1 The Old Sea Dog at the Admiral Benbow

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CHAPTER 1 The Old Sea Dog at the Admiral Benbow A great number of people have asked me to write down the whole story of Treasure Island, and that I shall do. But I will leave out the location of the island, because the treasure is still out there. The story begins back when my father was running an inn called the Admiral Benbow. The night was bitter, and we could hear a howling wind outside when the old seaman with a scarred

face first made his way through our door. In he blew, a strange sight with his sea chest being dragged behind him in a wheelbarrow. He was strong and tall, with nut-brown skin and a blackened pigtail hanging over a dirty blue coat. In fact, everything about him looked dirty, including his hands and nails. The whiteness of the scar that spread across his cheek stood out against his grimy skin. He whistled and sang a song I would hear many times:

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"Fifteen men on a dead man's chest... Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" After the man rapped his heavy stick on the floor, my father appeared. Our guest seemed not to notice him at first, so busy was he at looking around our inn. "A handy cove," he said, "and convenient too. Been busy lately, have you?" No, my father answered, and that was the truth. Business had been slow. "Well, then," he said, "this fine place will do for me. Hey you there," he said to the man who pushed the barrow, "I'll want some help getting my chest upstairs. I'll stay down here a bit." He went on in a gruff tone. "I'm a plain man; bacon and eggs is what I want— and that view up there to watch for ships.

You'll call me Captain." He noticed my father's doubting look and threw down some gold coins, which he'd taken out of a small leather pouch. "You let me know," he said fiercely, "when I've worked through that! There's more where that came from!" Though he looked shabby and his manners were coarse, he seemed used to being obeyed. The man who carried his things told us that he had just come into port that morning and that he had asked for a quiet inn along the coast. That was all we could learn about our mysterious guest. He was a silent man who spent his days upon the cliffs looking through a shiny brass telescope out across the horizon. At night he would sit by the fire in our parlor. He would often not speak when spoken to and just as suddenly would blow his nose like a foghorn.