Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Read Free Book Online Page A

who
     has proved himself throughout the most surprising
     trump.  The admirable fellow literally slaved in
     my interest, and so, I may say, did everyone in
     Bristol, as soon as they got wind of the port we
     sailed for—treasure, I mean.
    "Redruth," said I, interrupting the letter, "Dr. Livesey will not like that. The squire has been talking, after all."
    "Well, who's a better right?" growled the gamekeeper. "A pretty rum go if squire ain't to talk for Dr. Livesey, I should think."
    At that I gave up all attempts at commentary and read straight on:
         Blandly himself found the HISPANIOLA, and
     by the most admirable management got her for the
     merest trifle.  There is a class of men in Bristol
     monstrously prejudiced against Blandly.  They go
     the length of declaring that this honest creature
     would do anything for money, that the HISPANIOLA
     belonged to him, and that he sold it me absurdly
     high—the most transparent calumnies.  None of them
     dare, however, to deny the merits of the ship.

     So far there was not a hitch.  The
     workpeople, to be sure—riggers and what not—were
     most annoyingly slow; but time cured that.  It was
     the crew that troubled me.

     I wished a round score of men—in case of
     natives, buccaneers, or the odious French—and I
     had the worry of the deuce itself to find so much
     as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke
     of fortune brought me the very man that I
     required.

     I was standing on the dock, when, by the
     merest accident, I fell in talk with him.  I found
     he was an old sailor, kept a public-house, knew
     all the seafaring men in Bristol, had lost his
     health ashore, and wanted a good berth as cook to
     get to sea again.  He had hobbled down there that
     morning, he said, to get a smell of the salt.

     I was monstrously touched—so would you have
     been—and, out of pure pity, I engaged him on the
     spot to be ship's cook.  Long John Silver, he is
     called, and has lost a leg; but that I regarded as
     a recommendation, since he lost it in his
     country's service, under the immortal Hawke.  He
     has no pension, Livesey.  Imagine the abominable
     age we live in!

     Well, sir, I thought I had only found a cook,
     but it was a crew I had discovered.  Between
     Silver and myself we got together in a few days a
     company of the toughest old salts imaginable—not
     pretty to look at, but fellows, by their faces, of
     the most indomitable spirit.  I declare we could
     fight a frigate.

     Long John even got rid of two out of the six
     or seven I had already engaged.  He showed me in a
     moment that they were just the sort of fresh-water
     swabs we had to fear in an adventure of
     importance.

     I am in the most magnificent health and
     spirits, eating like a bull, sleeping like a tree,
     yet I shall not enjoy a moment till I hear my old
     tarpaulins tramping round the capstan.  Seaward,
     ho!  Hang the treasure!  It's the glory of the sea
     that has turned my head.  So now, Livesey, come
     post; do not lose an hour, if you respect me.

     Let young Hawkins go at once to see his
     mother, with Redruth for a guard; and then both
     come full speed to Bristol.
     John Trelawney

     Postscript—I did not tell you that Blandly,
     who, by the way, is to send a consort after us if
     we don't turn up by the end of August, had found
     an admirable fellow for sailing master—a stiff
     man, which I regret, but in all other respects a
     treasure.  Long John Silver unearthed a very