Chapter: BLACK DOG APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS


It was not very long after this that there occurred the first of the
mysterious events that rid us at last of the captain, though not, as you
will see, of his affairs. It was a bitter cold winter, with long, hard
frosts and heavy gales; and it was plain from the first that my poor
father was little likely to see the spring. He sank daily, and my mother
and I had all the inn upon our hands, and were kept busy enough without
paying much regard to our unpleasant guest.

It was one January morning, very early--a pinching, frosty morning--the
cove all gray with hoar-frost, the ripple lapping softly on the stones,
the sun still low, and only touching the hill-tops and shining far to
seaward. The captain had risen earlier than usual, and set out down the
beach, his cutlass swinging under the broad skirts of the old blue coat,
his brass telescope under his arm, his hat tilted back upon his head. I
remember his breath hanging like smoke in his wake as he strode off, and
the last sound I heard of him, as he turned the big rock, was a loud
snort of indignation, as though his mind was still running upon Doctor
Livesey.

Well, mother was upstairs with father, and I was laying the breakfast
table against the captain's return, when the parlor door opened and a
man stepped in on whom I had never set my eyes before. He was a pale,
tallowy creature, wanting two fingers of the left hand; and, though he
wore a cutlass, he did not look much like a fighter. I had always my
eyes open for seafaring men, with one leg or two, and I remember this
one puzzled me. He was not sailorly, and yet he had a smack of the sea
about him too.

I asked him what was for his service, and he said he would take rum, but
as I was going out of the room to fetch it he sat down upon a table and
motioned to me to draw near. I paused where I was, with my napkin in my
hand.

"Come here, sonny," said he. "Come nearer here."

I took a step nearer.

"Is this here table for my mate Bill?" he asked, with a kind of leer.

I told him I did not know his mate Bill, and this was for a person who
stayed at our house, whom we called the captain.

"Well," said he, "my mate Bill would be called the captain, as like as
not. He has a cut on one cheek, and a mighty pleasant way with him,
particularly in drink, has my mate Bill. We'll put it, for argument
like, that your captain has a cut on one cheek--and we'll put it, if you
like, that that cheek's the right one. Ah, well! I told you. Now, is my
mate Bill in this here house?"

I told him he was out walking.

"Which way, sonny? Which way is he gone?"

And when I had pointed out the rock and told him how the captain was
likely to return, and how soon, and answered a few other questions,
"Ah," said he, "this'll be as good as drink to my mate Bill."

The expression of his face as he said these words was not at all
pleasant, and I had my own reasons for thinking that the stranger was
mistaken, even supposing he meant what he said. But it was no affair of
mine, I thought; and, besides, it was difficult to know what to do.

The stranger kept hanging about just inside the inn door, peering round
the corner like a cat waiting for a mouse. Once I stepped out myself
into the road, but he immediately called me back, and, as I did not obey
quick enough for his fancy, a most horrible change came over his tallowy
face, and he ordered me in with an oath that made me jump. As soon as I
was back again he returned to his former manner, half-fawning,
half-sneering, patted me on the shoulder, told me I was a good boy, and
he had taken quite a fancy to me. "I have a son of my own," said he, "as
like you as two blocks, and he's all the pride of my 'art. But the great
thing for boys is discipline, sonny--discipline. Now, if you had sailed
along of Bill, you wouldn't have stood there to be spoke to twice--not
you. That was never Bill's way, nor the way of sich as sailed with him.
And here, sure enough, is my mate Bill, with a spy-glass under his arm,
bless his old 'art, to be sure. You and me'll just go back into the
parlor, sonny, and get behind the door, and we'll give Bill a little
surprise--bless his 'art, I say again."

So saying, the stranger backed along with me into the parlor, and put me
behind him into the corner, so that we were both hidden by the open
door. I was very uneasy and alarmed, as you may fancy, and it rather
added to my fears to observe that the stranger was certainly frightened
himself. He cleared the hilt of his cutlass and loosened the blade in
the sheath, and all the time we were waiting there he kept swallowing
as if he felt what we used to call a lump in the throat.

At last in strode the captain, slammed the door behind him, without
looking to the right or left, and marched straight across the room to
where his breakfast awaited him.

"Bill," said the stranger, in a voice that I thought he had tried to
make bold and big.

The captain spun round on his heel and fronted us; all the brown had
gone out of his face, and even his nose was blue; he had the look of a
man who sees a ghost, or the Evil One, or something worse, if anything
can be; and, upon my word, I felt sorry to see him, all in a moment,
turn so old and sick.

"Come, Bill, you know me; you know an old shipmate, Bill, surely," said
the stranger.

The captain made a sort of gasp.

"Black Dog!" said he.

"And who else?" returned the other, getting more at his ease. "Black Dog
as ever was, come for to see his old shipmate, Billy, at the 'Admiral
Benbow' Inn. Ah, Bill, Bill, we have seen a sight of times, us two,
since I lost them two talons," holding up his mutilated hand.

"Now, look here," said the captain; "you've run me down; here I am;
well, then, speak up; what is it?"

"That's you, Bill," returned Black Dog; "you're in the right of it,
Billy. I'll have a glass of rum from this dear child here, as I've took
such a liking to; and we'll sit down, if you please, and talk square,
like old shipmates."

When I returned with the rum they were already seated on either side of
the captain's breakfast table--Black Dog next to the door, and sitting
sideways, so as to have one eye on his old shipmate and one, as I
thought, on his retreat.

He bade me go and leave the door wide open. "None of your keyholes for
me, sonny," he said, and I left them together and retired into the bar.

