10 Treasure island - The Voyage

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dream Audio Books presents Chapter ten the voyage. All that
night we were in a great bustle, getting things stowed
in their place, and boatfuls of the Squire's friends, mister
Blandly and the like, coming off to wish him a
good voyage in a safe return. We never had a
night at the Admiral Bembo when I had half the work,

(00:22):
and I was dog tired. When a little before dawn,
the bo'sun sounded his pipe and the crew began to
man the capstan bars. I might have been twice as weary,
yet I would not have left the deck. All was
so new and interesting to me. The brief commands, the
shrill note of the whistle, the men bustling to their

(00:42):
places in the glimmer of the ship's lanterns now, barbecue
tip us, a stave cried one voice, the old one
cried another. Aye aye, mates, said long John, who was
standing by with his crutch under his arm, and at
once brought out in the air and words I knew
so well. Fifty men on the dead man's chast and

(01:07):
then the whole crew bore chorus, Yo ho ho, and
a bottle of rum, and at the third hoe drove
the bars before them with a will. Even at that
exciting moment, It carried me back to the old Admiral
Bembo in a second, and I seemed to hear the
voice of the captain piping in the chorus. But soon

(01:29):
the anchor was short up. Soon it was hanging, dripping
at the bows. Soon the sails began to draw, and
the land and shipping to flit by on either side.
And before I could lie down to snatch an hour
of slumber, the Hispaniola had begun her voyage to the
Isle of Treasure. I am not going to relate that

(01:51):
voyage in detail. It was fairly prosperous. The ship proved
to be a good ship, the crew were capable seamen,
and the captain thoroughly understood his business. But before we
came the length of Treasure Island, two or three things
had happened which require to be known. Mister Arrow, first
of all, turned out even worse than the captain had feared.

(02:15):
He had no command among the men, and people did
what they pleased with him. But that was by no
means the worst of it. For after a day or
two at sea, he began to appear on deck with
hazy eye, red cheeks, stuttering tongue, and other marks of drunkenness.
Time after time he was ordered below in disgrace. Sometimes

(02:37):
he fell and cut himself. Sometimes he lay all day
long in his little bunk at one side of the companion.
Sometimes for a day or two he would be almost
sober and attend to his work at least passibly. In
the meantime, we could never make out where he got
the drink. That was the ship's mystery. Watch him as

(02:59):
we please. We could do nothing to solve it, And
when we asked him to his face, he would only
laugh if he were drunk, and if he were sober,
deny solemnly that he had ever tasted anything but water.
He was not only useless as an officer, and a
bad influence amongst the men. But it was plain that

(03:19):
at this rate he must soon kill himself outright. So
nobody was much surprised nor very sorry when, one dark night,
with a head sea, he disappeared entirely and was seen
no more overboard, said the captain. Well, gentlemen, that saves
the trouble of putting him in irons. But there we

(03:43):
were without a mate, and it was necessary of course,
to advance one of the men. The boatswun job Anderson
was the likeliest man aboard, and though he kept his
old title, he served in a way as mate. Mister
Trelawney had fought hellowed the sea, and his knowledge made
him very useful, for he often took a watch himself

(04:05):
in easy weather. And the coxswain Israel Hands was a careful, wily,
old experienced seaman who could be trusted at a pinch
with almost anything. He was a great confidant of long
John Silver, and so the mention of his name leads
me on to speak of our ship's cook barbecue. As
the men called him. A board ship. He carried his

(04:29):
crutch by a lanyard round his neck to have both
hands as free as possible. It was something to see
him wedge the foot of the crutch against a bulkhead
and propping against it, yielding to every movement of the ship,
get on with his cooking like someone safe ashore. Still
more strange was it to see him, in the heaviest

(04:49):
of weather cross the deck. He had a line or
two rigged up to help him across the whitest spaces
long John's earrings. They were called, and he would hand
himself from one place to another, now using the crutch,
now trailing at alongside by the lanyard, as quickly as
another man could walk. Yet some of the men who

(05:10):
had sailed with him before expressed their pity to see
him so reduced. He's no common man barbecue, said the
coxswain to me. He had good schooling in his young days,
and can speak like a book when so minded and
brave at a lion's nothing. Alongside of long John, I've

(05:31):
seen him grapple four and knock their heads together him unarmed.
All the crew respected and even obeyed him. He had
a way of talking to each and doing everybody some
particular service. To me, he was unweariedly kind, and always
glad to see me in the galley, which he kept

(05:51):
as clean as a new pin, the dishes hanging up burnished,
and his parrot in a cage in one corner. Come away, hey, Hawkins,
he would say, Come and have a yarn with John.
Nobody more welcome than yourself, my son. Sit you down
and hear the news. Here's cap'n Flint. I call my

