Treasure Island quotes

but before the week was out he was sure to think better of it, bring me my fourpenny piece, and repeat his orders to look out for “the seafaring man with one leg.”

How that personage haunted my dreams, I need scarcely tell you.

On stormy nights, when the wind shook the four corners of the house, and the surf roared along the cove and up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions.

The doctor never so much as moved. He spoke to him, as before, over his shoulder, and in the same tone of voice, rather high, so that all the room might hear, but perfectly calm and steady:

“If you do not put that knife this instant into your pocket, I promise, upon my honor, you shall hang at the next assizes.”

Then followed a battle of looks between them; but the captain soon knuckled under, put up his weapon, and resumed his seat, grumbling like a beaten dog.

I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But haste was all in vain. The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy.

It is a curious thing to understand, for I had certainly never liked the man, though of late I had begun to pity him, but as soon as I saw that he was dead I burst into a flood of tears.

It was the second death I had known, and the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart.

“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.”

“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.

In one, sailors were singing at their work; in another, there were men aloft, high over my head, hanging to threads that seemed no thicker than a spider’s.

Though I had lived by the shore all my life, I seemed never to have been near the sea till then.

The smell of tar and salt was something new. I saw the most wonderful figureheads, that had all been far over the ocean.

I saw, besides, many old sailors, with rings in their ears, and whiskers curled in ringlets, and tarry pigtails, and their swaggering, clumsy sea-walk; and if I had seen as many kings or archbishops I could not have been more delighted.

And I was going to sea myself; to sea in a schooner, with a piping boatswain, and pigtailed singing seamen; to sea, bound for an unknown island, and to seek for buried treasure.

While I was still in this delightful dream, we came suddenly in front of a large inn, and met Squire Trelawney, all dressed out like a sea officer, in stout blue cloth, coming out of the door with a smile on his face, and a …

“Well, sir,” said the captain, “better speak plain, I believe, at the risk of offense.

I don’t like this cruise; I don’t like the men; and I don’t like my officer. That’s short and sweet.

”

And then as I was hurrying off I heard him say, quite loudly, to the doctor:

“I’ll have no favorites on my ship.”

I assure you I was quite of the squire’s way of thinking, and hated the captain deeply.

“Never knew good to come of it yet,” the captain said to Doctor Livesey. “

Spoil foc’s’le hands, make devils. That’s my belief.

”

and now here on my own account, in a manner of speaking. I laid by nine hundred safe, from England, and two thousand after Flint. That ain’t bad for a man before the mast—all safe in bank.

’Tain’t earning now, it’s saving does it, you may lay to that.

Where’s all England’s men now? I dunno. Where’s Flint’s? Why, most of ’em aboard here, and glad to get the duff—been begging before that, some of ’em.

“Captain,” said the doctor, “with your permission, that’s Silver. A very remarkable man.”

“He’d look remarkably well from a yardarm, sir,” returned the captain.

“But this is talk; this don’t lead to anything. I see three or four points, and with Mr. Trelawney’s permission I’ll name them.”

A peculiar stagnant smell hung over the anchorage—a smell of sodden leaves and rotting tree trunks. I observed the doctor sniffing and sniffing, like someone tasting a bad egg.

“I don’t know about treasure,” he said, “but I’ll stake my wig there’s fever here.”

If the conduct of the men had been alarming in the boat, it became truly threatening when they had come aboard. They lay about the deck, growling together in talk. The slightest order was received with a black look, and grudgingly and carelessly obeyed.

They lay about the deck, growling together in talk. The slightest order was received with a black look, and grudgingly and carelessly obeyed. Even the honest hands must have caught the infection, for there was not one man aboard to mend another.

Mutiny, it was plain, hung over us like a thundercloud.

And it was not only we of the cabin party who perceived the danger. Long John was hard at work going from group to group, spending himself in good advice, and as for example no man could have shown a better.

Or, rather, I suppose the truth was this, that all hands were disaffected by the example of the ringleaders—only some more, some less; and a few, being good fellows in the main, could neither be led nor driven any farther.

It is one thing to be idle and skulk, and quite another to take a ship and murder a number of innocent men.

At last, however, the party was made up. Six fellows were to stay on board, and the remaining thirteen, including Silver, began to embark.

“Then rest his soul for a true seaman! And as for you, John Silver, long you’ve been a mate of mine, but you’re mate of mine no more. If I die like a dog I’ll die in my dooty. You’ve killed Alan, have you?

Kill me, too, if you can. But I defies you.

”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Ben Gunn,” he answered, and his voice sounded hoarse and awkward, like a rusty lock.

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

“Marooned three years agone,” he continued, “and lived on goats since then, and berries and oysters.

Wherever a man is, says I, a man can do for himself.

But, mate, my heart is sore for Christian diet. You mightn’t happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No? Well, many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese—toasted, mostly—and woke up again, and here I were.”

I was not new to violent death—I have served his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, and got a wound myself at Fontenoy—but I know my pulse went dot and carry one. “Jim Hawkins is gone,” was my first thought.

It is something to have been an old soldier, but more still to have been a doctor.

