Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT) 📖

doctor looked it all over, as if his fingers were

itching to open it; but instead of doing that, he put

it quietly in the pocket of his coat.

 

“Squire,” said he, “when Dance has had his ale he must,

of course, be off on his Majesty’s service; but I mean

to keep Jim Hawkins here to sleep at my house, and with

your permission, I propose we should have up the cold

pie and let him sup.”

 

“As you will, Livesey,” said the squire; “Hawkins has

earned better than cold pie.”

 

So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put on a

sidetable, and I made a hearty supper, for I was as

hungry as a hawk, while Mr. Dance was further

complimented and at last dismissed.

 

“And now, squire,” said the doctor.

 

“And now, Livesey,” said the squire in the same breath.

 

“One at a time, one at a time,” laughed Dr. Livesey.

“You have heard of this Flint, I suppose?”

 

“Heard of him!” cried the squire. “Heard of him, you

say! He was the bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed.

Blackbeard was a child to Flint. The Spaniards were so

prodigiously afraid of him that, I tell you, sir, I was

sometimes proud he was an Englishman. I’ve seen his

top-sails with these eyes, off Trinidad, and the

cowardly son of a rum-puncheon that I sailed with put

back—put back, sir, into Port of Spain.”

 

“Well, I’ve heard of him myself, in England,” said the

doctor. “But the point is, had he money?”

 

“Money!” cried the squire. “Have you heard the story?

What were these villains after but money? What do they

care for but money? For what would they risk their

rascal carcasses but money?”

 

“That we shall soon know,” replied the doctor. “But

you are so confoundedly hot-headed and exclamatory that

I cannot get a word in. What I want to know is this:

Supposing that I have here in my pocket some clue to

where Flint buried his treasure, will that treasure

amount to much?”

 

“Amount, sir!” cried the squire. “It will amount to

this: If we have the clue you talk about, I fit out a

ship in Bristol dock, and take you and Hawkins here

along, and I’ll have that treasure if I search a year.”

 

“Very well,” said the doctor. “Now, then, if Jim is

agreeable, we’ll open the packet”; and he laid it

before him on the table.

 

The bundle was sewn together, and the doctor had to get

out his instrument case and cut the stitches with his

medical scissors. It contained two things—a book and

a sealed paper.

 

“First of all we’ll try the book,” observed the doctor.

 

The squire and I were both peering over his shoulder as

he opened it, for Dr. Livesey had kindly motioned me to

come round from the sidetable, where I had been

eating, to enjoy the sport of the search. On the first

page there were only some scraps of writing, such as a

man with a pen in his hand might make for idleness or

practice. One was the same as the tattoo mark, “Billy

Bones his fancy”; then there was “Mr. W. Bones, mate,”

“No more rum,” “Off Palm Key he got itt,” and some

other snatches, mostly single words and unintelligible.

I could not help wondering who it was that had “got

itt,” and what “itt” was that he got. A knife in his

back as like as not.

 

“Not much instruction there,” said Dr. Livesey as he

passed on.

 

The next ten or twelve pages were filled with a curious

series of entries. There was a date at one end of the

line and at the other a sum of money, as in common

account-books, but instead of explanatory writing, only

a varying number of crosses between the two. On the

12th of June, 1745, for instance, a sum of seventy

pounds had plainly become due to someone, and there was

nothing but six crosses to explain the cause. In a few

cases, to be sure, the name of a place would be added,

as “Offe Caraccas,” or a mere entry of latitude and

longitude, as “62o 17′ 20″, 19o 2′ 40″.”

 

The record lasted over nearly twenty years, the amount

of the separate entries growing larger as time went on,

and at the end a grand total had been made out after

five or six wrong additions, and these words appended,

“Bones, his pile.”

 

“I can’t make head or tail of this,” said Dr. Livesey.

 

“The thing is as clear as noonday,” cried the squire.

“This is the black-hearted hound’s account-book. These

crosses stand for the names of ships or towns that they

sank or plundered. The sums are the scoundrel’s share,

and where he feared an ambiguity, you see he added

something clearer. ‘Offe Caraccas,’ now; you see, here

was some unhappy vessel boarded off that coast. God

help the poor souls that manned her—coral long ago.”

 

“Right!” said the doctor. “See what it is to be a

traveller. Right! And the amounts increase, you see,

as he rose in rank.”

 

There was little else in the volume but a few bearings

of places noted in the blank leaves towards the end and

a table for reducing French, English, and Spanish

moneys to a common value.

 

“Thrifty man!” cried the doctor. “He wasn’t the one to

be cheated.”

 

“And now,” said the squire, “for the other.”

 

The paper had been sealed in several places with a

thimble by way of seal; the very thimble, perhaps, that

I had found in the captain’s pocket. The doctor opened

the seals with great care, and there fell out the map

of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings,

names of hills and bays and inlets, and every

particular that would be needed to bring a ship to a

safe anchorage upon its shores. It was about nine

miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like

a fat dragon standing up, and had two fine land-locked

harbours, and a hill in the centre part marked “The

Spy-glass.” There were several additions of a later

date, but above all, three crosses of red ink—two on

the north part of the island, one in the southwest—and

beside this last, in the same red ink, and in a small,

neat hand, very different from the captain’s tottery

characters, these words: “Bulk of treasure here.”

 

Over on the back the same hand had written this further

information:

 

Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to

the N. of N.N.E.

 

Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E.

 

Ten feet.

 

The bar silver is in the north cache; you can find

it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms

south of the black crag with the face on it.

 

The arms are easy found, in the sand-hill, N.

point of north inlet cape, bearing E. and a

quarter N.

J.F.

 

That was all; but brief as it was, and to me

incomprehensible, it filled the squire and Dr. Livesey

with delight.

 

“Livesey,” said the squire, “you will give up this

wretched practice at once. Tomorrow I start for

Bristol. In three weeks’ time—three weeks!—two

weeks—ten days—we’ll have the best ship, sir, and the

choicest crew in England. Hawkins shall come as cabin-boy. You’ll make a famous cabin-boy, Hawkins. You,

Livesey, are ship’s doctor; I am admiral. We’ll take

Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter. We’ll have favourable

winds, a quick passage, and not the least difficulty in

finding the spot, and money to eat, to roll in, to play

duck and drake with ever after.”

 

“Trelawney,” said the doctor, “I’ll go with you; and

I’ll go bail for it, so will Jim, and be a credit to

the undertaking. There’s only one man I’m afraid of.”

 

“And who’s that?” cried the squire. “Name the dog, sir!”

 

“You,” replied the doctor; “for you cannot hold your

tongue. We are not the only men who know of this

paper. These fellows who attacked the inn tonight—

bold, desperate blades, for sure—and the rest who

stayed aboard that lugger, and more, I dare say, not

far off, are, one and all, through thick and thin,

bound that they’ll get that money. We must none of us

go alone till we get to sea. Jim and I shall stick

together in the meanwhile; you’ll take Joyce and Hunter

when you ride to Bristol, and from first to last, not

one of us must breathe a word of what we’ve found.”

 

“Livesey,” returned the squire, “you are always in the

right of it. I’ll be as silent as the grave.”