TREASURE ISLAND

Chapter One: The Old Sailor at the Inn

My name is Jim Hawkins.
I am telling this story.

Some friends asked me to write it down.
It is about Treasure Island.
I will tell almost everything.
But I will not tell where the island is.
There is still treasure there.
No one has found it yet.

My father kept an inn.
It was called the Admiral Benbow.
One day, an old sailor came to stay.

He was tall and strong.
His skin was brown from the sun.
He had a scar on his cheek.
His hands were rough and scarred.

He walked to our door.
Men carried his big sea chest behind him.
He looked around and began to sing an old sea song.

He knocked on the door with his stick.
My father came out.
The old sailor asked for a glass of rum.
He drank it slowly.
He looked at the cliffs and the sea.

"This is a nice, quiet place," he said.
"Not many people come here?"

My father said no, not many.

"Good," said the sailor. "This is the place for me."
He called to the man with his chest.
"Bring it up! I will stay here a while."

He said he was a simple man.
He wanted rum, and bacon, and eggs.
He wanted to watch the sea from the cliff.
He said, "Call me Captain."

Then he threw down some gold coins.
"Tell me when that money is used up," he said.

He did not look like a common sailor.
He looked like someone used to giving orders.

We learned that a mail coach had left him nearby.
He had asked about inns along the coast.
He picked ours because it was quiet.
That is all we ever learned about him.

The captain did not talk much.
All day, he walked by the sea.
He carried a long spyglass to look at ships.
At night, he sat by the fire.
He drank rum and water, strong and often.

He did not like to be spoken to.
He would just stare, and snort like an angry animal.
So people learned to leave him alone.

Every day, he asked the same question.
"Did any sailors go by today?"

At first, we thought he wanted company.
But soon we understood.
He was hiding from someone.

If a sailor ever came to our inn,
the captain would peek at him first.
He stayed very quiet until that sailor left.

One day, he took me aside.
He gave me a job.
He said, "Watch for a sailor with one leg.
Tell me the moment you see him."

He promised me a coin every month for this.
Sometimes he forgot to pay me.
But he always paid me before the month was over.
And every time, he said the same thing:
"Watch for the sailor with one leg."

That one-legged sailor scared me very much.
I dreamed about him almost every night.
In my dreams, he looked different each time.
Sometimes his leg was cut off high up.
Sometimes he had just one leg, right in the middle of his body.
In my dreams, he chased me everywhere.
It was the worst kind of nightmare.

I was very scared of that one-legged man.
But I was not as scared of the captain as other people were.

Some nights, the captain drank too much rum.
Then he would sing his wild old sea songs.
He did not care who listened.

Other nights, he made everyone listen to his stories.
He made them sing with him too.
People were scared, so they all sang loudly.
No one wanted to make him angry.

He would bang his hand on the table for quiet.
He got angry if someone asked a question.
He also got angry if no one asked a question!
He thought that meant they were not listening.
No one could leave until he was tired and went to bed.

His stories were the scariest part.
He told of hangings, and storms, and terrible things at sea.
He must have known very bad, dangerous men.
His rough words shocked our quiet neighbors.

My father worried the stories would scare customers away.
But really, people liked the excitement.
It made their quiet lives more interesting.
Some young men even said the captain was a "real old sailor."
They thought men like him made English sailors strong and brave.

The captain stayed for weeks.
Then he stayed for months.
Soon, his money was all used up.
But my father was too afraid to ask him for more.

If my father even mentioned money,
the captain would snort loudly, like a roar.
He would stare at my father until he left the room.
My father was miserable about this.
I think all this worry made him sick sooner.

The captain never bought new clothes.
He only got some new stockings once.
His hat had a broken corner that he never fixed.
His coat got so many patches, it was almost all patches!

He never wrote letters.
He never got letters.
He only spoke to neighbors when he had been drinking rum.

No one ever saw inside his big sea chest.

Only one time did anyone dare to stand up to him.
That was near the end.
By then, my poor father was very sick.
He did not have long to live.

One afternoon, Doctor Livesey came to visit.
He came to see my father, who was sick.