Treasure Island
The Old Sea-dog at the “Admiral Benbow”
SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the of these having asked me to the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the to the end, nothing but the of the island, and that only there is still not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of 17__ and go to the time when my father the Admiral Benbow and the old with the cut took up his under our roof.
I him as if it were yesterday, as he came to the door, his sea-chest him in a hand-barrow—a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his over the of his coat, his hands and scarred, with black, nails, and the cut across one cheek, a dirty, white. I him looking the and to himself as he did so, and then out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards:
“Fifteen men on the man’s chest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
in the high, old voice that to have been and at the bars. Then he on the door with a of like a that he carried, and when my father appeared, called for a of rum. This, when it was to him, he slowly, like a connoisseur, on the taste and still looking about him at the and up at our signboard.
“This is a cove,” says he at length; “and a 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 for me. Here you, matey,” he to the man who the barrow; “bring up alongside and help up my chest. I’ll here a bit,” he continued. “I’m a plain man; and and eggs is what I want, and that up there for to watch ships off. What you call me? You call me captain. Oh, I see what you’re at—there”; and he three or four gold pieces on the threshold. “You can tell me when I’ve through that,” says he, looking as as a commander.
And as his were and as he spoke, he had none of the of a man who the mast, but like a or to be or to strike. The man who came with the told us the had set him the at the Royal George, that he had what there were along the coast, and ours well spoken of, I suppose, and as lonely, had it from the others for his place of residence. And that was all we learn of our guest.
He was a very man by custom. All day he the or upon the with a telescope; all he sat in a of the next the fire and and water very strong. Mostly he would not speak when spoken to, only look up and and 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 from his he would ask if any men had gone by along the road. At we it was the want of company of his own that him ask this question, but at last we to see he was to avoid them. When a did put up at the Admiral Benbow (as now and then some did, making by the road for Bristol) he would look in at him through the door he entered the parlour; and he was always sure to be as as a mouse when any such was present. For me, at least, there was no about the matter, for I was, in a way, a in his alarms. He had taken me one day and promised me a on the of every month if I would only keep my “weather-eye open for a man with one leg” and let him know the moment he appeared. Often when the of the month came and I to him for my wage, he would only through his nose at me and me down, but the week was out he was sure to think of it, me my four-penny piece, and repeat his orders to look out for “the man with one leg.”
How that my dreams, I need tell you. On nights, when the wind the four of the house and the along the and up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousand forms, and with a thousand expressions. Now the leg would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip; now he was a of a who had had but the one leg, and that in the middle of his body. To see him and and me over and was the of nightmares. And I paid dear for my monthly piece, in the shape of these fancies.
But though I was so by the idea of the man with one leg, I was less of the captain himself than else who him. There were nights when he took a more and water than his would carry; and then he would sometimes and sing his wicked, old, wild sea-songs, nobody; but sometimes he would call for and all the company to to his or a to his singing. Often I have the house with “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum,” all the joining in for dear life, with the of death upon them, and each louder than the other to avoid remark. For in these he was the most known; he would his hand on the table for all round; he would up in a of anger at a question, or sometimes none was put, and so he the company was not his story. Nor would he allow anyone to the till he had himself and off to bed.
His were what people of all. Dreadful they were—about hanging, and walking the plank, and at sea, and the Dry Tortugas, and wild and places on the Spanish Main. By his own account he must have his life among some of the men that God allowed upon the sea, and the language in which he told these our plain country people almost as much as the that he described. My father was always saying the would be ruined, for people would soon there to be over and put down, and sent to their beds; but I his presence did us good. People were at the time, but on looking they liked it; it was a in a country life, and there was a party of the men who to him, calling him a “true sea-dog” and a “real old salt” and such like names, and saying there was the of man that England terrible at sea.
In one way, indeed, he to us, for he on week after week, and at last month after month, so that all the money had been long exhausted, and still my father up the to on having more. If he mentioned it, the captain through his nose so that you might say he roared, and my father out of the room. I have him his hands after such a rebuff, and I am sure the and the terror he in must have his early and death.
All the time he with us the captain no in his dress but to some from a hawker. One of the of his having down, he let it from that day forth, though it was a great when it blew. I the of his coat, which he himself in his room, and which, the end, was nothing but patches. He or a letter, and he spoke with any but the neighbours, and with these, for the most part, only when on rum. The great sea-chest none of us had open.
He was only once crossed, and that was the end, when my father was gone in a that took him off. Dr. Livesey came late one to see the patient, took a of dinner from my mother, and into the to a pipe until his should come from the hamlet, for we had no at the old Benbow. I him in, and I the the neat, doctor, with his as white as and his bright, black and manners, with the country folk, and above all, with that filthy, heavy, of a of ours, sitting, gone in rum, with his arms on the table. Suddenly he—the captain, that is—began to pipe up his song:
“Fifteen men on the man’s chest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the had done for the rest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
At I had “the man’s chest” to be that big box of his in the room, and the had been in my with that of the one-legged man. But by this time we had all long to pay any particular notice to the song; it was new, that night, to nobody but Dr. Livesey, and on him I it did not produce an effect, for he looked up for a moment he on with his talk to old Taylor, the gardener, on a new for the rheumatics. In the meantime, the captain up at his own music, and at last his hand upon the table him in a way we all to silence. The voices stopped at once, all but Dr. Livesey’s; he on as speaking clear and and at his pipe every word or two. The captain at him for a while, his hand again, still harder, and at last out with a villainous, low oath, “Silence, there, decks!”
“Were you me, sir?” says the doctor; and when the had told him, with another oath, that this was so, “I have only one thing to say to you, sir,” the doctor, “that if you keep on rum, the world will soon be of a very dirty scoundrel!”
The old fellow’s was awful. He to his feet, and opened a sailor’s clasp-knife, and it open on the of his hand, to pin the doctor to the wall.
The doctor so much as moved. He spoke to him as before, over his and in the same of voice, high, so that all the room might hear, but perfectly and steady: “If you do not put that knife this in your pocket, I promise, upon my honour, you shall at the next assizes.”
Then a of looks them, but the captain soon under, put up his weapon, and his seat, like a dog.
“And now, sir,” the doctor, “since I now know there’s such a in my district, you may count I’ll have an upon you day and night. I’m not a doctor only; I’m a magistrate; and if I catch a of against you, if it’s only for a piece of like tonight’s, I’ll take means to have you and out of this. Let that suffice.”
Soon after, Dr. Livesey’s came to the door and he away, but the captain his peace that evening, and for many to come.
