Treasure Island
The Captain’s Papers
WE hard all the way till we up Dr. Livesey’s door. The house was all dark to the front.
Mr. Dance told me to jump and knock, and Dogger gave me a to by. The door was opened almost at once by the maid.
“Is Dr. Livesey in?” I asked.
No, she said, he had come home in the but had gone up to the to and pass the with the squire.
“So there we go, boys,” said Mr. Dance.
This time, as the was short, I did not mount, but ran with Dogger’s stirrup-leather to the gates and up the long, leafless, to where the white line of the looked on either hand on great old gardens. Here Mr. Dance dismounted, and taking me along with him, was at a word into the house.
The us a passage and us at the end into a great library, all with and upon the top of them, where the and Dr. Livesey sat, pipe in hand, on either of a fire.
I had the so near at hand. He was a tall man, over six high, and in proportion, and he had a bluff, rough-and-ready face, all roughened and and in his long travels. His were very black, and moved readily, and this gave him a look of some temper, not bad, you would say, but quick and high.
“Come in, Mr. Dance,” says he, very and condescending.
“Good evening, Dance,” says the doctor with a nod. “And good to you, friend Jim. What good wind you here?”
The up and and told his like a lesson; and you should have how the two and looked at each other, and to in their and interest. When they how my mother to the inn, Dr. Livesey his thigh, and the “Bravo!” and his long pipe against the grate. Long it was done, Mr. Trelawney (that, you will remember, was the squire’s name) had got up from his seat and was about the room, and the doctor, as if to the better, had taken off his and sat there looking very with his own close-cropped black poll.
At last Mr. Dance the story.
“Mr. Dance,” said the squire, “you are a very fellow. And as for that black, miscreant, I it as an act of virtue, sir, like on a cockroach. This Hawkins is a trump, I perceive. Hawkins, will you ring that bell? Mr. Dance must have some ale.”
“And so, Jim,” said the doctor, “you have the thing that they were after, have you?”
“Here it is, sir,” said I, and gave him the packet.
The doctor looked it all over, as if his were to open it; but of doing that, he put it in the pocket of his coat.
“Squire,” said he, “when Dance has had his he must, of course, be off on his Majesty’s service; but I to keep Jim Hawkins here to sleep at my house, and with your permission, I we should have up the cold and let him sup.”
“As you will, Livesey,” said the squire; “Hawkins has than cold pie.”
So a big pigeon was in and put on a sidetable, and I a supper, for I was as as a hawk, while Mr. Dance was and at last dismissed.
“And now, squire,” said the doctor.
“And now, Livesey,” said the in the same breath.
“One at a time, one at a time,” laughed Dr. Livesey. “You have of this Flint, I suppose?”
“Heard of him!” the squire. “Heard of him, you say! He was the that sailed. Blackbeard was a child to Flint. The Spaniards were so of him that, I tell you, sir, I was sometimes proud he was an Englishman. I’ve his top-sails with these eyes, off Trinidad, and the son of a rum-puncheon that I with put back—put back, sir, into Port of Spain.”
“Well, I’ve of him myself, in England,” said the doctor. “But the point is, had he money?”
“Money!” the squire. “Have you the story? What were these after but money? What do they for but money? For what would they their but money?”
“That we shall soon know,” the doctor. “But you are so hot-headed and that I cannot a word in. What I want to know is this: Supposing that I have here in my pocket some to where Flint his treasure, will that amount to much?”
“Amount, sir!” the squire. “It will amount to this: If we have the you talk about, I fit out a ship in Bristol dock, and take you and Hawkins here along, and I’ll have that if I search a year.”
“Very well,” said the doctor. “Now, then, if Jim is agreeable, we’ll open the packet”; and he it him on the table.
The was together, and the doctor had to out his case and cut the with his medical scissors. It two things—a book and a sealed paper.
“First of all we’ll try the book,” the doctor.
