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Chapter 6
The Captain's Papers
WE rode hard all the way till we drew up
before Dr. Livesey's door.
The house was all dark to the front.
Mr. Dance told me to jump down and knock,
and Dogger gave me a stirrup to descend by.
The door was opened almost at once by the
maid.
"Is Dr. Livesey in?"
I asked.
No, she said, he had come home in the
afternoon but had gone up to the hall to
dine and pass the evening with the squire.
"So there we go, boys," said Mr. Dance.
This time, as the distance was short, I did
not mount, but ran with Dogger's stirrup-
leather to the lodge gates and up the long,
leafless, moonlit avenue to where the white
line of the hall buildings looked on either
hand on great old gardens.
Here Mr. Dance dismounted, and taking me
along with him, was admitted at a word into
the house.
The servant led us down a matted passage
and showed us at the end into a great
library, all lined with bookcases and busts
upon the top of them, where the squire and
Dr. Livesey sat, pipe in hand, on either
side of a bright fire.
I had never seen the squire so near at
hand.
He was a tall man, over six feet high, and
broad in proportion, and he had a bluff,
rough-and-ready face, all roughened and
reddened and lined in his long travels.
His eyebrows were very black, and moved
readily, and this gave him a look of some
temper, not bad, you would say, but quick
and high.
"Come in, Mr. Dance," says he, very stately
and condescending.
"Good evening, Dance," says 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; and 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 it was done, Mr. Trelawney
(that, you will remember, was the squire's
name) had got up from his seat and was
striding about the room, and the doctor, as
if to hear the better, had taken off his
powdered wig and sat there looking very
strange indeed with his own close-cropped
black poll.
At last Mr. Dance finished the story.
"Mr. Dance," said the squire, "you are a
very noble fellow.
And as for riding down that black,
atrocious miscreant, I regard it as an act
of virtue, sir, like stamping on a
cockroach.
This lad Hawkins is a trump, I perceive.
Hawkins, will you ring that bell?
Mr. Dance must have some ale."
"And so, Jim," said the doctor, "you have
the thing that they were after, have you?"
"Here it is, sir," said I, 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," said he, "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 with
your permission, I propose we should have
up the cold pie and let him sup."
"As you will, Livesey," said the squire;
"Hawkins has earned better than cold pie."
So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put
on a sidetable, and I made a hearty supper,
for I was as hungry as a hawk, while Mr.
Dance was further complimented and at last
dismissed.
"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 have heard of this Flint, I suppose?"
"Heard of him!" cried the squire.
"Heard of him, you say!
He was the bloodthirstiest buccaneer that
sailed.
Blackbeard was a child to Flint.
The Spaniards were so prodigiously 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-puncheon that I sailed with put back--
put back, sir, into Port of Spain."
"Well, I've heard of him myself, in
England," said the doctor.
"But the point is, had he 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 rascal
carcasses but money?"
"That we shall soon know," replied the
doctor.
"But you are so confoundedly hot-headed and
exclamatory that I cannot get a word in.
What I want to know is this: Supposing that
I have here in my pocket some clue to where
Flint buried his treasure, will that
treasure amount to much?"
"Amount, sir!" cried the squire.
"It will amount to this: If we have the
clue you talk about, I fit out a ship in
Bristol dock, and take you and Hawkins here
along, and I'll have that treasure if I
search a year."
"Very well," said the doctor.
"Now, then, if Jim is agreeable, we'll open
the packet"; and he laid it before him on
The bundle was sewn together, and 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 peering over his
shoulder as he opened it, for Dr. Livesey
had kindly motioned me to come round from
the side-table, where I had been eating, to
enjoy the sport of the search.
On the first page there were only some
scraps of writing, such as a man with a pen
in his hand 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 snatches,
mostly single words and unintelligible.
I could not help wondering who it was that
had "got itt," and what "itt" was that he
got.
A knife in his back as like as not.
"Not much instruction there," said Dr.
Livesey as he passed 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, 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, as "Offe Caraccas,"
or a mere entry of latitude and longitude,
as "62o 17' 20", 19o 2' 40"."
The record lasted over nearly twenty years,
the amount of the separate entries growing
larger as time went on, and at the end a
grand total had been made out after five or
six wrong additions, and these words
appended, "Bones, his pile."
"I can't make head or tail of this," said
Dr. Livesey.
"The thing is as clear as noonday," cried
the squire.
"This is the black-hearted hound's account-
book.
These crosses stand for the names of ships
or towns that they sank or plundered.
The sums are the scoundrel's share, and
where he feared an ambiguity, you see he
added something clearer.
'Offe Caraccas,' now; you see, here was
some unhappy vessel boarded off that coast.
God help the poor souls that manned her--
coral long ago."
"Right!" said the doctor.
"See what it is to be a traveller.
Right!
And the amounts increase, you see, as he
rose in rank."
There was little else in the volume but a
few bearings of places noted in the blank
leaves towards the end and a table for
reducing French, English, and Spanish
moneys 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, with latitude and longitude,
soundings, names of hills and bays and
inlets, and every particular that would be
needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage
upon its shores.
It was about nine miles long and five
across, shaped, you might say, like a fat
dragon standing up, and had two fine land-
locked harbours, and a hill in the centre
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
tottery characters, 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. Ten feet.
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 incomprehensible, it filled the squire
and Dr. Livesey with delight.
"Livesey," said the squire, "you will give
up this wretched practice at once.
Tomorrow I start for Bristol.
In three weeks' time--three weeks!--two
weeks--ten days--we'll have the best ship,
sir, and the choicest crew in England.
Hawkins shall come as cabin-boy.
You'll make a famous cabin-boy, Hawkins.
You, Livesey, are ship's doctor; I am
admiral.
We'll take Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter.
We'll have favourable winds, a quick
passage, and not the least difficulty in
finding the spot, and money to eat, to roll
in, to play duck and drake with ever
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; "for you cannot
hold your tongue.
We are not the only men who know of this
paper.
These fellows who attacked the inn tonight-
-bold, desperate blades, for sure--and the
rest who stayed aboard that lugger, and
more, I dare say, not far off, are, one and
all, through thick and thin, bound that
they'll get that money.
We must none of us go alone till we get to
sea.
Jim and I shall stick together in the
meanwhile; 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," returned the squire, "you are
always in the right of it.
I'll be as silent as the grave."