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Treasure Island

By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Condensation by ALICE G. GROZIER SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Doctor Livesey, and the others have bidden me tell the story of our search for old Buccaneer Flint's hidden treasure, and so I go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn. Then it was that the seaman, Bill Bones, came to us for lodging, his sea-chest following after in a handbarrow.

At his request we called him "Captain"; he settled down, always on the watch for a "seaman with one leg," and constantly singing an old sea-song: Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Then one day an old blind man left him the pirate's "summons" or "black spot," which so excited him that, combined with the effect of his rum-drinking, it brought on a stroke and we found him dead upon the floor. Mother and I opened his sea-chest, where I discovered a packet done up in oil-silk; this I took with me, and as soon as I could went to the doctor's house, where I found him with the squire.