TREASURE ISLAND
PART ONE – The Old Buccaneer
1
The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral Benbow
SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write
Down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing
Back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take
Up my pen in the year of grace 17__ and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral
Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof.
I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following
Behind him in a hand-barrow – a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the
Shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the
Sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cover and
Whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he 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 have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then
He rapped on the door with a bit of stick like 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, like
A connoisseur, lingering on the taste and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.
“This is a handy cove,” says he at length; “and a pleasant sittyated grog-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, matey,” he cried to the man who trundled
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 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 on the threshold. “You can tell me when I’ve worked through 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 like a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed 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 inquired what inns there were along the coast, and hearing ours well
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 guest.
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 parlour 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 like a fog-horn; and we and the people who came about our house soon learned to
Let him be. Every day when he came back 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 kind that made
Him ask this question, but at last we began to see he was desirous to avoid them. When a seaman did
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