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02 - Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson · Adventure Books Library

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Chapter three, The Black Spot. About noon I stopped at the Captain's door
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with some cooling drinks and medicines. He was lying very much as we had
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left him, only a little higher, and he seemed both weak and excited.
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Jim, he said, you're the only one here that's worth anything.
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And you know I've always been good to you, never a month, but
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I've given you a silver fourpenny for yourself. And now you see, mate,
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I'm pretty low and deserted by all. And Jim, you'll bring me
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one noggin of rum, now, won't you? Matey the doctor, I
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began, but he broke in, cursing the doctor in a feeble voice.
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But heartily, doctors is all swabs, he said. And that doctor there,
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why what does he know about seafaring men. I've been in places hot
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as pitch, and mate, dropping round with yellow jack, and the blessed
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land are heaving like the sea with earthquakes? What do the doctor know of
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lands like that? And I've lived on rum. I can tell you It's
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been meat and drink and man and wife to me. And if I'm not
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to have my rum now, I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore.
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My blood will be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab and
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he ran on again for a while with curses. Look, Jim, how
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my fingers fidgies, he continued, in the pleading tone. I can't keep
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him still, not I. I haven't had a drop this blessed day.
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That doctor's a fool. I tell you, if I don't have a drain
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of rum, Jim, I'll have the horrors. I seen some on em
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already. I seen old flint in the corner there behind you, plain as
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print. I've seen him. If I get the horrors, I'm a man
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that has lived rough, and I'll raise caine. Your doctor's self said,
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one glass wouldn't hurt me. I'll give you a golden guinea for a noggin,
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Jim. He was growing more and more excited, and this alarmed me,
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for my father, who was very low that day, needed quiet.
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Besides, I was reassured by the doctor's words now quoted to me, and
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rather offended by the offer of a bribe. I want none of your money,
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said I, but what you owe my father, I'll get you one
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glass and no more. When I brought it to him, he seized it
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greedily and drank it out. Ay, ay, said he that's some better,
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sure enough? And now Matie, did that doctor say how long I
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was to lie here in this old berth? A week at least, said
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I thunder, He cried, a week? Aye, can't do that.
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They'd have the black spot on me by then. The lobbers is going to
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get the wind of me this blessed moment. Lobbers as couldn't keep what they
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got and what to nail? What is another's? Is that seemingly behavior?
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Now? I want to know. But I'm a saving soul. I never
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wasted good money of mine or lost it neither. And I'll trick em again.
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I'm not afraid on them. I'll shake out another reef mate and dandle
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them again. As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed with
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great difficulty, holding to my shoulder with a grip that almost made me cry
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out, and moving his legs like so much dead weight. His words,
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spirited as they were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of the voice
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in which they were uttered. He paused, when he had got into a
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sitting position on the edge. That Doctor's done me, he murmured. My
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ears is singing, lay me bad. Before I could do much to help
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him, he had fallen back again to his former place, where he lay
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for a while silent. Jim, he said, at length, you saw
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that seafery man today, black Dog? I asked, ah, Black Dog
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said he he's Abbaddon. But there's worse that put him on now far.
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I can't get away no how, and they tip me the black spot.
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Mind you, it's my old sea chest. Thereafter you get on a horse,
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you can, can't you? Well, then you get on a horse
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and go to well, yes, I will to that eternal doctor Swab and
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tell him to pipe all hands, magis, straits and sitch, and he
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will lay him aboard at the admiral benbow all Old Flint's crew man and boy
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all on them that's left. I was first mate. I was Old Flint's
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fir mate, and I'm the only one as knows the place he gave it
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me to Savannah when he lay a dine like as if I was to now.
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You see, but you won't peach unless they got the black spot on
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me, or unless you see that black dog again, or a seafaring man
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with one leg. Jim him above all, But what is the black spot.
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Captain, I asked, that's a summon's mate. I'll tell you if
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they get that. But you'll keep your weather eye open, Jim, and
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I'll share with you equals upon my honor. He wandered a little longer,
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his voice growing weaker, But soon after I had given him his medicine,
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which he took like a child, with the remark, if ever a seaman
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wanted drugs, it's me. He fell at last into a heavy, swoon
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like sleep, in which I left him. What I should have done had
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all gone well, I do not know. I should have told the whole
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story to the doctor, for I was in mortal fear lest the captain should
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repent of his confessions and make an end of me. But as things fell
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out, my poor father died quite suddenly that evening, which put all other
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matters on one side. Our natural distress, the visits of the neighbors,
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the arranging of the funeral, and all the work of the inn to be
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carried on in the meanwhile, kept me so busy that I had scarcely time
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to think of the captain, far less to be afraid of him. He
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got downstairs next morning, to be sure, and had his meals as usual,
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though he ate little and had more, I'm afraid, than his usual
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supply of rum. For he helped himself out of the bar, scowling and
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blowing through his nose, and no one dared to cross him. On the
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night before the funeral, he was as drunk as ever, and it was
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shocking in that house of mourning to hear him singing away his ugly old sea
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song. But weak as he was, we were all in fear of death
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for him, and the doctor was suddenly taken up with a case many miles
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away, and was never near the house after my father's death. I have
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said the Captain was weak, and indeed he seemed rather to grow weaker than
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to regain his strength. He clambered up and down stairs, and went from
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the parlor to the bar and back again, and sometimes put his nose out
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of door to smell the sea, holding on to the walls as he went
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for support, and breathing hard and fast like a man on a steep mountain.
