2 TREASURE ISLAND.

black, broken nails; and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I
remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, and
then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards
"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
 THE BLACK SPOT. 21

blessed moment; lubbers as couldn't keep what they got, and want to nail what is
another's. Is that sea- manly 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.
66
"That doctor's done me," he murmured. 'My ears is singing. Lay me back."
Before I could do much to help him he had faller back again to his former place,
where he lay for a while silent.
"Jim," he said, at length, "you saw that seafaring man to-day?"
"Black Dog?" I asked.
"Ah! Black Dog," says he. there's worse that put him on. away nohow, and they tip
me the
"He's a bad 'un; but Now, if I can't get 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
16 TREASURE ISLAND.

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 down-stairs to help me. Be- tween 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 sick!"
your poor father
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 up-
stairs to your husband, and tell him, if possible, nothing about it.
For my part, I must do my best to save this fellow's trebly worthless life; and Jim,
you get me a basin."
 BLACK DOG APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. 15

once. And again, "If it comes to swinging, swing all, say I."
Then all of a sudden there was a tremendous ex- plosion 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!" here.
I ran to fetch it; but I was quite unsteadied by all
 CHAPTER II.
BLACK DOG APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS.

Ir 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
 BLACK DOG APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. 13

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 break- fast
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 ship- mate, Bill, surely," said
the stranger.
22 TREASURE ISLAND.

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
 CHAPTER III.
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 I and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old
hulk on a lee shore, my
C2
6 TREASURE ISLAND.

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 men- tioned 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 annoy- ance 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 up-
stairs 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 neigh-