Treasure Island
The Black Spot
ABOUT I stopped at the captain’s door with some drinks and medicines. He was very much as we had left him, only a little higher, and he weak and excited.
“Jim,” he said, “you’re the only one here that’s anything, and you know I’ve been always good to you. Never a month but I’ve you a for yourself. And now you see, mate, I’m low, and by all; and Jim, you’ll me one of rum, now, won’t you, matey?”
“The doctor—” I began.
But he in the doctor, in a voice but heartily. “Doctors is all swabs,” he said; “and that doctor there, why, what do he know about men? I been in places as pitch, and with Yellow Jack, and the land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes—what to the doctor know of lands like that?—and I 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 now I’m a old on a 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 fidges,” he in the tone. “I can’t keep ’em still, not I. I haven’t had a this day. That doctor’s a fool, I tell you. If I don’t have a o’ rum, Jim, I’ll have the horrors; I some on ’em already. I old Flint in the there, you; as plain as print, I him; and if I the horrors, I’m a man that has rough, and I’ll Cain. Your doctor said one wouldn’t me. I’ll give you a for a noggin, Jim.”
He was more and more excited, and this me for my father, who was very low that day and needed quiet; besides, I was by the doctor’s words, now to me, and by the offer of a bribe.
“I want none of your money,” said I, “but what you my father. I’ll you one glass, and no more.”
When I it to him, he it and it out.
“Aye, aye,” said he, “that’s some better, sure enough. And now, matey, did that doctor say how long I was to 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 is going about to the wind of me this moment; as couldn’t keep what they got, and want to what is another’s. Is that behaviour, now, I want to know? But I’m a saving soul. I good money of mine, it neither; and I’ll ’em again. I’m not on ’em. I’ll shake out another reef, matey, and ’em again.”
As he was thus speaking, he had from with great difficulty, to my with a that almost me out, and moving his like so much weight. His words, as they were in meaning, sadly with the of the voice in which they were uttered. He paused when he had got into a position on the edge.
“That doctor’s done me,” he murmured. “My ears is singing. Lay me back.”
Before I do much to help him he had again to his place, where he for a while silent.
“Jim,” he said at length, “you saw that man today?”
“Black Dog?” I asked.
“Ah! Black Dog,” says he. “He’s a un; but there’s that put him on. Now, if I can’t away nohow, and they me the black spot, mind you, it’s my old sea-chest they’re after; you on a horse—you can, can’t you? Well, then, you on a horse, and go to—well, yes, I will!—to that doctor swab, and tell him to pipe all hands—magistrates and sich—and he’ll ’em at the Admiral Benbow—all old Flint’s crew, man and boy, all on ’em that’s left. I was mate, I was, old Flint’s mate, and I’m the on’y one as the place. He gave it me at Savannah, when he a-dying, like as if I was to now, you see. But you won’t unless they the black spot on me, or unless you see that Black Dog again or a 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 that. But you keep your weather-eye open, Jim, and I’ll with you equals, upon my honour.”
He a little longer, his voice weaker; but soon after I had him his medicine, which he took like a child, with the remark, “If a wanted drugs, it’s me,” he 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 to the doctor, for I was in the captain should of his and make an end of me. But as out, my father died that evening, which put all other on one side. Our natural distress, the visits of the neighbours, the of the funeral, and all the work of the to be on in the meanwhile me so that I had time to think of the captain, less to be of him.
He got next morning, to be sure, and had his as usual, though he ate little and had more, I am afraid, than his supply of rum, for he helped himself out of the bar, and through his nose, and no one to him. On the night the he was as as ever; and it was shocking, in that house of mourning, to him away at his old sea-song; but weak as he was, we were all in the of death for him, and the doctor was taken up with a case many miles away and was near the house after my father’s death. I have said the captain was weak, and he to than regain his strength. He up and stairs, and from the to the and again, and sometimes put his nose out of doors to the sea, on to the as he for support and hard and fast like a man on a mountain. He particularly me, and it is my he had as good as his confidences; but his was more flighty, and for his weakness, more than ever. He had an way now when he was of his and it him on the table. But with all that, he people less and up in his own and wandering. Once, for instance, to our wonder, he up to a different air, a of country love-song that he must have learned in his he had to the sea.
So passed until, the day after the funeral, and about three o’clock of a bitter, foggy, afternoon, I was at the door for a moment, full of sad about my father, when I saw someone slowly near along the road. He was blind, for he him with a and a great green over his and nose; and he was hunched, as if with age or weakness, and a old sea-cloak with a that him appear positively deformed. I saw in my life a more dreadful-looking figure. He stopped a little from the inn, and his voice in an odd sing-song, the air in of him, “Will any friend a man, who has the of his in the of his native country, England—and God 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 a voice,” said he, “a voice. Will you give me your hand, my friend, and lead me in?”
I out my hand, and the horrible, soft-spoken, it in a moment like a vise. I was so much that I to withdraw, but the man 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 not.”
“Oh,” he sneered, “that’s it! Take me in or I’ll your arm.”
And he gave it, as he spoke, a that me out.
“Sir,” said I, “it is for I mean. The captain is not what he used to be. He with a cutlass. Another gentleman—”
“Come, now, march,” he; and I a voice so cruel, and cold, and as that man’s. It me more than the pain, and I to him at once, walking in at the door and the parlour, where our old was sitting, with rum. The man close to me, me in one iron and almost more of his weight on me than I carry. “Lead me up to him, and when I’m in view, out, ‘Here’s a friend for you, Bill.’ If you don’t, I’ll do this,” and with that he gave me a that I would have me faint. Between this and that, I was so of the that I my terror of the captain, and as I opened the door, out the he had ordered in a voice.
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The captain his eyes, and at one look the out of him and left him sober. The of his was not so much of terror as of sickness. He a movement to rise, but I do not he had left in his body.
“Now, Bill, where you are,” said the beggar. “If I can’t see, I can a stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take his left hand by the and it near to my right.”
We him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from the of the hand that his into the of the captain’s, which closed upon it instantly.
“And now that’s done,” said the man; and at the he left of me, and with and nimbleness, out of the and into the road, where, as I still motionless, I his go tap-tap-tapping into the distance.
It was some time either I or the captain to our senses, but at length, and about at the same moment, I his wrist, which I was still holding, and he in his hand and looked into the palm.
“Ten o’clock!” he cried. “Six hours. We’ll do them yet,” and he to his feet.
Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his throat, for a moment, and then, with a sound, from his whole to the floor.
I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But was all in vain. The captain had been by apoplexy. It is a thing to understand, for I had liked the man, though of late I had to him, but as soon as I saw that he was dead, I into a of tears. It was the second death I had known, and the of the was still fresh in my heart.
