That night, everyone was busy preparing the ship. We carried supplies, arranged equipment, and put everything where it belonged. Boats filled with the squire’s friends came out to the ship to wish us a safe journey and a successful return.
“I never worked as hard at the Admiral Benbow as I did that night,” I thought.
By the time the sky began to brighten before dawn, I was completely exhausted. But when the boatswain blew his whistle and the crew rushed to the capstan, I forgot my tiredness.
Everything was new and exciting.
The sharp commands.
The sound of the whistle.
The sailors moving quickly under the dim glow of the lanterns.
“Barbecue, sing us a song!” one sailor shouted.
“The old one!” another called.
“Aye, aye, mates,” Long John Silver replied.
Standing nearby with his crutch tucked under his arm, he began to sing the familiar words:
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—”
The whole crew joined in:
“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
On the third “Ho!” the men pushed the capstan bars forward with all their strength.
For a moment, I was carried back to the old Admiral Benbow. I could almost hear Captain Billy Bones singing the same song.
But soon, the anchor was lifted.
Soon, it was dripping above the waves at the bow.
Soon, the sails caught the wind.
The harbor and other ships slowly disappeared behind us.
Before I even had time to sleep for an hour, the Hispaniola had begun her journey toward Treasure Island.
I will not describe every detail of the voyage.
Everything went fairly well.
The ship was excellent.
The crew were skilled sailors.
Captain Smollett knew exactly what he was doing.
But before we reached Treasure Island, several important things happened that must be told.
The first problem was Mr. Arrow, the mate.
He turned out to be even worse than Captain Smollett had expected.
He had no real control over the crew. The sailors ignored him and did whatever they wanted.
But that was not even the worst of it.
After only a few days at sea, he began appearing on deck with cloudy eyes, a red face, and a slurred voice.
He was clearly drunk.
Again and again, he was sent below deck in disgrace.
Sometimes he fell and injured himself.
Sometimes he stayed in his small bunk all day.
Sometimes he managed to stay almost sober for a day or two and did his duties reasonably well.
The strange thing was that nobody could discover where he got the alcohol.
That became the ship’s great mystery.
We watched him carefully, but we never found out.
When we questioned him directly, he only laughed when he was drunk. When he was sober, he firmly denied ever drinking anything except water.
He was useless as an officer and a terrible influence on the crew.
Everyone knew that if he continued like this, he would destroy himself.
So when he disappeared completely one dark night during rough seas, nobody was greatly surprised.
“Overboard,” Captain Smollett said.
“Well, gentlemen, that saves us the trouble of locking him up.”
But now we had no mate.
Someone had to be promoted.
The boatswain, Job Anderson, was the most suitable man aboard. He kept his old title but began acting as the ship’s second officer.
The squire, Mr. Trelawney, also knew a great deal about sailing and often helped take a watch when the weather was calm.
And Israel Hands, the ship’s coxswain, was an experienced and clever old sailor who could be trusted in difficult situations.
He was also a close friend of Long John Silver.
So mentioning Israel Hands brings me naturally to our ship’s cook, whom the sailors called Barbecue.
Silver always carried his crutch around his neck with a rope so both hands remained free.
It was amazing to watch him work.
He would press the end of his crutch against a wall and balance himself against it as the ship moved beneath him. Then he would cook as calmly as a man standing safely on land.
Even stranger was watching him move across the deck during a storm.
He had ropes fixed across the wider spaces of the ship to help him move. The sailors jokingly called them “Long John’s earrings.”
Using his crutch and pulling himself along the ropes, he could cross the deck almost as quickly as any other man could walk.
Some sailors who had known him before felt sorry to see him in such a condition.
“He’s no ordinary man, Barbecue,” Israel Hands told me.
“He was well educated when he was young. When he wants, he can speak better than most gentlemen.”
“And brave? A lion is nothing compared with Long John.”
“I once saw him fight four men alone and knock their heads together. He didn’t even have a weapon.”
Everyone respected Silver.
The crew listened to him because he knew how to speak to each man and always seemed willing to help.
He was especially kind to me.
He was always happy when I visited the galley, which he kept perfectly clean. The dishes shone brightly, and his parrot sat in a cage in the corner.
“Come here, Hawkins,” he would say.
“Come and talk with John. Nobody is more welcome than you, my boy.”
