Treasure Island

by Robert Louis Stevenson

sharply into the palm. “Ten o’clock!” he cried. “Six hours.

“If none of the rest of you dare,” she said, “Jim and I dare. Back we will go, the way we came, and small thanks to you big, hulking, chicken-hearted men. We’ll have that chest open, if we die for it. And I’ll thank you for that bag, Mrs. Crossley, to bring back our lawful money in.”

All they would do was to give me a loaded pistol lest we were attacked; and to promise to have horses ready saddled, in case we were pursued on our return; while one lad was to ride forward to the doctor’s in search of armed assistance.

“I’m poor Ben Gunn, I am; and I haven’t spoke with a Christian these three years.”

the offender is put ashore with a little powder and

Now, no man ever seen a sperrit with a shadow; well then, what’s he doing with an echo to him,

“Dig away, boys,” said Silver with the coolest insolence; “you’ll find some pig-nuts and I shouldn’t wonder.”

Silver never moved; he watched them, very upright on his crutch, and looked as cool as ever I saw him. He was brave, and no mistake.

It was a story that profoundly interested Silver; and Ben Gunn, the half-idiot maroon, was the hero from beginning to end.

Ben, in his long, lonely wanderings about the island, had found the skeleton—it was he that had rifled it; he had found the treasure; he had dug it up (it was the haft of his pick-axe that lay broken in the excavation); he had carried it on his back, in many weary journeys, from the foot of the tall pine to a

Ben Gunn’s cave was well supplied with goats’ meat salted by himself—given

what should we meet but the Hispaniola, cruising by herself? The last flood had lifted her, and had there been much wind or a strong tide current,

“John Silver,” he said, “you’re a prodigious villain and imposter—a monstrous imposter, sir. I am told I am not to prosecute you. Well, then, I will not. But the dead men, sir, hang about your neck like mill-stones.”

I beheld great heaps of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of gold. That was Flint’s treasure that we had come so far to seek

The three fellows must have been watching us closer than we thought for, as we soon had proved. For coming through the narrows, we had to lie very near the southern point, and there we saw all three of them kneeling together on a spit of sand, with their arms raised in supplication. It went to all our hearts, I think, to leave them in that wretched state; but we could not risk another mutiny;

Silver was gone. The maroon had connived at his escape in a shore boat some hours ago, and he now assured us he had only done so to preserve our lives, which would certainly have been forfeit if “that man with the one leg had stayed aboard.” But this was not all. The sea-cook had not gone empty handed. He had cut through a bulkhead unobserved,

removed one of the sacks of coin, worth, perhaps, three or four hundred guineas, to help him on his further wanderings.

Five men only of those who had sailed returned with her. “Drink and the devil had done for the rest,” with a vengeance;

they sang about: “With one man of her crew alive, What put to sea with seventy-five.”

Captain Smollett is now retired from the sea. Gray not only saved his money, but, being suddenly smit with the desire to rise, also studied his profession; and he is now mate and part owner of a fine full-rigged ship, married besides, and the father of a family. As for Ben Gunn, he got a thousand pounds, which he spent or lost in three weeks, or, to be more exact, in nineteen days, for he was back begging on the twentieth.

That formidable seafaring man with one leg has at last gone clean out of my life; but I daresay he met his old negress, and perhaps still

lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint.

Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed, with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: “Pieces of eight! pieces of eight!”