Treasure Island Read online

  Text copyright © 1990 by Random House, Inc. Illustrations copyright © 1990 by Paul Wenzel. Cover illustration copyright © 2004 by Corey Wolfe. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in a slightly different form by Random House, Inc., in 1990.

  www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Norby, Lisa.

  Treasure Island / by Robert Louis Stevenson; adapted by Lisa Norby; illustrations by Paul Wenzel.

  p. cm. — (A Stepping stone book classic)

  SUMMARY: An innkeeper’s son finds a treasure map that leads him to a pirate’s fortune.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-77163-6

  [1. Buried treasure—Fiction. 2. Pirates—Fiction. 3. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.] I. Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894. Treasure Island. II. Wenzel, Paul (Paul Edward), ill. III. Title. IV. Series. PZ7.N7752Tr 2001 [Fic]—dc21 00068323

  RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks and A STEPPING STONE BOOK and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Map

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1 - The Old Sea Dog

  Chapter 2 - The Black Spot

  Chapter 3 - The Sea Chest

  Chapter 4 - I Go to Bristol

  Chapter 5 - The Voyage

  Chapter 6 - My Shore Adventure

  Chapter 7 - The Fight Begins

  Chapter 8 - My Sea Adventure

  Chapter 9 - Captain Silver

  Chapter 10 - Flint’s Treasure

  Chapter 11 - The End of My Story

  About the Author

  1. The Old Sea Dog

  Squire Trelawney and Dr. Livesey have asked me, Jim Hawkins, to write down the story of Treasure Island. I will tell you everything, just as it happened. The only thing I won’t tell you is where the island is. That’s because there is still treasure buried there.

  To begin my story, I must go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow Inn. I still remember the day when a strange new guest turned up at our door. He was an old sailor—tall and strong, dressed in a dirty blue coat. His hands were rough. His fingernails were black and broken. A long white scar ran across one cheek. Just looking at it made my knees tremble.

  I watched the old sailor as he came up the road to our door. Our inn stood on a high cliff. At the foot of the cliff was the ocean. The stranger stared out at the waves for a long time. Then he started singing to himself. It was the first time I heard the old sea song that I was to hear so often:

  “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest. Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

  The old sailor’s face was always dirty. His clothes were in rags. But he acted like a man who was used to giving orders. We called him the captain.

  The best chair in our parlor was right next to the fireplace. The captain claimed that chair right away. Night after night he would sit there staring into the fire. But when other sailors came to the inn he stayed out of sight. He would hide behind the heavy curtain at the parlor door and spy on our new guests.

  One day the captain told me that he wanted me to keep an eye out for an old seafaring man with one leg. I had to promise to warn him if the one-legged man showed up. In return, he would give me a silver coin at the beginning of every month.

  The thought of that one-legged stranger gave me nightmares. I used to dream about him on stormy nights. In my dreams, he was horrible-looking. He would leap up out of nowhere and chase after me. I really earned that silver coin!

  I was not afraid of the captain himself, but a lot of people were. When he started drinking rum, he forgot his quiet ways. He would sing old sea songs in a loud voice and force the other guests at the inn to sing along. And the stories he told! They were all about storms at sea, and pirates, and men being forced to walk the plank.

  But the frightening stories did not stop people from coming to the inn to hear them. The captain brought excitement to our quiet English village. Some of the young men even admired him. They called him a “true sea dog” and a “real old salt.”

  That winter my father fell ill. Dr. Livesey used to come from the village to take care of him. One night, when the doctor was at the inn, the captain was drinking rum. He started to sing his favorite song: “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest …”

  Dr. Livesey kept on talking, and the captain yelled at him to keep quiet. The doctor paid no attention. Then the captain pulled a knife.

  Dr. Livesey wasn’t the least bit afraid. “Put that knife away, or I’ll see you hanged,” he warned the captain.

  The captain glared at Dr. Livesey. But he did as he was told.

  Before the doctor left, he had a piece of advice for the captain. “If you don’t stop drinking rum, the world will soon be rid of you,” he told him.

  The captain ignored the warning. “I have worse things to be afraid of than drink,” he told me later.

  I didn’t know what our strange guest was talking about. What was he so afraid of? Was it the man with one leg? It was hard to imagine anyone evil enough to throw a scare into the captain.

  2. The Black Spot

  Soon after that night, strange things began to happen at our inn.

  The first was the arrival of a thin, yellow-skinned man with two fingers missing from his left hand. The man walked in as I was setting the tables for breakfast. “Is my mate Bill here?” he asked.

  “I don’t know any Bill,” I said.

  “You probably call him the captain,” said the man.

  The captain had gone out for a walk. He would be coming back any minute. I wanted to warn him, but the stranger shoved me aside. When the captain came in the front door, he was there waiting.

  “Bill,” said the man. “You know me, Bill. It’s your old shipmate.”

