Soon after Dr Livesey’s horse came to the door, and he rode away; but the captain held his peace that evening, and for many evenings to come.
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 grey with hoar-frost, the ripple lapping softly on the stones, the sun still low and only touching the hilltops 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 Dr Livesey.
Well, mother was upstairs with father; and I was laying the breakfast table against the captain’s return, when the parlour 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 eye 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 me to draw near. I paused where I was with my napkin in my hand.
‘Come here, sonny,’ says 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 in 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 parlour, 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 parlour, and put me behind him in 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 chine 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