“Sit down and hear the news.”
“Here’s Captain Flint predicting that our voyage will succeed.”
“Isn’t that right, Captain?”
The parrot would immediately shout:
“Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”
It repeated the words so quickly that you wondered how it could breathe.
Sometimes Silver covered the cage with a cloth to make it stop.
“That bird,” John would say, “is probably two hundred years old, Hawkins.”
“Parrots nearly live forever.”
“And if anyone has seen more wicked things than that bird, it must be the devil himself.”
“She sailed with the great pirate Captain England.”
“She has been to Madagascar, Malabar, Surinam, Providence, and Portobello.”
“She even saw treasure ships being recovered after they sank.”
“That’s where she learned to say ‘Pieces of eight.’”
“Three hundred and fifty thousand pieces, Hawkins!”
“She saw the Viceroy of the Indies attacked near Goa.”
“And yet look at her now. You’d think she was just a baby.”
“But you smelled gunpowder before, didn’t you, Captain?”
The parrot suddenly screamed:
“Stand by to go about!”
“Ah, she’s a fine little ship,” Silver laughed.
He gave the bird some sugar from his pocket.
The parrot grabbed the bars and continued swearing loudly.
“You see, Hawkins,” Silver said, “you can’t touch something dirty without getting dirty yourself.”
“Here is my poor innocent bird, swearing like a sailor, and she doesn’t even understand what she’s saying.”
“She would probably speak the same way in front of a priest.”
Then Silver touched his forehead politely, and for a moment I thought he was the kindest man I had ever met.
Meanwhile, the squire and Captain Smollett were still not friendly with each other.
The squire openly disliked the captain.
Captain Smollett, however, only spoke when someone spoke to him first. His answers were always short, serious, and without unnecessary words.
Eventually, he admitted that perhaps he had been wrong about the crew.
Some of them were exactly the kind of sailors he wanted, and everyone had behaved well enough.
He also admitted that he liked the ship very much.
“She sails closer to the wind than any man could reasonably expect from his own wife,” he said.
“But remember this—I still don’t like this voyage. We are not home yet.”
Whenever he said that, the squire would walk away proudly with his chin raised.
“Another word from that man,” he would say, “and I shall explode.”
We experienced some rough weather, but it only showed how good the Hispaniola really was.
Everyone aboard seemed happy.
In fact, they were probably the most spoiled crew since Noah built his ark.
They received extra rum for the smallest excuse.
There was pudding on special occasions.
If the squire heard it was someone’s birthday, that sailor received a special treat.
And there was always a barrel of apples open in the middle of the ship for anyone who wanted one.
“I have never seen good come from such generosity,” Captain Smollett told Dr. Livesey.
“When you spoil sailors, you create trouble.”
But that apple barrel would soon prove useful.
Because without it, we would never have received the warning that saved our lives from betrayal.
This was how it happened.
We had caught the trade winds and were sailing toward the island we were searching for.
I cannot reveal its exact location.
Now we were approaching it, keeping watch day and night.
According to our best estimate, this was the final day of our outward journey.
That night, or at the latest by the next morning, we would see Treasure Island.
The Hispaniola was sailing southwest.
A steady wind pushed against the side of the ship, and the sea was calm.
The ship moved smoothly, dipping the bowsprit into the waves and sending sprays of water into the air.
Everything was working perfectly.
Everyone was excited because the first part of our adventure was almost finished.
After sunset, when my duties were done and I was heading to my sleeping place, I suddenly wanted an apple.
So I went back onto the deck.
The sailors on watch were all gathered near the front of the ship, searching for signs of land.
The helmsman watched the sails and quietly whistled to himself.
Apart from that, the only sound was the water rushing against the bow and sides of the ship.
I climbed completely inside the apple barrel.
There were hardly any apples left.
I sat there in the darkness.
The sound of the waves and the gentle rocking of the ship made me feel sleepy.
I was either already asleep or just about to fall asleep when a heavy man suddenly sat down beside the barrel with a loud movement.
The barrel shook as he leaned against it.
I was about to jump out.
Then the man began to speak.
It was Long John Silver’s voice.
After hearing only a few words, I knew I could not reveal myself.
I stayed hidden, trembling in fear and curiosity.
Because from those few words, I realized something terrifying:
The lives of every honest man aboard the ship depended on me alone.