For a long time, though I certainly did my best to listen, I could hear
nothing but a low gabbling; but at last the voices began to grow higher,
and I could pick up a word or two, mostly oaths, from the captain.

"No, no, no, no; and an end of it!" he cried once. And again, "If it
comes to swinging, swing all, say I."

Then all of a sudden there was a tremendous explosion of oaths and other
noises; the chair and table went over in a lump, a clash of steel
followed, and then a cry of pain, and the next instant I saw Black Dog
in full flight, and the captain hotly pursuing, both with drawn
cutlasses, and the former streaming blood from the left shoulder. Just
at the door the captain aimed at the fugitive one last tremendous cut,
which would certainly have split him to the chin had it not been
intercepted by our big signboard of "Admiral Benbow." You may see the
notch on the lower side of the frame to this day.

That blow was the last of the battle. Once out upon the road, Black Dog,
in spite of his wound, showed a wonderful clean pair of heels, and
disappeared over the edge of the hill in half a minute. The captain, for
his part, stood staring at the signboard like a bewildered man. Then he
passed his hand over his eyes several times, and at last turned back
into the house.

"Jim," says he, "rum"; and as he spoke he reeled a little, and caught
himself with one hand against the wall.

"Are you hurt?" cried I.

"Rum," he repeated. "I must get away from here. Rum! rum!"

I ran to fetch it, but I was quite unsteadied by all that had fallen
out, and I broke one glass and fouled the tap, and while I was still
getting in my own way, I heard a loud fall in the parlor, and, running
in, beheld the captain lying full length upon the floor. At the same
instant my mother, alarmed by the cries and fighting, came running
downstairs to help me. Between us we raised his head. He was breathing
very loud and hard, but his eyes were closed and his face was a horrible
color.

"Dear, deary me!" cried my mother, "what a disgrace upon the house! And
your poor father sick!"

In the meantime we had no idea what to do to help the captain, nor any
other thought but that he had got his death-hurt in the scuffle with the
stranger. I got the rum, to be sure, and tried to put it down his
throat, but his teeth were tightly shut, and his jaws as strong as iron.
It was a happy relief for us when the door opened and Doctor Livesey
came in, on his visit to my father.

"Oh, doctor," we cried, "what shall we do? Where is he wounded?"

"Wounded? A fiddlestick's end!" said the doctor. "No more wounded than
you or I. The man has had a stroke, as I warned him. Now, Mrs. Hawkins,
just you run upstairs to your husband and tell him, if possible, nothing
about it. For my part, I must do my best to save this fellow's trebly
worthless life; and, Jim, you get me a basin."

When I got back with the basin the doctor had already ripped up the
captain's sleeve and exposed his great sinewy arm. It was tattooed in
several places. "Here's luck," "A fair wind," and "Billy Bones, his
fancy," were very neatly and clearly executed on the forearm; and up
near the shoulder there was a sketch of a gallows and a man hanging from
it--done, as I thought, with great spirit.

"Prophetic," said the doctor, touching this picture with his finger.
"And now, Master Billy Bones, if that be your name, we'll have a look at
the color of your blood. Jim," he said, "are you afraid 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
unmistakable frown; then his glance fell upon me, and he looked
relieved. But suddenly his color 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."

 Spring comes and with it a mysterious event that introduces Jim to a new facet of the Captains personality. Jims fathers health worsens with time, so Jim and his mother take charge of the Inn. On a frosty January morning, the Captain steps out of the Inn with his usual accessories quietly, as though the thought of Dr. Livesey still weighs in his mind. As Jim is setting the breakfast table, in comes a man wearing a cutlass, whom he had never seen before. While he orders rum, he tries to get friendly with Jim and inquires if the breakfast in the table is spread out for his mate Bill. On hearing that it is for the Captain, he asks if his Captain has a cut on his right cheek. This matches the scar Jim observed when he first saw the Captain. Assured that the Captain is his mate Bill, he asks other questions and waits for him out side the Inn. Jim finds something weird in the strangers behavior when he is asked not to go outside. His confusion doubles when the stranger wants to surprise the Captain by hiding behind the door. When the Captain returns, Jim finds him uneasy and disturbed, rather than surprised to hear his name being called. Recognizing his mate Black Dog he quickly gets to the point without any small talk. Jim is told to leave them alone after serving them rum. Jims eavesdropping doesnt give him any clue about the two sea mates, for he can hear only slow indecipherable sounds. When the sound changes to thuds and clinging of steels, Jim witnesses a battle raging between Billy and the Black Dog. Black Dog manages to escape despite having a cut from the battle on his right shoulder. Asking for another drink, the Captain then collapses on the floor. Jim and his mother feel helpless. In an effort to help the Captain, Jim tries to pour some rum down his throat. Dr. Livesey, who is on another routine visit to check Jims father, takes a look at the Captain. After examining him, he tells them that the Captain has had a stroke. As a precautionary measure, Jims mother is asked not to tell her husband what happened, so as not to upset him. Dr. Livesey, to save the Captain, cuts open a vein from his arm and in the process exposes some of the tattoos on the Captains arm which are comprised of various writings and a well sketched tattoo of a man hanging from the gallows. After forcing a great deal of blood from the Captains body, he regains his consciousness. The doctor tells him what has happened and asks him to stop drinking if he wants to live. But the Captain is more concerned about Black Dog. He is quite irritated when the doctor addresses him as Mr. Bones. Jim and the doctor help him to his room and after putting him in bed, the doctor in his authoritative tone warns the Captain continuing to drink will kill him. On his way to check Jims father, the doctor tells him that he has drawn enough blood to keep him quiet and that he should rest for a week. Finally, he also tells Jim that if the Captain continues to drink, his death is certain.

