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Treasure Island

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Title: Treasure Island

Author: Robert Louis Stevenson

Illustrator: Louis Rhead

 
Release date: February 26, 2006 [eBook #120]
 Most recently updated: April 1, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/120

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREASURE ISLAND ***
TREASURE ISLAND

by Robert Louis Stevenson

TREASURE ISLAND

To S.L.O., an American gentleman in accordance with whose classic taste
the following narrative has been designed, it is now, in return for
numerous delightful hours, and with the kindest wishes, dedicated by his
affectionate friend, the author.

 TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER

 If sailor tales to sailor tunes,
 Storm and adventure, heat and cold,
 If schooners, islands, and maroons,
 And buccaneers, and buried gold,
 And all the old romance, retold
 Exactly in the ancient way,
 Can please, as me they pleased of old,
 The wiser youngsters of today:

 --So be it, and fall on! If not,
 If studious youth no longer crave,
 His ancient appetites forgot,
 Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,
 Or Cooper of the wood and wave:
 So be it, also! And may I
 And all my pirates share the grave
 Where these and their creations lie!

 CONTENTS

 PART ONE
 The Old Buccaneer

 I. THE OLD SEA-DOG AT THE ADMIRAL BENBOW . . . . 11
 II. BLACK DOG APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS . . . . . . 17
 III. THE BLACK SPOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
 IV. THE SEA-CHEST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
 V. THE LAST OF THE BLIND MAN . . . . . . . . . . 36
 VI. THE CAPTAIN'S PAPERS . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

 PART TWO
 The Sea Cook

 VII. I GO TO BRISTOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
 VIII. AT THE SIGN OF THE SPY-GLASS . . . . . . . 54
 IX. POWDER AND ARMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
 X. THE VOYAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
 XI. WHAT I HEARD IN THE APPLE-BARREL . . . . . . 70
 XII. COUNCIL OF WAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

 PART THREE
 My Shore Adventure

 XIII. HOW I BEGAN MY SHORE ADVENTURE . . . . . . 82
 XIV. THE FIRST BLOW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
 XV. THE MAN OF THE ISLAND. . . . . . . . . . . . 93

 PART FOUR
 The Stockade

 XVI. NARRATIVE CONTINUED BY THE DOCTOR:
 HOW THE SHIP WAS ABANDONED . . . . . . . . 100
 XVII. NARRATIVE CONTINUED BY THE DOCTOR:
 THE JOLLY-BOAT'S LAST TRIP . . . . . . . . 105
 XVIII. NARRATIVE CONTINUED BY THE DOCTOR:
 END OF THE FIRST DAY'S FIGHTING . . . . . 109
 XIX. NARRATIVE RESUMED BY JIM HAWKINS:
 THE GARRISON IN THE STOCKADE . . . . . . . 114
 XX. SILVER'S EMBASSY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
 XXI. THE ATTACK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

 PART FIVE
 My Sea Adventure

 XXII. HOW I BEGAN MY SEA ADVENTURE . . . . . . . 132
 XXIII. THE EBB-TIDE RUNS . . . . . . . . . . . 138
 XXIV. THE CRUISE OF THE CORACLE . . . . . . . . 143
 XXV. I STRIKE THE JOLLY ROGER . . . . . . . . . 148
 XXVI. ISRAEL HANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
 XXVII. "PIECES OF EIGHT" . . . . . . . . . . . 161

 PART SIX
 Captain Silver

 XXVIII. IN THE ENEMY'S CAMP . . . . . . . . . . 168
 XXIX. THE BLACK SPOT AGAIN . . . . . . . . . . . 176
 XXX. ON PAROLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
 XXXI. THE TREASURE-HUNT--FLINT'S POINTER . . . . 189
 XXXII. THE TREASURE-HUNT--THE VOICE AMONG
 THE TREES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
 XXXIII. THE FALL OF A CHIEFTAIN . . . . . . . . 201
 XXXIV. AND LAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

TREASURE ISLAND

PART ONE--The Old Buccaneer

I
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 cove 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 pe

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