There is no time to dillydally in our work. And so now I made up my mind instantly, and with no time lost returned to the shore and jumped on board the jolly-boat.

“Tom, my man,” said I, “you’re going home.”

“I wish I had had a lick at them with the gun first,” he replied.

“Tom,” said the squire, “say you forgive me, won’t you?”

“Tom,” said the squire, “say you forgive me, won’t you?”

“Would that be respectful like, from me to you, squire?”

was the answer. “Howsoever, so be it, amen!”

The cold evening breeze, of which I have spoken, whistled through every chink of the rude building, and sprinkled the floor with a continual rain of fine sand.

There was sand in our eyes, sand in our teeth, sand in our suppers, sand dancing in the spring at the bottom of the kettle, for all the world like porridge beginning to boil.

Our chimney was a square hole in the roof; it was but a little part of the smoke that found its way out, and the rest eddied about the house, and kept us coughing and piping the eye.

“If there’s any doubt about the matter, he is,” returned the doctor. “

A man who has been three years biting his nails on a desert island, Jim, can’t expect to appear as sane as you or me. It doesn’t lie in human nature.

Was it cheese you said he had a fancy for?”

“No, sir,” replied Joyce. “I believe not, sir.”

“Next best thing to tell the truth,” muttered Captain Smollett.

“Load his gun, Hawkins. How many should you say there were on your side, doctor?”

“Why, no,” says I. “He’s about the last of this crew for that, I take it.”

“Well, shipmate,” said Gray, “mad he may not be, but if he’s not, mark my words, I am.”

“I take it,” replied I, “the doctor has his idea, and if I am right, he’s going now to see Ben Gunn.”

… cool draughts of air began to reach me, and a few steps farther I came forth into the open borders of the grove and saw the sea lying blue and sunny to the horizon and the surf tumbling and tossing its foam along the beach.

I have never seen the sea quiet round Treasure Island.

The sun might blaze overhead, the air be without a breath, the surface smooth and blue, but still these great rollers would be running along all the external coast, thundering and thundering by day and night, and I scarce believe there is one spot in …

Down I sat to wait for darkness, and made a hearty meal of biscuit.

It was a night out of ten thousand for my purpose.

The fog had now buried all heaven. As the last rays of daylight dwindled and disappeared, absolute blackness settled down on Treasure Island.

The hawser was as taut as a bowstring and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor.

All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream.

One cut with my sea gully, and the Hispaniola would go humming down the tide.

And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a company that had met such cruel losses in the morning.

But, indeed, from what I saw, all these buccaneers were as callous as the sea they sailed on.

At last the breeze came; the schooner sidled and drew nearer in the dark; I felt the hawser slacken once more, and with a good, tough effort, cut the last fibers through.

First, moving with all care, I gradually bailed out the coracle with my sea cap; then getting my eye once more above the gunwale, I set myself to study how it was she managed to slip so quietly through the rollers.

I found each wave, instead of the big, smooth, glossy mountain it looks from shore, or from a vessel’s deck, was for all the world like any range of hills on the dry land, full of peaks and smooth places and valleys.

The coracle, left to herself, turning from side to side, threaded, so to speak, her way through these lower parts, and avoided the steep slopes and higher toppling summits of the wave.

and, long before I had come to a conclusion, surprise had taken possession of my mind, and I could do nothing but stare and wonder.

The Hispaniola was under her mainsail and two jibs, and the beautiful white canvas shone in the sun like snow or silver.

When I first sighted her, all her sails were drawing, she was laying a course about northwest, and I presumed the men on board were going round the island on their way back to the anchorage.

“For thirty year,” he said, “I’ve sailed the seas and seen good and bad, better and worse, fair weather and foul, provisions running out, knives going, and whatnot.

Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come o’ goodness yet.

Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don’t bite; them’s my views—amen, so be it. And now, you look here,” he added, suddenly changing his tone, “we’ve had about enough of this foolery. The tide’s made good enough by now.

and as soon as the splash subsided, I could see him and Israel lying side by side, both wavering with the tremulous movement of the water. O’Brien, though still quite a young man, was very bald.

There he lay with that bald head across the knees of the man who killed him, and the quick fishes steering to and fro over both.

I was now alone upon the ship; the tide had just turned.

To make assurance surer, I got upon my hands and knees, and crawled, without a sound, toward the corner of the house. As I drew nearer, my heart was suddenly and greatly lightened.

It was not a pleasant noise in itself, and I have often complained of it at other times, but just then it was like music to hear my friends snoring together so loud and peaceful in their sleep.

The sea-cry of the watch, that beautiful “All’s well,” never fell more reassuringly on my ear.

It was not a pleasant noise in itself, and I have often complained of it at other times, but just then it was like music to hear my friends snoring together so loud and peaceful in their sleep.

The sea-cry of the watch, that beautiful “All’s well,” never fell more reassuringly on my ear.

In the meantime there was no doubt of one thing; they kept an infamous bad watch. If it had been Silver and his lads that were now creeping in on them, not a soul would have seen daybreak.

“Now, you see, Jim, so be as you are here,” says he, “I’ll give you a piece of my mind.

