Treasure Island | Page 6

of blood?"
"No, sir," said I.
"Well, then," said he, "you hold the basin"; and with that he took his
lancet and opened a vein.
A great deal of blood was taken before the captain opened his eyes
and looked mistily about him. First he recognized the doctor with an un-
mistakable frown; then his glance fell upon me, and he looked relieved.
But suddenly his colour changed, and he tried to raise himself, crying,
"Where's Black Dog?"
"There is no Black Dog here," said the doctor, "except what you have
on your own back. You have been drinking rum; you have had a stroke,
precisely as I told you; and I have just, very much against my own will,
dragged you headforemost out of the grave. Now, Mr. Bones—"
"That's not my name," he interrupted.
"Much I care," returned the doctor. "It's the name of a buccaneer of my
acquaintance; and I call you by it for the sake of shortness, and what I
have to say to you is this; one glass of rum won't kill you, but if you take
one you'll take another and another, and I stake my wig if you don't
break off short, you'll die—do you understand that?—die, and go to your
own place, like the man in the Bible. Come, now, make an effort. I'll help
you to your bed for once."
Between us, with much trouble, we managed to hoist him upstairs,
and laid him on his bed, where his head fell back on the pillow as if he
were almost fainting.
"Now, mind you," said the doctor, "I clear my conscience—the name of
rum for you is death."
And with that he went off to see my father, taking me with him by the
arm.
"This is nothing," he said as soon as he had closed the door. "I have
drawn blood enough to keep him quiet awhile; he should lie for a week
where he is—that is the best thing for him and you; but another stroke
would settle him."
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Chapter 3
The Black Spot
A bout noon I stopped at the captain's door with some cooling drinks
and medicines. He was lying very much as we had left him, only a
little higher, and he seemed both weak and excited.
"Jim," he said, "you're the only one here that's worth anything, and you
know I've been always good to you. Never a month but I've given you a
silver fourpenny for yourself. And now you see, mate, I'm pretty low,
and deserted by all; and Jim, you'll bring me one noggin of rum, now,
won't you, matey?"
"The doctor—" I began.
But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voice but heartily.
"Doctors is all swabs," he said; "and that doctor there, why, what do he
know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates
dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like
the sea with earthquakes—what to the doctor know of lands like
that?—and I lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink, and man
and wife, to me; and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk
on a lee shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab"; and he
ran on again for a while with curses. "Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges,"
he continued in the pleading tone. "I can't keep 'em still, not I. I haven't
had a drop this blessed day. That doctor's a fool, I tell you. If I don't have
a drain o' rum, Jim, I'll have the horrors; I seen some on 'em already. I
seen old Flint in the corner there, behind you; as plain as print, I seen
him; and if I get the horrors, I'm a man that has lived rough, and I'll raise
Cain. Your doctor hisself said one glass wouldn't hurt me. I'll give you a
golden guinea for a noggin, Jim."
He was growing more and more excited, and this alarmed me for my
father, who was very low that day and needed quiet; besides, I was reas-
sured by the doctor's words, now quoted to me, and rather offended by
the offer of a bribe.
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"I want none of your money," said I, "but what you owe my father. I'll
get you one glass, and no more."
When I brought it to him, he seized it greedily and drank it out.
"Aye, aye," said he, "that's some better, sure enough. And now, matey,
did that doctor say how long I was to lie here in this old berth?"
"A week at least," said I.
"Thunder!" he cried. "A week! I can't do that; they'd have the black
spot on me by then. The lubbers is going about to get the wind of me this
blessed moment; lubbers as couldn't keep what they got, and want to
nail what is another's. Is that seamanly behaviour, now, I want to know?
But I'm a saving soul. I never wasted good money of mine, nor lost it
neither; and I'll trick 'em again. I'm not afraid on 'em. I'll shake out an-
other reef, matey, and daddle 'em again."
As he