  The captain gasped. “Black Dog!”

  The captain and Black Dog sent me out of the room. Soon they were yelling at each other. I heard a loud crash. Then came the sound of a man screaming in pain. Black Dog came running out of the room, with the captain chasing him. Both men had knives and were slashing away at each other.

  Black Dog was cut on the shoulder. He ran out the door and down the path as fast as he could. The captain could hardly stand up.

  “Are you hurt?” I cried.

  Before he could answer, he fell to the floor. I ran for Dr. Livesey. He said the captain wasn’t wounded. He had had a stroke.

  The doctor helped me get the captain to his bed. When we unbuttoned his shirt, we saw the name Billy Bones tattooed on one arm. On his chest was another big tattoo of a man hanging from a gallows.

  I thought the captain was done for. But the next morning he was wide awake and calling for his rum. “Old Flint’s crew is after me,” he growled. “Black Dog isn’t the worst of them. It’s my old sea chest they want. The one where I keep all my things. If I don’t get away, they will tip me the black spot.”

  “What is the black spot?” I asked.

  “It’s a call, mate,” said the captain. “A call.”

  A call to what? I didn’t understand. But I had no time to worry about the captain. That same evening my father died.

  I didn’t give Captain Billy Bones another thought until the day after my father’s funeral. It was a wet, foggy afternoon. The whole world looked gray. I was standing in the doorway, thinking sad thoughts about my father, when at once I saw a blind beggar coming up the road. He wore a long cape with a hood drawn over his face.

  “Where am I?” h
e demanded.

  “The Admiral Benbow,” said I.

  The blind man reached out and grabbed my arm. He squeezed it—hard. “Take me to the captain,” he ordered.

  I had never heard a voice so cruel and cold. It scared me more than the pain in my arm. I did what he said.

  The captain had started carrying his long knife with him everywhere. It was sitting on the table in front of him as the blind beggar and I came into the parlor. But when he saw us, the captain didn’t reach for his knife. He went pale with fright.

  The blind man handed the captain a folded piece of paper. “Now that’s done,” he said. Seconds later he disappeared into the fog. But I could hear his cane go tap-tap-tapping down the path.

  The captain unfolded the paper and stared at it. The paper was cut into a circle. One whole side of it was colored black. The captain turned the paper over and read what was on the other side. “Ten o’clock,” he said. “I have six hours.”

  Now I understood what the black spot meant. It meant death. In a few hours the captain’s enemies were coming back to kill him.

  But the captain didn’t have even that long. Suddenly he grabbed his throat. Then he fell face down on the floor. His fear of the black spot had brought on another stroke. And this time, the captain was dead.

  I burst into tears. I had never liked the captain. But he was the second dead man I had seen in a few days. I wasn’t crying for the captain—I was crying for my poor father. And for myself.

  3. The Sea Chest

  As soon as I could wipe the tears from my eyes, I ran and told my mother the whole story. We didn’t know what we should do. The captain owed us money. He probably had gold in his sea chest. But what about the captain’s enemies? They were coming back in a few hours. I was sure they planned to take the captain’s money. If we took it first, they might kill us.

  My mother was no coward. “We need that money and I mean to have it,” she said. “The key to the captain’s sea chest must be on his body.”

  My heart was beating fast. But of course I couldn’t run away and leave my mother alone. We hurried to the parlor. Quickly I searched through the captain’s pockets. There was no key! Finally I found it hanging on a string around his neck.

  We took the key and went up to the captain’s room. My mother opened the chest. It was stuffed full of the captain’s things. At the very bottom was a packet of papers—and a cloth bag full of gold coins.

  Just then I heard a tap-tap-tapping. The sound brought my heart into my mouth. It was the blind man’s cane, tapping on the frozen road.

  “Take it all and let’s get out of here!” I cried.

  But my mother was an honest woman. She only wanted what she was owed. She started to count out the money, coin by coin. She counted very slowly. Before she could finish, we heard a low whistle. The blind beggar’s friends were close by!

  We had to get away—fast. My mother took the money she had already counted. I reached into the chest and grabbed the packet of papers. If we weren’t going to get all Billy Bones’s gold, we might as well have his papers. Maybe they would turn out to be worth something.

  We ran outside and hurried down the path to the village. I could hear footsteps behind us. When I turned around, I saw a lantern winking in the twilight.

  Luckily, we were near the stream that ran between our inn and the village. I helped my mother scramble down the steep stream bank. She hid under the bridge. But I was curious. I crept back to see what was going on.

  There were seven or eight men in all, and the blind beggar was their leader. He stayed outside in the road. The others rushed into the inn. They found the captain’s body. Then they charged upstairs to look for his sea chest.

  Suddenly one of the men leaned out the window of the captain’s room. “They’ve been here before us,” he shouted. “Do you hear that, Pew? The chest is opened.”

  Pew must have been the blind man’s name. “Is it there?” he called back.