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He never particularly addressed me, and it is my belief that he had
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as good as forgotten his confidences. But his temper was more flighty and allowing
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for his bodily weaknesses, more violent than ever. He had an alarming way
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now when he was drunk, of drawing his cutlass and laying it bare before
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him on the table. But with all that, he minded people less,
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and seemed shut up in his own thoughts, and rather wandering. Once,
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for instance, to our extreme wonder, he piped up to a very different
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air, a kind of country love song that he must have learned in his
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youth, before he had begun to follow the sea. So things passed until
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the day after the funeral, and about three o'clock of a bitter, foggy,
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frosty afternoon, I was standing at the door for a moment, full
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of sad thoughts about my father, when I saw some one drawing slowly near
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along the road. He was plainly blind, for he tapped before him with
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a stick, and wore a great green shade over his eyes and nose.
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And he was hunched as if with age or weakness, and wore a huge,
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old, tattered sea cloak, with a hood that made him appear positively
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deformed. I never saw in my life a more dreadful looking figure. He
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stopped a little from the earn, and raising his voice in an old sing
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song, addressed the air in front of him, Will any kind friend inform
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a poor blind man who has lost the precious sight of his eyes in the
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gracious defense of his native country England, and God bless King George. Where
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or in what part of this country he may now be? You are at
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the Admiral Bembo Black. He'll cove my good man, said I. I
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hear a voice, said he, a young voice. Will you give me
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your hand, my kind young friend, and lead me in. I held
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out my hand and the horrible, soft spoken, eyeless creature gripped it in
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a moment like a vice. I was so much startled that I struggled to
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withdraw, but the blind man pulled me close to him with a single action
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of his arm. Now, boy, he said, take me into the
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captain, Sir said, I, upon my word, I dare not.
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Ah. He sneered. That's it. Take me in straight, or I'll
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break your arm. He gave it as he spoke, a wrench that made
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me cry out. Sir said, I it is for yourself. I mean,
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the captain is not what he used to be. He sits with a
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drawn cutlass. Another gentleman, come now, March interrupted he, and I
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never heard a voice so cruel and cold and ugly as that blind man's.
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It cowed me more than the pain, and I began to obey him at
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once, walking straight in at the door and towards the parlor where the sick
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old buccaneer was sitting, dazed with rum. The blind man clung close to
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me, holding me in one iron fist and leaning almost more of his weight
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on me than I could carry. Leave me straight up to him, and
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when i'm in cry out, here's a friend for you, Bill. If
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you don't, I'll do this. And with that he gave me a twitch
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that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I
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was so utterly terrified by the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the
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captain, And as I opened the parlor door, cried out the words he
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had ordered in a trembling voice. The poor captain raised his eyes, and
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at one look the rum went out of him and left him staring sober.
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The expression of his face was not so much of terror as of mortal sickness.
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He made a movement to rise, but I do not believe he had
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enough force left in his body now bill, Sit where you are, said
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the beggar. If I can't see, I can hear a finger stirring.
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Business is business. Hold out your left hand, boy, take his left
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hand by the wrist, and bring it near to my right. We both
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obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from the hollow
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of the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain's, which
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closed upon it instantly. And now that's done, said the blind man.
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And at the words, he suddenly left hold of me, and with incredible
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accuracy and nimbleness, skipped out of the parlor and into the road. Where
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as I stood motionless, I could hear his stick go tap tap tapping into
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the distance. It was some time before either I or the captain seemed to
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gather our senses, but at length, and about the same moment, I
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released his wrist, which I was still holding, and he drew in his
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hand and looked sharply into the palm. Ten o'clock. He cried, six
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hours, we'll do him yet, and he sprang to his feet. Even
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as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his throat,
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stood swaying for a moment, and then with a peculiar sound fell from his
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whole height, face foremost to the floor. I ran to him at once,
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calling to my mother, but haste was all in vain. The captain
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had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy. It is a curious thing to understand,
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for I had certainly never liked the man, though of late I had
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begun to pity him. But soon as I saw that he was dead,
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I burst into a flood of tears. It was the second death I had
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known, and the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart.