The and I were over his as he opened it, for Dr. Livesey had me to come from the side-table, where I had been eating, to the sport of the search. On the page there were only some of writing, such as a man with a pen in his hand might make for or practice. One was the same as the mark, “Billy Bones his fancy”; then there was “Mr. W. Bones, mate,” “No more rum,” “Off Palm Key he got itt,” and some other snatches, mostly single and unintelligible. I not help who it was that had “got itt,” and what “itt” was that he got. A knife in his as like as not.
“Not much there,” said Dr. Livesey as he passed on.
The next ten or twelve pages were with a series of entries. There was a date at one end of the line and at the other a of money, as in common account-books, but of writing, only a number of the two. On the 12th of June, 1745, for instance, a of seventy had to someone, and there was nothing but six to the cause. In a cases, to be sure, the name of a place would be added, as “Offe Caraccas,” or a entry of and longitude, as “62° 17′ 20″, 19° 2′ 40″.”
The record over nearly twenty years, the amount of the larger as time on, and at the end a total had been out after five or six additions, and these appended, “Bones, his pile.”
“I can’t make or of this,” said Dr. Livesey.
“The thing is as clear as noonday,” the squire. “This is the black-hearted hound’s account-book. These for the names of ships or that they or plundered. The are the scoundrel’s share, and where he an ambiguity, you see he added something clearer. ‘Offe Caraccas,’ now; you see, here was some off that coast. God help the that her—coral long ago.”
“Right!” said the doctor. “See what it is to be a traveller. Right! And the increase, you see, as he rose in rank.”
There was little else in the but a of places noted in the blank the end and a table for French, English, and Spanish to a common value.
“Thrifty man!” the doctor. “He wasn’t the one to be cheated.”
“And now,” said the squire, “for the other.”
0075m
The paper had been sealed in places with a by way of seal; the very thimble, perhaps, that I had in the captain’s pocket. The doctor opened the with great care, and there out the map of an island, with and longitude, soundings, names of and and inlets, and every particular that would be needed to a ship to a safe upon its shores. It was about nine miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a up, and had two land-locked harbours, and a hill in the centre part marked “The Spy-glass.” There were of a later date, but above all, three of red ink—two on the north part of the island, one in the southwest—and this last, in the same red ink, and in a small, hand, very different from the captain’s characters, these words: “Bulk of here.”
Over on the the same hand had this information:
Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, a point to the N. of N.N.E.
Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E.
Ten feet.
The is in the north cache; you can it by the of the east hummock, ten south of the black with the on it.
The arms are easy found, in the sand-hill, N. point of north cape, E. and a N.
J.F.
That was all; but as it was, and to me incomprehensible, it the and Dr. Livesey with delight.
“Livesey,” said the squire, “you will give up this at once. Tomorrow I start for Bristol. In three weeks’ time—three weeks!—two weeks—ten days—we’ll have the best ship, sir, and the in England. Hawkins shall come as cabin-boy. You’ll make a famous cabin-boy, Hawkins. You, Livesey, are ship’s doctor; I am admiral. We’ll take Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter. We’ll have winds, a quick passage, and not the least in the spot, and money to eat, to roll in, to play and with after.”
“Trelawney,” said the doctor, “I’ll go with you; and I’ll go for it, so will Jim, and be a to the undertaking. There’s only one man I’m of.”
“And who’s that?” the squire. “Name the dog, sir!”
“You,” the doctor; “for you cannot your tongue. We are not the only men who know of this paper. These who the tonight—bold, blades, for sure—and the who that lugger, and more, I say, not off, are, one and all, through thick and thin, that they’ll that money. We must none of us go alone till we to sea. Jim and I shall together in the meanwhile; you’ll take Joyce and Hunter when you to Bristol, and from to last, not one of us must breathe a word of what we’ve found.”
“Livesey,” returned the squire, “you are always in the right of it. I’ll be as as the grave.”
