Treasure Island / Остров сокровищ. Роберт Льюис Стивенсон

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      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 landlocked harbors, and a hill in the center part marked “The Spyglass.” 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:

      That was all, but brief as it was, and, to me, incomprehensible, it filled the squire and Doctor 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 favorable 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.”

      Part II

      The Sea-Cook

      Chapter VII

      I Go to Bristol

      It was longer than the squire imagined ere we were ready for the sea, and none of our first plans – not even Doctor Livesey's, of keeping me beside him – could be carried out as we intended. The doctor had to go to London for a physician to take charge of his practice; the squire was hard at work at Bristol; and I lived on at the Hall under the charge of old Redruth, the gamekeeper, almost a prisoner, but full of sea-dreams and the most charming anticipations of strange islands and adventures. I brooded by the hour together over the map, all the details of which I well remembered. Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room, I approached that island, in my fancy, from every possible direction; I explored every acre of its surface; I climbed a thousand times to that tall hill they call the Spyglass, and from the top enjoyed the most wonderful and changing prospects. Sometimes the isle was thick with savages, with whom we fought; sometimes full of dangerous animals that hunted us; but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange and tragic as our actual adventures.

      So the weeks passed on, till one fine day there came a letter addressed to Doctor Livesey, with this addition, “To be opened in the case of his absence, by Tom Redruth or Young Hawkins.” Obeying this order, we found, or rather I found – for the gamekeeper was a poor hand at reading anything but print – the following important news:

      “Redruth,” said I, interrupting the letter, “Doctor 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 Doctor Livesey, I should think.”

      At that I gave up all attempt at commentary, and read straight on: