take me in straight or

I'll break your arm."

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--"

"Come, now, march," interrupted he; and I never heard a

voice so cruel, and cold, and ugly as that blind man's.

It cowed me more than the pain, and I began to obey him

at once, walking straight in at the door and towards

the parlour, where 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, and when I'm in view, cry out, 'Here's a

friend for you, Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this,"

and with that he gave me a twitch that I thought would

have made me faint. Between this and that, I was so

utterly terrified of the blind beggar that I forgot my

terror of the captain, and as I opened the parlour door,

cried out the words he had ordered in a trembling voice.

The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look the

rum went out of him and left him staring sober. The

expression of his face was not so much of terror as of

mortal sickness. He made a movement to rise, but I do

not believe he had enough force left in his body.

"Now, Bill, sit where you are," said the beggar. "If I

can't see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business is

business. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take his left

hand by the wrist and bring it near to my right."

We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass

something from the hollow of the hand that held his

stick into the palm of the captain's, which closed upon

it instantly.

"And now that's done," said the blind man; and at the words

he suddenly left hold of me, and with incredible accuracy

and nimbleness, skipped out of the parlour and into the road,

where, as I still stood motionless, I could hear his stick

go tap-tap-tapping into the distance.

It was some time before either I or the captain seemed

to gather our senses, but at length, and about 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. "Six hours. 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 to the floor.

I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But haste

was all in vain. The captain had been struck dead by

thundering apoplexy. It is a curious thing to

understand, for I had certainly never liked the man,

though of late I had begun to pity him, but 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.

4

The Sea-chest

I LOST no time, of course, in telling my mother all

that I knew, and perhaps should have told her long

before, and we saw ourselves at once in a difficult and

dangerous position. Some of the man's money--if he had

any--was certainly due to us, but it was not likely

that our captain's shipmates, above all the two

specimens seen by me, Black Dog and the blind beggar,

would be inclined to give up their booty in payment of

the dead man's debts. The captain's order to mount at

once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my

mother alone and unprotected, which was not to be

thought of. Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of

us to remain much longer in the house; the fall of

coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the

clock, filled us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to

our ears, seemed haunted by approaching footsteps; and

what between the dead body of the captain on the

parlour floor and the thought of that detestable blind

beggar hovering near at hand and ready to return, there

were moments when, as the saying goes, I jumped in my

skin for terror. Something must speedily be resolved

upon, and it occurred to us at last to go forth

together and seek help in the neighbouring hamlet. No

sooner said than done. Bare-headed 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 whither he had presumably returned. We were not

many minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped

to lay hold of each other and hearken. 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 candle-light 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 Benbow. 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 Benbow remembered,

besides, to have seen several strangers on the road,

and taking them to be smugglers, to have bolted away;

and one at least had seen a little lugger in what we

called Kitt's Hole. For that matter, anyone who was a

comrade of the captain's 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 doctor's in search of armed assistance.

My heart was beating finely when we two set forth in

the cold night upon this 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 Benbow had closed behind us.

I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood and panted for

a moment in the dark, alone in the house with the dead

captain's body. Then my mother got a candle in the

bar, and holding each other's hands, we advanced into

the parlour. He lay as we had left him, on his back,

with his eyes open and one arm stretched out.

"Draw down the blind, Jim," whispered my mother; "they

might come and watch outside. And now," said she when

I had done so, "we have to get the key off THAT; and

who's to touch it, I should like to know!" and she gave

a kind of sob as she said the words.

I went down on my knees at once. On the floor close to

his hand there was a little round of paper, blackened

on 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 the 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 his 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 seaman's chest on the outside,

the initial "B" 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 of 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 in his 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,

whitened with sea-salt on many a harbour-bar. My

mother pulled it up with impatience, and there lay

before us, the last things in the chest, a bundle tied

up in oilcloth, and looking like papers, and a canvas

bag that gave forth, at a touch, the jingle of gold.

"I'll show these rogues that I'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

sailor's bag into the one that I was holding.