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End of chapter three, Chapter four, the Sea Chest. I lost no
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time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and
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perhaps should have told her long before. And we saw ourselves at once in
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a difficult and dangerous position. Some of the man's money, if he had
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any, was certainly due to us, But it was not likely that our
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captain's shipmates, above all the two specimens seen by me, black Dog and
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the Blind Beggar, would be inclined to give up their booty in payment of
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the dead man's debts. The captain's order to mount at once and ride for
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doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone and unprotected, which was not to
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be thought of. Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of us to remain
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much longer in the house. The fall of coals in the kitchen grate,
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the very ticking of the clock filled us with alarm. The neighborhood, to
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our ears seemed haunted by approaching footsteps, and what between the dead body of
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the captain on the parlor floor and the thought of that detestable blind beggar hovering
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near at hand and ready to return. There were moments when, as the
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saying goes, I jumped in my skin for terror. Something must speedily be
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resolved upon. And it occurred to me us at last to go forth together
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and seek help in the neighboring hamlet. No sooner said than done. Bareheaded
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as we were, we ran out at once in the gathering evening and the
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frosty fog. The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away, though out of
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view, on the other side of the next cove. And what greatly encouraged
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me it was in an opposite direction from that whence the old blind man had
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made his appearance, and whether he had presumably returned. We were not many
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minutes on the road, though We sometimes stopped to lay hold of each other
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and hearken, But there was no unusual sound, nothing but the low wash
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of the ripple and the croaking of the inmates of the wood. It was
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already candlelight when we reached the hamlet, and I shall never forget how much
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I was cheered to see the yellow shine in doors and windows. But that,
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as it proved, was the best help we were likely to get in
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that quarter. For you would have thought men would have been ashamed of themselves.
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No soul would consent to return with us to the Admiral Benbo. The
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more we told of our troubles, the more man, woman and child they
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clung to the shelter of their houses. The name of Captain Flint, though
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it was strange to me, was well enough known to some there, and
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carried a great weight of terror. Some of the men who had been to
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field work on the far side of the Admiral Benbo remembered, besides to have
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seen several strangers on the road, and taking them to be smugglers, to
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have bolted away, And one at least had seen a little lugger in what
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we called Kit's hole. For that matter, anyone who was a comrade of
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the captains, was enough to frighten them to death. And the short and
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the long of the matter was that while we could get several who were willing
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to ride to doctor Livesey's, which lay in another direction, not one would
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help us to defend the inn. They say cowardice as infectious, but then
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argument is, on the other hand, a great emboldener. And so when
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each had said his say, my mother made them a speech she would not,
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she declared, lose money that belonged to her fatherless boy. If none
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of the rest of you dare, she said, Jim and I dare back,
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we will go the way we came. And small thanks to you,
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big, hulking, chicken hearted men. We'll have that chest open if we
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die for it. And I'll thank you for that bag, missus Crossley,
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to bring back our lawful money. In of course, I said I would
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go with my mother, and of course they all cried out at our foolhardiness.
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But even there not a man would go along with us. All they
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would do was to give me a loaded pistol lest we were attacked, and
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to promise to have horses ready saddled in case we were pursued on our return,
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while one lad was to ride forward to the doctors in search of armed
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assistance. My heart was beating fiercely when we two set forth in the whole
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night upon this dangerous venture, a full moon was beginning to rise, and
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peered redly through the upper edges of the fog. And this increased our haste,
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for it was plain before we came forth again that all would be bright
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as day, and our departure exposed to the eyes of any watchers. We
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slipped along the hedges, noiseless and swift, nor did we see anything to
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increase our terrors, till to our huge relief, the door of the admiral
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Benbow had closed behind us. I slipped the bolt at once, and we
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stood and panted for a moment in the dark, alone in the house with
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the dead captain's body. Then my mother got a candle in the bar,
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and holding each other's hands, we advanced into the parlor. He lay as
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we had left him, on his back, with his eyes open and one
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arm stretched out draw down the blind Jim whispered my mother, they might come
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and watch outside, And now said she, when I had done so,
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we have to get the key off that, and who's to touch it?
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I should like to know? And she gave a kind of sob as she
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said the words. I went down on my knees at once. On the
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floor, close to his hand, there was a little round of paper blackened
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on one side. I could not doubt that this was the black spot.