I’ve always liked you, I have, for a lad of spirit, and the picter of my own self when I was young and handsome.

I always wanted you to jine and take your share, and die a gentleman, and now, my cock, you’ve got to. Cap’n Smollett’s a fine seaman, as I’ll own up to any day, but stiff on discipline.

And as for the schooner, it was I who cut her cable, and it was I who killed the men you had aboard of her, and it was I who brought her where you’ll never see her more, not one of you.

The laugh’s on my side; I’ve had the top of this business from the first; I no more fear you than I fear a fly.

Kill me, if you please, or spare me. But one thing I’ll say, and no more; if you spare me, bygones are bygones, and when you fellows are in court for piracy, I’ll save you all I can. It is for you to choose.

By the powers, but I’ll teach you better! Cross me and you’ll go where many a good man’s gone before you, first and last, these thirty year back—some to the yardarm, shiver my sides! and some by the board, and all to feed the fishes.

There’s never a man looked me between the eyes and seen a good day a’terward, Tom Morgan, you may lay to that.

”

“That’s your sort, is it?” he added, returning his pipe to his mouth. “Well, you’re a gay lot to look at, anyway. Not worth much to fight, you ain’t. P’r’aps you can understand King George’s English. I’m cap’n here by ’lection.

I’m cap’n here because I’m the best man by a long sea-mile.

You won’t fight, as gentlemen o’ fortune should; then, by thunder, you’ll obey, and you may lay to it! I like that boy, now; I never seen a better boy than that.

But I see you was the right sort. I says to myself: You stand by Hawkins, John, and Hawkins’ll stand by you. You’re his last card, and by the living thunder, John, he’s yours! Back to back, says I.

You save your witness and he’ll save your neck!

”

“That’s for number one,” cried the accused, wiping the sweat from his brow, for he had been talking with a vehemence that shook the house. “Why, I give you my word, I’m sick to speak to you.

You’ve neither sense nor memory, and I leave it to fancy where your mothers was that let you come to sea.

Sea! Gentlemen o’ fortune! I reckon tailors is your trade.”

“Why, I give you my word, I’m sick to speak to you. You’ve neither sense nor memory, and I leave it to fancy where your mothers was that let you come to sea.

Sea! Gentlemen o’ fortune! I reckon tailors is your trade.

”

“Ah, the others!” returned John. “They’re a nice lot, ain’t they? You say this cruise is bungled. Ah! by gum, if you could understand how bad it’s bungled, you would see!

We’re that near the gibbet that my neck’s stiff with thinking on it.

You’ve seen ’em, maybe, hanged in chains, birds about ’em, seamen p’inting ’em out as they go down with the tide. ‘Who’s that?’ says one. ‘That! Why, that’s John Silver. I knowed him well,’ says another.

“Fair! I reckon so,” said the sea-cook. “

You lost the ship; I found the treasure. Who’s the better man at that?

And now I resign, by thunder! Elect whom you please to be your cap’n now; I’m done with it.”

“So, Jim,” said the doctor, sadly, “here you are.

As you have brewed, so shall you drink, my boy.

Heaven knows I cannot find it in my heart to blame you; but this much I will say, be it kind or unkind:

“No,” I replied, “you know right well you wouldn’t do the thing yourself; neither you, nor squire, nor captain, and no more will I.

Silver trusted me; I passed my word, and back I go.

But, doctor, you did not let me finish. If they come to torture me, I might let slip a word of where the ship is;

I had a line about my waist, and followed obediently after the sea-cook, who held the loose end of the rope, now in his free hand, now between his powerful teeth.

For all the world, I was led like a dancing bear.

The other men were variously burdened; some carrying picks and shovels—for that had been the very first necessary they brought ashore from the Hispaniola—others laden with pork, bread, and brandy for the midday meal.

“No, by gum, it don’t,” agreed Silver; “not nat’ral, nor not nice, says you. Great guns, messmates, but if Flint was living this would be a hot spot for you and me!

Six they were, and six are we; and bones is what they are now.

”

Sheer above us rose the Spy-glass, here dotted with single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound but that of the distant breakers mounting from all around, and the chirp of countless insects in the brush.

Not a man, not a sail upon the sea; the very largeness of the view increased the sense of solitude.

Silver, as he sat, took certain bearings with his compass.

“Sperrit? Well, maybe,” he said. “But there’s one thing not clear to me. There was an echo.

Now, no man ever seen a sperrit with a shadow. Well, then, what’s he doing with an echo to him, I should like to know?

That ain’t in natur’, surely.”

But it was not its size that now impressed my companions; it was the knowledge that seven hundred thousand pounds in gold lay somewhere buried below its spreading shadow.

The thought of the money, as they drew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors.

Their eyes burned in their heads; their feet grew speedier and lighter; their whole soul was bound up in that fortune, that whole lifetime of extravagance and pleasure, that lay waiting there for each of them.

There never was such an overturn in this world.

Each of these six men was as though he had been struck. But with Silver the blow passed almost instantly. Every thought of his soul had been set full-stretch, like a racer, on that money; well, he was brought up in a single second, dead;