It was a long, difficult business, for the coins were

of all countries and sizes--doubloons, and louis d'ors,

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 half-way 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's stick upon the frozen

road. It drew nearer and nearer, while we sat holding

our breath. Then it struck sharp on the inn door, 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 whole 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 oilskin 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 looked back in their direction,

a light tossing to and fro and still rapidly advancing

showed that one of the newcomers carried a lantern.

"My dear," said my mother suddenly, "take the money and

run on. I am going to faint."

This was certainly the end for both of us, I thought.

How I cursed the cowardice of the neighbours; how I

blamed my poor mother for her honesty and her greed,

for her past foolhardiness and 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 within earshot of the inn.

5

The Last of the Blind Man

MY curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear,

for I could not remain where I was, but crept back to

the bank again, whence, sheltering my head behind a

bush of broom, I might command the road before our

door. I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began

to arrive, seven or eight of them, running hard, their

feet beating out of time along the road and the man

with the lantern some paces in front. Three men ran

together, hand in hand; and I made out, even through

the mist, that the middle man of this trio was the

blind beggar. The next moment his voice showed me that

I was right.

"Down with the door!" he cried.

"Aye, aye, sir!" answered two or three; and a rush was

made upon the Admiral Benbow, the lantern-bearer

following; and then I could see them pause, and hear

speeches passed in a lower key, as if they were

surprised to find the door open. But the pause was

brief, for the blind man again issued his commands.

His voice sounded louder and higher, as if he were

afire 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 you shirking lubbers, and the rest

of you aloft and get the chest," he cried.

I could hear their feet rattling up our old stairs, so

that the house must have shook with it. Promptly

afterwards, fresh sounds of astonishment arose; the

window of the captain's room was thrown open with a

slam and a jingle of broken glass, and a man leaned out

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 alow and aloft."

"Is it there?" roared Pew.

"The money's there."

The blind man cursed the money.

"Flint's fist, I mean," he cried.

"We don't see it here nohow," 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 a'ready," said he;

"nothin' 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.

"There were here no time ago--they had the door bolted

when I tried it. Scatter, lads, and find 'em."

"Sure enough, they left their glim here," said the

fellow from the window.

"Scatter and find 'em! Rout the house out!" reiterated

Pew, striking with his stick upon the road.

Then there followed a great to-do through all our old

inn, heavy feet pounding to and fro, furniture 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 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 and a

coward from the first--you wouldn't mind him. They

must be close by; they can't be far; you have your

hands on it. Scatter and look for 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

skulking. 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 Georges, Pew, and don't stand here squalling."

Squalling was the word for it; Pew's anger rose so high

at these objections till at last, his passion

completely taking the upper hand, he struck at them

right and left in his blindness and his stick sounded

heavily on more than one.

These, in their turn, cursed back at the blind

miscreant, threatened him in horrid terms, and tried in

vain to catch the stick and wrest it from his grasp.

This quarrel was the saving of us, for while it was

still raging, another sound came from the top of the

hill on the side of the hamlet--the tramp of horses

galloping. Almost at the same time a pistol-shot,

flash and report, came from the hedge side. And that

was plainly the last signal of danger, for the

buccaneers turned at once and ran, separating in every

direction, one seaward along the cove, one slant across

the hill, and so on, so that in half a minute not a

sign of 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

a wrong turn and ran a few steps past me, towards the

hamlet, crying, "Johnny, Black Dog, Dirk," and other

names, "you won't leave old Pew, mates--not old Pew!"

Just then the noise of horses topped the rise, and four

or five riders came in sight in the moonlight and swept

at full gallop down the slope.

At this Pew saw his error, turned with a scream, and

ran straight for the ditch, into which he rolled. But

he was on his feet again in a second and made another

dash, now utterly bewildered, right under the nearest

of the coming horses.

The rider tried to save him, but in vain. Down went

Pew with a cry that rang high into the night; and the

four hoofs trampled and spurned him and passed by. He

fell on his side, then gently collapsed upon his face

and moved no more.

I 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.

Livesey's; the rest were revenue officers, whom he had

met by the way, and with whom he had had the

intelligence to return at once. Some news of the

lugger in Kitt's Hole had found its way to Supervisor

Dance and set him forth that night in our direction,

and to that circumstance my mother and I owed our

preservation from death.