(06:14):
parrot cap'n Flint, after the famous buccaneer here's cap'n flint,
predicting success to our voyage? Was it your captain? And
the parrot would say, with great rapidity, paces of eight,
paces of eight, paces of eight. So you wondered that
it was not out of breath or till John threw
his handkerchief over the cage. Now that bird, he would say,

(06:41):
is maybe two hundred years old, Hawkins. They live forever mostly,
and if anybody seen more wickedness, it must be the
devil himself. She sailed with England, the Great Captain, England,
the Pirate. She's been at Madagascar, and at Malabar, and Surinam,
and Providence and Portobello. She was at the fishing up

(07:05):
of the wrecked plate ships. It's there she learned pieces
of light, and little wonder, three hundred and fifty thousand
of them, Hawkins. She was at the boarden of the
Viceroy of the Indies. Out of Goa. She was, And
to look at her you would think she was a babby.
But you smelt powder, didn't you, cap'n stand by to

(07:27):
go about. The parrot would scream, Ah, she's a handsome craft,
she is. The cook would say, and give her sugar
from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at
the bars and swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness there,
John would add, you can't touch pitch and not be mucked. Lad,

(07:49):
there's this poor old innocent bird of mine swearing bluefire,
and none the wiser you may lay to that she
would swear the same in a manner of speaking before chaplain,
and John would touch his forelock with a solemn way
he had that made me think he was the best
of men. In the meantime, the Squire and Captain Smollett

(08:11):
were still on pretty distant terms with one another. The
Squire made no bones about the matter he despised the captain.
The captain, on his part, never spoke, but when he
was spoken to, and then sharp and short and dry,
and not a word wasted. He owned, when driven into
a corner, that he seemed to have been wrong about

(08:33):
the crew, that some of them were as brisk as
he wanted to see, and all had behaved fairly well.
As for the ship, he had taken a downright fancy
to her. She'll lie a point nearer the wind than
a man has a right to expect of his own
married wife, sir. But he would add. All I say

(08:55):
is we're not home again, and I don't like the crews.
The squire at this would turn away and march up
and down the deck, chin in air. A trifle more
of that man, he would say, and I shall explode.
We had some heavy weather, which only proved the qualities

(09:17):
of the Hispaniola. Every man on board seemed well content,
and they must have been hard to please if they
had been otherwise, For it is my belief there was
never a ship's company so spoiled since Noah put to sea.
Double grog was going on the least excuse. There was
duff on odd days, as for instance, if the squire

(09:38):
heard it was any man's birthday, and always a barrel
of apples standing broached in the waist for anyone to
help himself that had a fancy, never knew good come
of it. Yet the captain said to doctor Livesey, spoil
forecastle hands make devils, that's my belief. But good did

(10:02):
come of the apple barrel, as you shall hear. For
if it had not been for that, we should have
had no note of warning, and might all have perished
by the hand of treachery. This was how it came about.
We had run up the trades to get the wind
of the island we were after. I am not allowed

(10:22):
to be more plain, and now we were running down
for it with a bright lookout day and night. It
was about the last day of our outward voyage by
the largest computation. Some time that night, or at latest
before noon of the morrow, we should sight the Treasure Island.
We were heading south southwest and had a steady breeze,

(10:44):
a beam, and a quiet sea. The Hispaniola rolled steadily,
dipping her bowsprit now and then with a whiff of spray.
All was drawing a low and aloft. Everyone was in
the bravest spirits because we were now so near end
of the first part of our adventure. Now just after sundown,

(11:06):
when all my work was over and I was on
my way to my berth, it occurred to me that
I should like an apple. I ran on deck. The
watch was all forward, looking out for the island. The
man at the helm was watching the luff of the
sail and whistling away gently to himself, And that was
the only sound excepting the swish of the sea against

(11:27):
the bows and around the sides of the ship. In
I got bodily into the apple barrel and found there
was scarce an apple left. But sitting down there in
the dark, what with the sound of the waters and
the rocking movement of the ship, I had either fallen
asleep or was on the point of doing so, when
a heavy man sat down with rather a clash close by.

(11:52):
The barrel shook as he leaned his shoulders against it,
and I was just about to jump up when the
man began to speak. It was Silver's voice, and before
I had heard a dozen words, I would not have
shown myself for all the world, but lay there, trembling
and listening in the extreme of fear and curiosity. For

(12:14):
from these dozen words I understood that the lives of
all the honest men aboard depended upon me alone. End
of chapter. Dream Audio Books hopes you have enjoyed this program.