Part One: The Old Buccaneer - Chapter 3: The Black Spot

by Robert Louis Stevenson

　　About noon I stopped at the captain's door with somecooling drinks and medicines. He was lying very muchas we had left him, only a little higher, and he seemedboth weak and excited.

　　"Jim," he said, "you're the only one here that's worthanything, and you know I've been always good to you.Never a month but I've given you a silver fourpenny foryourself. And now you see, mate, I'm pretty low, anddeserted by all; and Jim, you'll bring me one noggin ofrum, now, won't you, matey?"

　　"The doctor--" I began.

　　But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voicebut heartily. "Doctors is all swabs," he said; "andthat doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaringmen? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates droppinground with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heavinglike the sea with earthquakes--what to the doctor knowof lands like that?--and I lived on rum, I tell you.It's been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me; andif I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk on alee shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim, and that doctorswab"; and he ran on again for a while with curses."Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges," he continued in thepleading tone. "I can't keep 'em still, not I. Ihaven't had a drop this blessed day. That doctor's afool, I tell you. If I don't have a drain o' rum, Jim,I'll have the horrors; I seen some on 'em already.I seen old Flint in the corner there, behind you; asplain as print, I seen him; and if I get the horrors,I'm a man that has lived rough, and I'll raise Cain.Your doctor hisself said one glass wouldn't hurt me.I'll give you a golden guinea for a noggin, Jim."

　　He was growing more and more excited, and this alarmed mefor my father, who was very low that day and needed quiet;besides, I was reassured by the doctor's words, now quotedto me, and rather offended by the offer of a bribe.

　　"I want none of your money," said I, "but what you owemy father. I'll get you one glass, and no more."

　　When I brought it to him, he seized it greedily anddrank it out.

　　"Aye, aye," said he, "that's some better, sure enough.And now, matey, did that doctor say how long I was tolie here in this old berth?"

　　"A week at least," said I.

　　"Thunder!" he cried. "A week! I can't do that; they'dhave the black spot on me by then. The lubbers isgoing about to get the wind of me this blessed moment;lubbers as couldn't keep what they got, and want tonail what is another's. Is that seamanly behaviour,now, I want to know? But I'm a saving soul. I neverwasted good money of mine, nor lost it neither; andI'll trick 'em again. I'm not afraid on 'em. I'llshake out another reef, matey, and daddle 'em again."

　　As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed withgreat difficulty, holding to my shoulder with a gripthat almost made me cry out, and moving his legs likeso much dead weight. His words, spirited as they werein meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of thevoice in which they were uttered. He paused when hehad got into a sitting position on the edge.

　　"That doctor's done me," he murmured. "My ears issinging. Lay me back."

　　Before I could do much to help him he had fallen back againto his former place, where he lay for a while silent.

　　"Jim," he said at length, "you saw that seafaring man today?"

　　"Black Dog?" I asked.

　　"Ah! Black Dog," says he. "He's a bad un; but there'sworse that put him on. Now, if I can't get away nohow,and they tip me the black spot, mind you, it's my oldsea-chest they're after; you get on a horse--you can,can't you? Well, then, you get on a horse, and go to--well, yes, I will!--to that eternal doctor swab, andtell him to pipe all hands--magistrates and sich--andhe'll lay 'em aboard at the Admiral Benbow--all oldFlint's crew, man and boy, all on 'em that's left. Iwas first mate, I was, old Flint's first mate, and I'mthe on'y one as knows the place. He gave it me atSavannah, when he lay a-dying, like as if I was to now,you see. But you won't peach unless they get the blackspot on me, or unless you see that Black Dog again or aseafaring 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 getthat. But you keep your weather-eye open, Jim, andI'll share with you equals, upon my honour."

　　He wandered a little longer, his voice growing weaker;but soon after I had given him his medicine, which hetook like a child, with the remark, "If ever a seamanwanted drugs, it's me," he fell at last into a heavy,swoon-like sleep, in which I left him. What I shouldhave done had all gone well I do not know. Probably Ishould have told the whole story to the doctor, for Iwas in mortal fear lest the captain should repent ofhis confessions and make an end of me. But as thingsfell out, my poor father died quite suddenly thatevening, which put all other matters on one side. Ournatural distress, the visits of the neighbours, thearranging of the funeral, and all the work of the innto be carried on in the meanwhile kept me so busy thatI had scarcely time to think of the captain, far lessto be afraid of him.

　　He got downstairs next morning, to be sure, and had hismeals as usual, though he ate little and had more, I amafraid, than his usual supply of rum, for he helpedhimself out of the bar, scowling and blowing throughhis nose, and no one dared to cross him. On the nightbefore the funeral he was as drunk as ever; and it wasshocking, in that house of mourning, to hear himsinging away at his ugly old sea-song; but weak as hewas, we were all in the fear of death for him, and thedoctor was suddenly taken up with a case many milesaway and was never near the house after my father'sdeath. I have said the captain was weak, and indeed heseemed rather to grow weaker than regain his strength.He clambered up and down stairs, and went from theparlour to the bar and back again, and sometimes puthis nose out of doors to smell the sea, holding on tothe walls as he went for support and breathing hard andfast like a man on a steep mountain. He neverparticularly addressed me, and it is my belief he hadas good as forgotten his confidences; but his temperwas more flighty, and allowing for his bodily weakness,more violent than ever. He had an alarming way nowwhen he was drunk of drawing his cutlass and laying itbare before him on the table. But with all that, heminded people less and seemed shut up in his ownthoughts and rather wandering. Once, for instance, toour extreme wonder, he piped up to a different air, aking of country love-song that he must have learned inhis youth before he had begun to follow the sea.

　　So things passed until, the day after the funeral, andabout three o'clock of a bitter, foggy, frostyafternoon, I was standing at the door for a moment,full of sad thoughts about my father, when I sawsomeone drawing slowly near along the road. He wasplainly blind, for he tapped before him with a stickand wore a great green shade over his eyes and nose;and he was hunched, as if with age or weakness, and worea huge old tattered sea-cloak with a hood that made himappear positively deformed. I never saw in my life amore dreadful-looking figure. He stopped a little fromthe inn, and raising his voice in an odd sing-song,addressed the air in front of him, "Will any kind friendinform a poor blind man, who has lost the precious sightof his eyes in the gracious defence of his native country,England--and God bless King George!--where or in what partof this country he may now be?"

　　"You are at the Admiral Benbow, Black Hill Cove, mygood man," said I.

　　"I hear a voice," said he, "a young voice. Will you giveme your hand, my kind young friend, and lead me in?"

　　I held out my hand, and the horrible, soft-spoken,eyeless creature gripped it in a moment like a vise. Iwas so much startled that I struggled to withdraw, butthe blind man pulled me close up to him with a singleaction of his arm.

　　"Now, boy," he said, "take me in to the captain."

　　"Sir," said I, "upon my word I dare not."

　　"Oh," he sneered, "that's it! Take me in straight orI'll break your arm."

　　And he gave it, as he spoke, a wrench that made me cry out.

　　"Sir," said I, "it is for yourself I mean. The captainis not what he used to be. He sits with a drawncutlass. Another gentleman--"

　　"Come, now, march," interrupted he; and I never heard avoice so cruel, and cold, and ugly as that blind man's.It cowed me more than the pain, and I began to obey himat once, walking straight in at the door and towardsthe parlour, where our sick old buccaneer was sitting,dazed with rum. The blind man clung close to me,holding me in one iron fist and leaning almost more ofhis weight on me than I could carry. "Lead me straightup to him, and when I'm in view, cry out, 'Here's afriend for you, Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this,"and with that he gave me a twitch that I thought wouldhave made me faint. Between this and that, I was soutterly terrified of the blind beggar that I forgot myterror of the captain, and as I opened the parlour door,cried out the words he had ordered in a trembling voice.

　　The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look therum went out of him and left him staring sober. Theexpression of his face was not so much of terror as ofmortal sickness. He made a movement to rise, but I donot believe he had enough force left in his body.

　　"Now, Bill, sit where you are," said the beggar. "If Ican't see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business isbusiness. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take his lefthand by the wrist and bring it near to my right."

　　We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him passsomething from the hollow of the hand that held hisstick into the palm of the captain's, which closed uponit instantly.

　　"And now that's done," said the blind man; and at the wordshe suddenly left hold of me, and with incredible accuracyand nimbleness, skipped out of the parlour and into the road,where, as I still stood motionless, I could hear his stickgo tap-tap-tapping into the distance.

　　It was some time before either I or the captain seemedto gather our senses, but at length, and about at thesame moment, I released his wrist, which I was stillholding, and he drew in his hand and looked sharplyinto the palm.

　　"Ten o'clock!" he cried. "Six hours. We'll do themyet," and he sprang to his feet.

　　Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to histhroat, stood swaying for a moment, and then, with apeculiar sound, fell from his whole height faceforemost to the floor.

　　I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But hastewas all in vain. The captain had been struck dead bythundering apoplexy. It is a curious thing tounderstand, for I had certainly never liked the man,though of late I had begun to pity him, but as soon asI saw that he was dead, I burst into a flood of tears.It was the second death I had known, and the sorrow ofthe first was still fresh in my heart.