Knjigice
Learn-about book · Classic fairy tales
Treasure Island
The story of a boy called Jim, a map and a pirate treasure
Also in: Otok zakladov (Slovenian) · Ostrov pokladov (Slovak)
At the Admiral Benbow inn, right above the sea, lived a boy called Jim Hawkins. One day an old sea captain came in, with a scar on his cheek and a heavy sailor's chest. Every evening he swept the horizon with his spyglass and sang in a hoarse voice: "Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" And he told Jim: "Watch out for a seafaring man with one leg."
1
One cold morning, grim men from the shore came to see the captain. They pressed a small black disc into his palm — the black spot, an old pirate sign. "They come for you at ten," whispered Jim. The captain turned white as a sail. "It's my chest they want, Jim!" But that day his old heart stopped, and the captain lay still for ever.
2
Jim and his mother unlocked the captain's chest. Under clothes, a compass and old gold coins lay a rolled-up yellow map. On it was an island, a dotted line over the hills, and a cross, and beneath it someone had written: "Here lies Captain Flint's treasure." Jim's breath caught. The map of Treasure Island!
3
Jim took the map to Doctor Livesey and Squire Trelawney. "Treasure!" cried the squire, hopping with joy. "I shall fit out a ship, the best in the harbour!" A few weeks later a fine schooner, the Hispaniola, waited with bright sails. Jim signed on as cabin boy — his first time ever at sea.
4
The ship's cook was a big, smiling man with one leg and a crutch, and on his shoulder perched a green parrot called Captain Flint. "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" she screeched. Long John Silver could cook the best soup and tell the best story on board. This, thought Jim, is the kindest sailor who ever put to sea.
5
One night Jim climbed into the apple barrel to fetch the last apple from the bottom. Just then two sailors sat down beside it — and Jim heard Silver's voice: "Once the treasure is aboard, the ship is ours." Jim's heart stood still. The kindly cook was the pirates' leader! Quiet as a mouse he waited, then told the doctor and the squire.
6
In the morning an island with three hills rose out of the mist. Jim slipped ashore and among the trees met a strange man dressed in goatskins, with a long tangled beard. "Ben Gunn's my name," he said. "Three years alone on this island. Tell me — might you have a bit of cheese about you? I dream of cheese every night!" Jim laughed, and they became friends.
7
The doctor, the squire and the loyal sailors moved into an old wooden stockade. Their flag flew above it; on the beach the pirates raised theirs, black. They watched through spyglasses, rattled cutlasses and shouted across the sand, but Jim stayed with his own. The island waited to see whose the treasure would be.
8
That night Jim thought of a daring plan. In Ben Gunn's little goatskin boat he rowed out to the Hispaniola and cut the anchor rope. The great ship drifted slowly away with the tide, and Jim caught her side and climbed aboard. Now everything depended on one boy alone.
9
Jim took the helm and turned the ship toward the northern inlet. The wind filled the sails, the shore came closer — and with a soft grinding the Hispaniola ran up onto the sand, exactly where Jim wanted. He had taken the ship from under the pirates' noses, and was proud of it all his life.
10
Map in hand, the pirates marched over the hills to a great tree. "Dig!" ordered Silver. But in the hole there was not one gold coin — only empty earth, dug up long ago. The treasure was gone! The pirates stared into the pit, and out of the forest stepped the doctor, the squire and Ben Gunn.
11
"I found the treasure long ago," laughed Ben Gunn. "I carried it to my cave, coin by coin!" In the cave, heaps of gold from every land in the world shone in the firelight. For days they carried it down to the ship. Then the Hispaniola spread her sails and sailed for home — richer than any ship had ever been.
12
At the first port they came to, Long John Silver slipped quietly off the ship one night. He took only a small bag of coins with him — and nobody truly grieved for him. Jim went home to his mother at the inn. But long after, in his dreams, he still heard the green parrot: "Pieces of eight!"
13The End
