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Treasure Island
Chapter 6. The Captain's Papers
We rode hard all the way until we stopped in front of Dr. Livesey's door.
The house was completely dark at the front.
Mr. Dance told me to jump down and knock, and Dogger gave me a stirrup to step down from.
The door was opened almost at once by the maid.
"Is Dr. Livesey in?" I asked.
"No," she said, giving a quick shake of her head.
He had come home in the afternoon but had gone up to the hall to dine and spend the evening with the squire.
"So there we go, boys," said Mr. Dance.
This time, since the distance was short, I didn't get on the horse.
Instead, I ran beside Dogger's stirrup-leather to the lodge gates and up the long, leafless, moonlit avenue.
At the end, the white line of the hall buildings looked out on both sides over great old gardens.
Here Mr. Dance got off his horse, and taking me with him, was let in with a word into the house.
The servant led us down a carpeted passage and showed us at the end into a great library.
It was lined with bookcases, with busts on top of them.
The squire and Dr. Livesey sat there, pipe in hand, on either side of a bright fire.
I had never seen the squire so close before.
He was a tall man, over six feet high, and broad in proportion.
He had a rough, straightforward face, all roughened and reddened and lined from his long travels.
His eyebrows were very black and moved easily, and this gave him a look of some temper.
Not a bad temper, you'd say, but quick and high.
"Come in, Mr. Dance," he said, very stately and condescending.
"Good evening, Dance," said the doctor with a nod.
"And good evening to you, friend Jim. What good wind brings you here?"
The supervisor stood up straight and stiff and told his story like a lesson.
You should have seen how the two gentlemen leaned forward and looked at each other, and forgot to smoke in their surprise and interest.
When they heard how my mother went back to the inn, Dr. Livesey fairly slapped his thigh, and the squire cried "Bravo!"
And broke his long pipe against the grate.
Long before the story was done, Mr. Trelawney, you'll remember, had risen from his seat and was walking about the room.
The doctor, as if to hear better, had taken off his powdered wig and sat there looking very strange indeed with his own close-cut black hair.
At last Mr. Dance finished the story.
"Mr. Dance," said the squire.
"You're a noble fellow, as for riding down that black, terrible criminal I regard it as an act of virtue, sir, like a cockroach," said the squire.
"This boy Hawkins is a fine fellow, I can see. Hawkins, will you ring that bell? Mr. Dance must have some ale," said the squire.
"And so, Jim," said the doctor, "you have the thing that they were after, don't you?"
"Here it's, sir," I said, and gave him the oilskin packet.
The 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," he said, "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 I propose we bring up the cold pie and let him eat".
"As you wish, Livesey," said the squire.
"Hawkins has earned better than cold pie."
So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put on a side table.
And I made a hearty supper, for I was as hungry as a hawk.
Mr. Dance was further complimented and at last sent off.
"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've heard of this Flint, I suppose?"
"Heard of him!" cried the squire.
"Heard of him, you say!"
"He was the bloodthirstiest pirate that ever sailed."
"Blackbeard was a child compared to Flint."
"The Spaniards were so terribly 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-barrel that I sailed with turned back."
"Turned back, sir, into Port of Spain."
"Well, I've heard of him myself, in England," said the doctor.
"But the point is, did he have 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 dirty bodies but money?"
"That we'll soon know," replied the doctor.
"But you're so terribly hot-headed and loud that I can't get a word in."
"What I want to know is this, Suppose that I have here in my pocket some clue to where Flint buried his treasure."
"Will that treasure be worth a lot?"
"Worth a lot, sir!" cried the squire.
"It'll be worth this, If we have the clue you talk about, I'll fit out a ship in Bristol dock."
"I'll take you and Hawkins here along."
"And I'll have that treasure if I search for a year."
"Very well," said the doctor.
"Now, then, if Jim agrees, we'll open the packet." And he laid it before him on the table.
The bundle was sewn together, 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 looking over his shoulder as he opened it.
Dr. Livesey had kindly motioned me to come around from the side table, where I had been eating, to enjoy the fun of the search.
On the first page were only scraps of writing a man with a pen 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 pieces, mostly single words and unclear.
I couldn't help wondering who it was that had "got itt," and what "itt" was that he got.
A knife in his back, most likely.
"Not much information there," said Dr. Livesey as he moved 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, there was 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, like "Offe Caraccas,"
Or a simple entry of latitude and longitude, like "62o 17' 20'', 19o 2' 40''."
The record lasted for nearly twenty years.
The amount of the separate entries grew larger as time went on.
At the end, a grand total had been made out after five or six wrong additions, and these words were added, "Bones, his pile."
"I can't make head or tail of this," said Dr. Livesey.
"The thing is as clear as day," cried the squire.
"This is the black-hearted dog's account book."
"These crosses stand for the names of ships or towns that they sank or robbed."
"The sums are the scoundrel's share."
"And where he feared a confusion, you see he added something clearer. 'Offe Caraccas,' now."
"You see, here was some unhappy ship boarded off that coast."
"God help the poor souls that manned her."
"They're coral long ago."
"Right!" said the doctor.
"See what it's to be a traveler. Right! And the amounts increase, you see, as he rose in rank."
There was little else in the book except a few bearings of places noted in the blank leaves towards the end.
It also contained a table for reducing French, English, and Spanish money 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.
It had latitude and longitude, soundings, names of hills, bays, and inlets.
It included every detail needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage on its shores.
It was about nine miles long and five miles across.
Shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon standing up.
It had two fine land-locked harbors and a hill in the center 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 shaky writing, 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. as noted on the chart nearby.
Ten feet deep, measured from the low-water mark of the channel.
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 impossible to understand, it filled the squire and Dr. Livesey with delight.
"Livesey," said the squire.
"Livesey," said the squire, "you'll give up this miserable practice at once."
"Tomorrow I start for Bristol, and in three weeks' time we'll have the best ship and the finest crew in England."
"Hawkins shall come as cabin boy and you'll make a famous cabin boy, Hawkins, you, Livesey, are ship's doctor, and I'm admiral."
"We'll take Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter, have favorable winds and a quick passage, find the spot without difficulty, and have money forever 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.
"Because you can't hold your tongue."
"We aren't the only men who know about this paper."
"These fellows who attacked the inn tonight."
"Bold, desperate men, for sure."
"And the rest who stayed aboard that lugger."
"And more, I dare say, not far off."
"They're, one and all, through thick and thin, determined that they'll get that money."
"None of us must go alone until we get to sea."
"Jim and I shall stick together in the meantime."
"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," replied the squire, "you're always right about it. I'll be as silent as the grave."
PART TWO, the Sea-cook, opens with the promise of a dangerous sea adventure.