Pew was dead, stone dead. As for my mother, when we

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 still

continued to deplore the balance of the money. In the

meantime the supervisor rode on, as fast as he could,

to Kitt's Hole; but his men had to dismount and grope

down the dingle, leading, and sometimes supporting,

their horses, and in continual fear of ambushes; so it

was no great matter for surprise that when they got

down to the Hole the lugger was already under way,

though still close in. He hailed her. A voice

replied, telling him to keep out of the moonlight or he

would get some lead in him, and at the same time a

bullet whistled close by his arm. Soon after, the

lugger doubled the point and disappeared. Mr. Dance

stood there, as he said, "like a fish out of water,"

and all he could do was to dispatch a man to B---- 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 Benbow, and you

cannot imagine a house in such a state of smash; the

very clock had been thrown down by these fellows in

their furious hunt after my mother and myself; and

though nothing had actually been taken away except the

captain's money-bag and a little silver from the till,

I could see at once that we were ruined. Mr. Dance

could make nothing of the scene.

"They got the money, you say? Well, then, Hawkins, what

in fortune were they after? More money, I suppose?"

"No, sir; not money, I think," replied I. "In fact,

sir, I believe I have the thing in my breast pocket;

and to tell you the truth, I should like to get it put

in safety."

"To be sure, boy; quite right," said he. "I'll take

it, if you like."

"I thought perhaps Dr. Livesey--" I began.

"Perfectly right," he interrupted very cheerily,

"perfectly right--a gentleman and a magistrate. And,

now I come to think of it, I might as well ride round

there myself and report to him or squire. Master Pew's

dead, when all's done; not that I regret it, but he's

dead, you see, and people will make it out against an

officer of his Majesty's revenue, if make it out they

can. Now, I'll tell you, Hawkins, if you like, I'll

take you along."

I thanked him heartily for the offer, and we walked back

to the hamlet where the horses were. By the time I had

told mother of my purpose they were all in the saddle.

"Dogger," said Mr. Dance, "you have a good horse; take

up this lad behind you."

As soon as I was mounted, holding on to Dogger's belt,

the supervisor gave the word, and the party struck out

at a bouncing trot on the road to Dr. Livesey's house.

6

The Captain's Papers

WE rode hard all the way till we drew up before Dr.

Livesey's door. The house was all dark to the front.

Mr. Dance told me to jump down and knock, and Dogger

gave me a stirrup to descend by. The door was opened

almost at once by 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 pass the evening with the squire.

"So there we go, boys," said Mr. Dance.

This time, as the distance was short, I did not mount,

but ran with Dogger's stirrup-leather to the lodge

gates and up the long, leafless, moonlit avenue to

where the white line of the hall buildings looked on

either hand on great old gardens. Here Mr. Dance

dismounted, and taking me along with him, was admitted

at a word into the house.

The servant led us down a matted passage and showed us

at the end into a great library, all lined with

bookcases and busts upon the top of them, where the

squire and Dr. Livesey sat, 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

"Bravo!" 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 poll.

At last Mr. Dance finished the story.

"Mr. Dance," said the squire, "you are a very noble

fellow. And as for riding down that black, atrocious

miscreant, I regard it as an act of virtue, sir, like

stamping on a 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 oilskin packet.

The doctor looked it all over, as if his fingers were

itching to open it; but instead of doing that, he put

it quietly in the pocket of his coat.

"Squire," said he, "when Dance has had his ale he must,

of course, be off on his Majesty's service; but I mean

to keep Jim Hawkins here to sleep at my house, and with

your permission, I propose we should have up the cold

pie and let him sup."

"As you will, Livesey," said the squire; "Hawkins has

earned better than cold pie."

So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put on a

sidetable, and I made a hearty supper, for I was as

hungry as a hawk, while Mr. Dance was further

complimented and at last dismissed.

"And now, squire," said the doctor.

"And now, Livesey," said the squire in the same breath.

"One at a time, one at a time," laughed Dr. Livesey.

"You have heard of this Flint, I suppose?"

"Heard of him!" cried the squire. "Heard of him, you

say! He was the bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed.

