Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson (best ebook reader txt) 📗

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 to 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