  “The money is.”

  Pew swore. He wasn’t interested in the money. “It’s Flint’s papers I want,” he said.

  “We don’t see them here,” the man in the window answered.

  “It’s the people from the inn. It’s that boy!” Pew shouted. “I wish I had put his eyes out!”

  The men began to search the inn. I could hear them kicking in doors and turning over the furniture.

  Then I heard horses galloping up the road from the village. Blind Pew’s helpers ran in all directions. Not one of them stopped to help him. “Johnny! Black Dog! Dirk!” he called out. “You won’t leave me!”

  But the others were already gone. Just then the horsemen came over the hill. Blind Pew started to run. He was so confused that he ran right into the path of the horses. The horsemen tried to stop, but it was too late. Down went Pew. His cry of terror rang out into the night. Then he cried out no more. He was dead, stone dead.

  The men on horseback offered to take me to Dr. Livesey so we could tell him what had happened. We finally found the doctor at the house of Squire Trelawney, the richest man in the area.

  The squire’s house was large and fine. A servant led us to the library, where the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with books. The glow from the fireplace lit up the room.

  The squire and the doctor listened to my story. When Dr. Livesey heard that my mother and I had been brave enough to search for the gold, he slapped his leg. “Bravo!” he said.

  Squire Trelawney got very excited when I told him that the blind man had talked about someone named Flint. “Flint was the bloodthirstiest pirate that ever sailed!” he cried.

  Dr. Livesey was excited too. “I wonder if those papers show where Flint buried his treasure,” he said.

  Dr. Livesey took a pair of scissors from his doctor’s bag and began to cut open the sealed packet. The squire and I looked over his shoulder.

  Inside was a sort of diary. On one page there were a lot of numbers. It seemed to be a record of the money the pirates had stolen. On another page was a set of directions. They told how to find the island where the treasure was buried.

  Besides the book, there was a folded sheet of paper. Its edges were sealed shut with wax. Carefully, the doctor slit open the seals. Out fell a map of the island!

  The map showed that the island was about nine miles long. One of the big hills in the center of the island was marked “Spy-glass Hill.” There were other names, too. And three X’s made with red ink. Next to the third red X, someone had written in small, neat letters: “bulk of treasure buried here.”

  That was all. But the squire and the doctor were delighted.

  “This is what Pew’s men were after,” said the squire. “But you, Jim, were too quick for them. Now Flint’s gold is ours for the taking! I’ll start for Bristol tomorrow. In three weeks I will have the best ship in England.”

  The squire outlined his plan: We were going on a treasure hunt. He would hire the ship and pay for the voyage. Dr. Livesey would be the ship’s doctor, and I, Jim Hawkins, would go along as the cabin boy. We were all going to be rich. “We’ll have money to eat,” the squire promised.

  “Count me in,” said Dr. Livesey. “But there is one man I’m afraid of.”

  “Who?” asked the squire.

  “You,” said Livesey. “You talk too much. We are not the only men who know about this paper.”

  But the squire promised he would keep our secret. The very next day he left for Bristol to find a ship for our adventure.

  4. I Go to Bristol

  Finding a ship took longer than the squire thought it would. While he was in Bristol I spent long hours studying the treasure map. I wondered what we would find when we got to the island. Strange animals? Wild savages? In all my dreams, I never imagined anything as strange and terrible as what lay in store for us.

  Finally the squire’s letter arrived. It was addressed to the doctor.

  Dear Livesey,

  The ship is bought. She lies at anchor, ready for sea. She is a
sweet ship. A child could sail her. Her name is the Hispaniola.

  The squire had other news, too. He had hired a captain named Smollett. And he had hired a cook for the voyage. The cook’s name was Long John Silver. Long John had only one leg, but that was proof that he was a hero. He had been in the navy, and he had lost a leg fighting for his country.

  Long John owned a tavern called the Spy-glass Inn. But now he wanted to go to sea again. The squire wrote that Long John had been a big help to him. He knew all the sailors in town. He had helped the squire pick the ones we were taking along on our adventure.

  Two days later I went down to Bristol. The squire’s servant Tom Redruth went with me. He was coming along on the voyage too. And so were two other of the squire’s men—Mr. Hunter and Mr. Joyce.

  The squire met us when we arrived. He was wearing a blue sea officer’s uniform. He had even started walking like a sailor! He was having a wonderful time. Clearly he was very happy to see us.

  “When do we sail?” I cried.

  “Sail!” said he. “We sail tomorrow!”

  After I had something to eat, the squire gave me a note to deliver. It was addressed to John Silver at the Spy-glass Inn.

  Ever since I read the squire’s letter, I had been worried about this John Silver. Was he the one-legged sailor of my nightmares?

  When I saw Long John, I felt ashamed of myself for being afraid. True, Long John Silver had only one leg. But he looked nothing like the monster of my imagination.