Blackbeard was a child to Flint. The Spaniards were so

prodigiously afraid of him that, I tell you, sir, I was

sometimes proud he was an Englishman. I've seen his

top-sails with these eyes, off Trinidad, and the

cowardly son of a rum-puncheon 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, we'll open the packet"; and he laid it

before him on the table.

The bundle was sewn together, and the doctor had to get

out his instrument case and cut the stitches with his

medical scissors. It contained two things--a book and

a sealed paper.

"First of all we'll try the book," observed the doctor.

The squire and I were both peering over his shoulder as

he opened it, for Dr. Livesey had kindly motioned me to

come round from the side-table, where I had been

eating, to enjoy the sport of the search. On the first

page there were only some scraps of writing, such as a

man with a pen in his hand might make for idleness or

practice. One was the same as the tattoo mark, "Billy

Bones his fancy"; then there was "Mr. W. Bones, mate,"

"No more rum," "Off Palm Key he got itt," and some

other snatches, mostly single words and unintelligible.

I could not help wondering who it was that had "got

itt," and what "itt" 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 ten or twelve pages were filled with a curious

series of entries. There was a date at one end of the

line and at the other 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 seventy

pounds had plainly become due to someone, and there was

nothing but six crosses to explain the cause. In a few

cases, to be sure, the name of a place would be added,

as "Offe Caraccas," or a mere entry of latitude and

longitude, as "62o 17' 20", 19o 2' 40"."

The record lasted over nearly twenty years, the amount

of the separate entries growing larger as time went on,

and at the end a grand total had been made out after

five or six wrong additions, and these words appended,

"Bones, his pile."

"I can't make head or tail of this," said Dr. Livesey.

"The thing is as clear as noonday," cried the squire.

"This is the black-hearted hound's account-book. These

crosses stand for the names of ships or towns that they

sank or plundered. The sums are the scoundrel's share,

and where he feared an ambiguity, you see he added

something clearer. 'Offe Caraccas,' now; you see, here

was some unhappy vessel boarded off that coast. God

help the poor souls that manned her--coral long ago."

"Right!" said the doctor. "See what it is to be a

traveller. 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 towards the end and

a table for reducing French, English, and Spanish

moneys to a common value.

"Thrifty man!" cried the doctor. "He wasn't the one to

be cheated."

"And now," said the squire, "for the other."

The paper had been sealed in several places with a

thimble by way of seal; the very thimble, perhaps, that

I had found in the captain's pocket. The doctor opened

the seals with great care, and there fell out the map

of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings,

names of hills and bays and inlets, and every

particular that would be needed to bring a ship to a

safe anchorage upon its shores. It was about nine

miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like

a fat dragon standing up, and had two fine land-locked

harbours, and a hill in the centre part marked "The

Spy-glass." There were several additions of a later

date, but above all, three crosses of red ink--two on

the north part of the island, one in the southwest--and

beside this last, in the same red ink, and in a small,

neat hand, very different from the captain's tottery

characters, these words: "Bulk of treasure here."

Over on the back the same hand had written this further

information:

Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to

the N. of N.N.E.

Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E.

Ten feet.

The bar silver is in the north cache; you can find

it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms

south of the black crag with the face on it.

The arms are easy found, in the sand-hill, N.

point of north inlet cape, bearing E. and a

quarter N.

J.F.

That was all; but brief as it was, and to me

incomprehensible, it filled the squire and Dr. Livesey

with delight.

"Livesey," said the squire, "you will give up this

wretched practice at once. Tomorrow I start for

Bristol. In three weeks' time--three weeks!--two

weeks--ten days--we'll have the best ship, sir, and the

choicest crew in England. Hawkins shall come as cabin-

boy. You'll make a famous cabin-boy, Hawkins. You,

Livesey, are ship's doctor; I am admiral. We'll take

Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter. We'll have favourable

winds, a quick passage, and not the least difficulty in

finding the spot, and money to eat, to roll in, to play

duck and drake with ever after."

"Trelawney," 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 attacked the inn tonight--

bold, desperate blades, for sure--and the rest who

stayed aboard that lugger, and more, I dare say, not

far off, are,