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ABOUT 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 reassured by the doctor's words, now quoted
to me, and rather offended by the offer of a bribe.
"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 another reef, matey, and daddle 'em again."
As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed with
great difficulty, holding to my shoulder with a grip
that almost made me cry out, and moving his legs like
so much dead weight. His words, spirited as they were
in meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of the
voice in which they were uttered. He paused when he
had got into a sitting position on the edge.
"That doctor's done me," he murmured. "My ears is
singing. Lay me back."
Before I could do much to help him he had fallen back again
to his former place, where he lay for a while silent.
"Jim," he said at length, "you saw that seafaring man today?"
"Black Dog?" I asked.
"Ah! Black Dog," says he. "HE'S a bad un; but there's
worse that put him on. Now, if I can't get away nohow,
and they tip me the black spot, mind you, it's my old
sea-chest they're after; you get on a horse--you can,
can't you? Well, then, you get on a horse, and go to--
well, yes, I will!--to that eternal doctor swab, and
tell him to pipe all hands--magistrates and sich--and
he'll lay 'em aboard at the Admiral Benbow--all old
Flint's crew, man and boy, all on 'em that's left. I
was first mate, I was, old Flint's first mate, and I'm
the on'y one as knows the place. He gave it me at
Savannah, when he lay a-dying, like as if I was to now,
you see. But you won't peach unless they get the black
spot on me, or unless you see that Black Dog again or a
seafaring man with one leg, Jim--him above all."
"But what is the black spot, captain?" I asked.
"That's a summons, mate. I'll tell you if they get
that. But you keep your weather-eye open, Jim, and
I'll share with you equals, upon my honour."
He wandered a little longer, his voice growing weaker;
but soon after I had given him his medicine, which he
took like a child, with the remark, "If ever a seaman
wanted drugs, it's me," he fell at last into a heavy,
swoon-like sleep, in which I left him. What I should
have done had all gone well I do not know. Probably I
should have told the whole story to the doctor, for I
was in mortal fear lest the captain should repent of
his confessions and make an end of me. But as things
fell out, my poor father died quite suddenly that
evening, which put all other matters on one side. Our
natural distress, the visits of the neighbours, the
arranging of the funeral, and all the work of the inn
to be carried on in the meanwhile kept me so busy that
I had scarcely time to think of the captain, far less
to be afraid of him.
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