e
found a place in that collection 211

_To_
LLOYD OSBOURNE
An American Gentleman
In accordance with whose classic taste
The following narrative has been designed
It is now, in return for numerous delightful hours
And with the kindest wishes, dedicated
By his affectionate friend
_THE AUTHOR_

[Illustration]

PART I

THE OLD BUCCANEER

CHAPTER I

AT THE "ADMIRAL BENBOW"

Squire Trelawney, Doctor Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having
asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from
the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the
island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I
take up my pen in the year of grace 17--, and go back to the time when
my father kept the "Admiral Benbow" Inn, and the brown old seaman, with
the saber cut, first took up his lodging under our roof.

[Illustration: _I remember him as if it were yesterday as he came
plodding to the inn door_ (Page 3)]

I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn
door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow; a tall,
strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pig-tail falling over the
shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with
black, broken nails, and the saber cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid
white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as
he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so
often afterwards:

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest,
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!"

in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and
broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of
stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared,
called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he
drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste, and still
looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.

"This is a handy cove," says he, at length; "and a pleasant sittyated
grog-shop. Much company, mate?"

My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity.

"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he
cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help
up