Part One: The Old Buccaneer - Chapter 1: The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral Benbow

by Robert Louis Stevenson

　　Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of thesegentlemen having asked me to write down the wholeparticulars about Treasure Island, from the beginningto the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of theisland, and that only because there is still treasure notyet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17__and go back to the time when my father kept the AdmiralBenbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cutfirst took up his lodging under our roof.

　　I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he cameplodding to the inn door, his sea-chest followingbehind him in a hand-barrow--a tall, strong, heavy,nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over theshoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged andscarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cutacross one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember himlooking round the cover and whistling to himself as hedid so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song thathe sang so often afterwards:

　　"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to havebeen tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then herapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspikethat he carried, and when my father appeared, calledroughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was broughtto him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingeringon the taste and still looking about him at the cliffsand up at our signboard.

　　"This is a handy cove," says he at length; "and apleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate?"

　　My father told him no, very little company, the morewas the pity.

　　"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me.Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled thebarrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'llstay here a bit," he continued. "I'm a plain man; rumand bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head upthere for to watch 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 onthe threshold. "You can tell me when I've workedthrough that," says he, looking as fierce as acommander.

　　And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as hespoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailedbefore the mast, but seemed like a mate or skipperaccustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man whocame with the barrow told us the mail had set him downthe morning before at the Royal George, that he hadinquired what inns there were along the coast, andhearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described aslonely, had chosen it from the others for his place ofresidence. And that was all we could learn of our guest.

　　He was a very silent man by custom. All day he hunground the cove or upon the cliffs with a brasstelescope; all evening he sat in a corner of theparlour next the fire and drank rum and water verystrong. Mostly he would not speak when spoken to, onlylook up sudden and fierce and blow through his noselike a fog-horn; and we and the people who came aboutour house soon learned to let him be. Every day whenhe came back from his stroll he would ask if anyseafaring men had gone by along the road. At first wethought it was the want of company of his own kind thatmade him ask this question, but at last we began to seehe was desirous to avoid them. When a seaman did putup at the Admiral Benbow (as now and then some did,making by the coast road for Bristol) he would look inat him through the curtained door before he entered theparlour; and he was always sure to be as silent as amouse when any such was present. For me, at least,there was no secret about the matter, for I was, in away, a sharer in his alarms. He had taken me aside oneday and promised me a silver fourpenny on the first ofevery month if I would only keep my "weather-eye openfor a seafaring man with one leg" and let him know themoment he appeared. Often enough when the first of themonth came round and I applied to him for my wage, hewould only blow through his nose at me and stare me down,but before the week was out he was sure to think betterof it, bring me my four-penny piece, and repeat his ordersto look out for "the seafaring man with one leg."

　　How that personage haunted my dreams, I need scarcelytell you. On stormy nights, when the wind shook thefour corners of the house and the surf roared along thecove and up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousandforms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions. Nowthe leg would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip;now he was a monstrous kind of a creature who had neverhad but the one leg, and that in the middle of hisbody. To see him leap and run and pursue me over hedgeand ditch was the worst of nightmares. And altogetherI paid pretty dear for my monthly fourpenny piece, inthe shape of these abominable fancies.

　　But though I was so terrified by the idea of theseafaring man with one leg, I was far less afraid ofthe captain himself than anybody else who knew him.There were nights when he took a deal more rum andwater than his head would carry; and then he wouldsometimes sit and sing his wicked, old, wild sea-songs,minding nobody; but sometimes he would call for glassesround and force all the trembling company to listen tohis stories or bear a chorus to his singing. Often Ihave heard the house shaking with "Yo-ho-ho, and abottle of rum," all the neighbours joining in for dearlife, with the fear of death upon them, and eachsinging louder than the other to avoid remark. For inthese fits he was the most overriding companion everknown; he would slap his hand on the table for silenceall round; he would fly up in a passion of anger at aquestion, or sometimes because none was put, and so hejudged the company was not following his story. Norwould he allow anyone to leave the inn till he haddrunk himself sleepy and reeled off to bed.

