&&000 Treasure Island

      Chapter 1
&&111

Squire =TRELAWNEY, Dr =Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having
asked me to write down the whole particulars about =TreasureIsland, 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 =AdmiralBenbow 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?"


&&000
&&111
That blow was the last of the battle. Once out upon the road, =BlackDog,
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
color.

"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.


&&000
&&111
"Aye, aye, sir," answered two or three; and a rush was made upon the
=AdmiralBenbow, 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.


&&000
&&111
When I had done breakfasting the squire gave me a note addressed to =JohnSilver,
at the sign of the Spy glass, and told me I should easily
find the place by following the line of the docks and keeping a bright
lookout for a little tavern with a large brass telescope for sign. I
set off, overjoyed at this opportunity to see some more of the ships and
seamen, and picked my way among a great crowd of people and carts and
bales, for the dock was now at its busiest, until I found the tavern in
question.

It was a bright enough little place of entertainment. The sign was
newly painted; the windows had neat red curtains; the floor was cleanly
sanded. There was a street on 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 at a glance I was
sure he must be =LongJohn. 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 faored of his guests.

Now, to tell you the truth, from the very first mention of =LongJohn in
Squire =Trelawney's letter I had taken a fear in my mind that he might
prove to be the very one legged sailor whom I had watched for so long at
the old =Benbow. But one look at the man before me was enough. I had seen
the captain, and =BlackDog, 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.

&&000
&&111
"You'll say so, =Israel when you see," said =Silver. "Only one thing I
claim -- I claim =Trelawney. I'll wring 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 sucking of
that bilge, =John. Let's have a go of the rum."

"=Dick," said =Silver, "I trust you. I've a gauge on the keg, mind.
There's the key; you fill a pannikin 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 cook's 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'll jine." Hence there were still faithful men on
board.

When =Dick returned, one after another of the trio took the pannikin 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
luff, 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 fore-sail; and almost at the same time
the voice of the lookout shouted, "Land ho!"


&&000
&&111
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
after, 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 colors, 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 colors.

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 mayn't be good divinity, but it's a fact."

Then he pulled me aside.

"Dr =Livesey," 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 =Blandly was to send to find us, but
neither sooner nor later. "You can calculate for yourself," I said.

&&000
&&111
"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
huzza, 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 opened from the woods, and a rifle ball sang through the doorway
and knocked the doctor's musket into bits.

The boarders 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
marksmen 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 =JobAnderson, the boatswain, appeared at the middle
loophole.

&&000
&&111
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 to
and fro till the mast groaned aloud under the strain. Now and again too
there would come a cloud of light sprays over the bulwark and a heavy
blow of the ship's bows against the swell; so much heavier weather was
made of it by this great rigged ship than by my home-made, lop-sided
coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea.

At every jump of the schooner, red-cap slipped to and fro, but -- what was
ghastly to behold -- neither his attitude nor his fixed teeth disclosing
grin was anyway 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, splashes 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, =IsraelHands 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 from the apple barrel, all pity left me.

I walked aft until I reached the main-mast.

"Come aboard, Mr =Hands," I said ironically.

&&000
&&111
"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 lie to for the tide. Come high
water, all hands take a pull upon the line, and off she comes as sweet
as =natur. And now, boy, you stand by. We're near the bit now, and she's
too much way on her. Starboard a little -- so -- steady -- starboard -- larboard
a little -- steady -- steady!"

So he issued his commands, which I breathlessly obeyed, till, all of a
sudden, he cried, "Now, my hearty, luff!" 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 manouvres had somewhat interfered with the
watch I had kept hitherto, 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 and stood craning over
the starboard bulwarks and watching the ripples spreading wide before
the bows. 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 half-way 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 leapt
sideways towards the bows. As I did so, 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 sea-water. I cursed myself for my neglect.
Why had not I, long before, reprimed and reloaded my only weapons? Then
I should not have been as now, a mere fleeing sheep before this butcher.

&&000
&&111
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 Spy-glass
and rising again towards the south into the rough, cliffy eminence
called the =Mizzen-mastHill. The top of the plateau was dotted thickly
with pine-trees of varying height. Every here and there, one of a
different species rose forty 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 half-way over, =LongJohn 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 Spy-glass.
Thence, bending to our left, we began to ascend the slope towards the
plateau.

At the first outset, heavy, miry ground and a matted, marish vegetation
greatly delayed our progress; but by little and little the hill began
to steepen and become stony under foot, 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 centre, and a good way behind the rest, Silver and
I followed -- I tethered by my rope, he ploughing, with deep pants, among
the sliding gravel. From time to time, indeed, I had to lend him a hand,
or he must have missed his footing and fallen backward 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 can't =a found the treasure," said old =Morgan, hurrying past us from
the right, "for that's clean a-top."

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 =GeorgeMerry, who, bolder than the rest, had
gone up close and was examining the rags of clothing. "Leastways, this
is good sea-cloth."