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And taking it up I found written on the other side, in a very
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good clear hand, this short message you have till ten to night. He
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had till ten, mother, said I, And just as I said it,
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our old clock began striking. This sudden noise startled us shockingly, but
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the news was good, for it was only six now, Jim. She
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said that key. I felt in his pockets one after another, a few
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small coins, a thimble and some threadned big needles, a piece of pigtail
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tobacco bitten away at the end his gully with the crooked hair, A pocket
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compass, and a tinder box were all that they contained. And I began
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to despair. Perhaps it's round his neck, suggested my mother. Overcoming a
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strong repugnance, I tore open his shirt at the neck, and there,
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sure enough hanging to a bit of tarry string, which I cut with his
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own gully. We found the key. At this triumph, we were filled
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with hope, and hurried downstairs without delay to the little room where he had
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slept so long, and where his box had stood since the day of his
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arrival. It was like any other seaman's chest. On the outside, the
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initial b burned on top of it with a hot iron, and the corners
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somewhat smashed and broken, as by long rough usage. Give me the key,
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said my mother, And though the lock was very stiff, she had
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turned it and thrown back the lid in a twinkling. A strong smell of
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tobacco and tar arose from the interior, but nothing was to be seen on
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the top except a suit of very good clothes, carefully brushed and folded.
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They had never been worn. My mother said under that the miscellany began a
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quadrant, a tin cannikin, several sticks of tobacco, two brace of very
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handsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an old Spanish watch, and
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some other trinkets of little value and mostly foreign. Make a pair of compasses
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mounted with brass, and five or six curious West Indian shells. I have
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often wondered since why he should have carried about those shells with him in his
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wandering, guilty and hunted life. In the meantime we found nothing of any
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value but the silver and the trinkets, and neither of these were in our
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way. Underneath there was an old boat cloak whitened with sea salt on many
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a harbor bar. My mother pulled it up with impatience, and there lay
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before us the last things in the chest, a bundle tied up in oil
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cloth and looking like papers, and a canvas bag that gave forth at a
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touch the jingle of gold. I'll show these rogues that I am an honest
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woman, said my mother. I'll have my dew and not a farthing over
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hold missus Crusty's bag. And she began to count over the amount of the
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captain's score from the sailor's bag into the one that I was holding. It
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was a long difficult business, for the coins were of all countries and sizes,
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to bloons and louisd'or, and guineas and pieces of eight, and I
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know not what besides, all shaken together at random. The guineas, too
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were about the scarcest. And it was with these only that my mother knew
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how to make her count. When we were about half way through, I
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suddenly put my hand under her arm, for I had heard in the silent,
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frosty air a sound that brought my heart into my mouth, the tip
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tapping of the blind man's stick upon the fozen road. It drew nearer and
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nearer while we sat holding our breath. Then it struck sharp at the inn
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door, and then we could hear the handle being turned and the bolt rattling
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as the wretched being tried to enter. And then there was a long time
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of silence, both within and without. At last the tapping recommenced, and,
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to our indescribable joy and gratitude, died slowly away again till it ceased
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to be heard. Mother said, I take the hole and let's be going,
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for I was sure the bolted door must have seemed suspicious and would bring
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the whole hornet's nest about our ears. Though how thankful I was that I
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had bolted it, none could tell who had never met that terrible blind man.
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But my mother, frightened as she was, would not consent to take
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a fraction more than it was her due, and was obstinately unwilling to be
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content with less. It was not yet seven, she said, by a
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long way. She knew her rights, and she would have them. And
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she was still arguing with me when a little low whistle sounded a good way
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off upon the hill. That was enough and more than enough for both of
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us. I'll take what I have, she said, jumping to her feet,
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And I'll take this to square, the count said, I picking up
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the oilskin packet. Next moment we were both groping downstairs, leaving the candle
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by the empty chest, and the next we had opened the door and were
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in full retreat. We had not started a moment too soon. The fog
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was rapidly dispersing. Already the moon shone quite clear on the high ground on
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either side, and it was only in the exact bottom of the dell and
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round the tavern door, that a thin veil still hung, unbroken to conceal
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the first steps of our escape. Far less than half way to the hamlet,
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very little beyond the bottom of the hill we must come forth into the
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moonlight. Nor was this all, for the sound of several footsteps running came
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already to our ears, and as we looked back in their direction, a
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light tossing to and fro, and still rapidly advancing, showed that one of
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the newcomers carried a lantern. My dear said, my mother, suddenly take
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the money and run on. I am going to faint. This was certainly
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the end for both of us. I thought, how I cursed the cowardice
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of the neighbors. How I blamed my poor mother for her honesty and her
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greed, for her past full hardiness and present weakness. We were just at
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the little bridge by a good fortune, and I helped her, tottering as
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she was, to the edge of the bank, where sure enough she gave
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a sigh and fell on my shoulder. I do not know how I found
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the strength to do it all, and I am afraid it was roughly done,
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but I managed to drag her down the bank and a little way under
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the arch. Father. I could not move her, for the bridge was
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too low to let me do more than crawl below it. So there we
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had to stay, my mother almost entirely exposed, and both of us within
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ear shot of the inn. End of chapter four