Treasure Island

Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particularsper-TIK-yuh-lerz about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing backBAK but the bearings of the island. That only because there is stillSTIL treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17—, and go backBAK to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seamanSEE-muhn with the sabreSAY-ber cut first took up his lodging under our roof.

I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came ploddingPLAH-ding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow—a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarryTAIR-ee pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiledSOYLD blue coat, his hands raggedRAG-uhd and scarredSKARD, with black, broken nails, and the sabreSAY-ber cut across one cheek, a dirty, lividLIV-id white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistlingWIS-ling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sangSANG so often afterwards:

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest— Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

in the high, old totteringTAH-ter-ing voice that seemed to have been tuned and brokenBROH-kuhn at the capstan bars. Then he rappedRAPT on the door with a bit of stick likeLYK 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, likeLYK a connoisseurkah-nuh-SER, lingering on the taste and stillSTIL looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.

“This is a handy cove,” says he at length; “and a pleasant sittyated grogGRAHG-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, mateyMAY-tee,” he cried to the man who trundledTRUN-duhld 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 watchWAWCH 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 tell me when I’ve worked throughTHROO that,” says he, looking as fierce as a commander.

And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed likeLYK a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyedoh-BAYD or to strike. The man who came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at the Royal George, that he had inquiredin-KWY-erd what innsINZ there were along the coast, and hearing ours wellWEL spoken of, I suppose, and described as lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of residence. And that was all we could learn of our guestGEST.

He was a very silent man by custom. All day he hung round the cove or upon the cliffs with a brass telescope. All evening he sat in a corner of the parlourPAR-ler next the fire and drank rum and water very strong. Mostly he would not speak when spoken to, only look up sudden and fierce and blow through his nose likeLYK a fog-horn. We and the people who came about our houseHOWS soon learnedLER-nid to let him be. Every day when he came backBAK from his stroll he would ask if any seafaring men had gone by along the road. At first we thought it was the want of company of his own kindKYND that made him ask this question. But at lastLAS we began to see he was desirousdi-ZY-ruhs to avoid them. When a seamanSEE-muhn did put up at the Admiral Benbow (as now. Then some did, making by the coast road for Bristol) he would look in at him through the curtained door before he entered the parlourPAR-ler. He was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any such was presentPREZ-uhnt. For me, at least, there was no secret about the matter, for I was, in a way, a sharerSHAIR-er in his alarms. He had taken me aside one day and promised me a silver fourpenny on the first of every month if I would only keep my “weather-eye open for a seafaring man with one leg” and let him know the moment he appeared. Often enough when the first of the month came round and I applied to him for my wage, he would only blow through his nose at me and stare me down. But before the week was out he was sure to think better of it, bring me my fourFOR-penny piece, and repeat his orders to look out forFOR “the seafaring man with one leg.”