　　His stories were what frightened people worst of all.Dreadful stories they were--about hanging, and walkingthe plank, and storms at sea, and the Dry Tortugas, andwild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. By his ownaccount he must have lived his life among some of thewickedest men that God ever allowed upon the sea, andthe language in which he told these stories shocked ourplain country people almost as much as the crimes thathe described. My father was always saying the innwould be ruined, for people would soon cease comingthere to be tyrannized over and put down, and sentshivering to their beds; but I really believe hispresence did us good. People were frightened at thetime, but on looking back they rather liked it; it wasa fine excitement in a quiet country life, and therewas even a party of the younger men who pretended toadmire him, calling him a "true sea-dog" and a "realold salt" and such like names, and saying there was thesort of man that made England terrible at sea.

　　In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us, for he kepton staying week after week, and at last month after month,so that all the money had been long exhausted, and stillmy father never plucked up the heart to insist on havingmore. If ever he mentioned it, the captain blew throughhis nose so loudly that you might say he roared, and staredmy poor father out of the room. I have seen him wringinghis hands after such a rebuff, and I am sure the annoyanceand the terror he lived in must have greatly hastened hisearly and unhappy death.

　　All the time he lived with us the captain made no changewhatever in his dress but to buy some stockings from ahawker. One of the cocks of his hat having fallen down,he let it hang from that day forth, though it was a greatannoyance when it blew. I remember the appearance of hiscoat, which he patched himself upstairs in his room, andwhich, before the end, was nothing but patches. He neverwrote or received a letter, and he never spoke with anybut the neighbours, and with these, for the most part,only when drunk on rum. The great sea-chest none of ushad ever seen open.

　　He was only once crossed, and that was towards the end,when my poor father was far gone in a decline that tookhim off. Dr. Livesey came late one afternoon to seethe patient, took a bit of dinner from my mother, andwent into the parlour to smoke a pipe until his horseshould come down from the hamlet, for we had nostabling at the old Benbow. I followed him in, and Iremember observing the contrast the neat, brightdoctor, with his powder as white as snow and his bright,black eyes and pleasant manners, made with the coltishcountry folk, and above all, with that filthy, heavy,bleared scarecrow of a pirate of ours, sitting, far gonein rum, with his arms on the table. Suddenly he--thecaptain, that is--began to pipe up his eternal song:

　　"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"At first I had supposed "the dead man's chest" to bethat identical big box of his upstairs in the frontroom, and the thought had been mingled in my nightmareswith that of the one-legged seafaring man. But by thistime we had all long ceased to pay any particularnotice to the song; it was new, that night, to nobodybut Dr. Livesey, and on him I observed it did notproduce an agreeable effect, for he looked up for amoment quite angrily before he went on with his talk toold Taylor, the gardener, on a new cure for therheumatics. In the meantime, the captain graduallybrightened up at his own music, and at last flapped hishand upon the table before him in a way we all knew tomean silence. The voices stopped at once, all but Dr.Livesey's; he went on as before speaking clear and kindand drawing briskly at his pipe between every word ortwo. The captain glared at him for a while, flappedhis hand again, glared still harder, and at last brokeout with a villainous, low oath, "Silence, there,between decks!"

　　"Were you addressing me, sir?" says the doctor; andwhen the ruffian had told him, with another oath, thatthis was so, "I have only one thing to say to you, sir,"replies the doctor, "that if you keep on drinking rum,the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel!"

　　The old fellow's fury was awful. He sprang to hisfeet, drew and opened a sailor's clasp-knife, andbalancing it open on the palm of his hand, threatenedto pin the doctor to the wall.

　　The doctor never so much as moved. He spoke to him asbefore, over his shoulder and in the same tone ofvoice, rather high, so that all the room might hear,but perfectly calm and steady: "If you do not put thatknife this instant in your pocket, I promise, upon myhonour, you shall hang at the next assizes."

　　Then followed a battle of looks between them, but thecaptain soon knuckled under, put up his weapon, andresumed his seat, grumbling like a beaten dog.

　　"And now, sir," continued the doctor, "since I now knowthere's such a fellow in my district, you may count I'llhave an eye upon you day and night. I'm not a doctor only;I'm a magistrate; and if I catch a breath of complaintagainst you, if it's only for a piece of incivility liketonight's, I'll take effectual means to have you hunteddown and routed out of this. Let that suffice."

　　Soon after, Dr. Livesey's horse came to the door and herode away, but the captain held his peace that evening,and for many evenings to come.