Treasure Island - 1.3 The Black Spot Reading Worksheet

A glossary of the words in bold is here

About noon, I took a drink and some medicine to the captain. He was lying as we had left him. “Jim,” he said in a weak voice. “Bring me a bottle of rum, now.”

“The doctor--” I began.

“What does a doctor know about seafaring men?” he pleaded. “I’ve lived on rum! Look, Jim, how my fingers tremble! I haven't had a drop all day.”

“I'll get you one glass, and no more.”

When I brought it to him, he seized it greedily.“That's better,” said he. “What did that doctor say? How long I must lie here in this bed?”

“A week at least,” said I.

“No!” he cried. “They'd have the black spot on me by then. I'll trick 'em again. I'm not afraid of 'em.”

He lay for a while silent. “Jim,” he said finally. “You saw that seafaring man today?”

“Black Dog?” I asked.

“Ah! Black Dog,” says he. “He’s bad but not the worst of them. It's my old sea-chest they're looking for.”

“Why do they want it?”

“I was old Flint's first mate,” he said. “I’m the only one who knows the place. He gave me the map me at Savannah, when he lay a-dying.”

I still didn’t understand what he was saying. Who was Flint? What was this map?

“They’re trying to get the black spot on me, “ he continued. “Don’t speak to any of them, Jim. Above all don’t speak to  a seafaring man with one leg.”

His voice grew weaker. Soon fell at last into a heavy sleep.

Quick Check: True or false

1. The captain has returned to sea.
2. The doctor told the captain to stay in bed for a week
3. The real name of Black Dog is Flint.

 That evening, my poor father died suddenly.

On the night before the funeral the captain was drunk, as usual and singing his ugly old sea-song. Yet he was weak and getting weaker. He breathed hard and fast like a man on a steep mountain.

Shut up in his own thoughts, he spoke to nobody. Sometimes he put his nose out the door to smell the sea. His temper, though, was more violent than ever. He sat with his cutlass in front of him on the table.

 ****

The day after the funeral, I was standing at the front door. It was a frosty, foggy, afternoon. I was full of sad thoughts about my father.

Out of the fog an old blind man appeared. He was moving slowly along the road towards the inn, tapping his stick.

He stopped in front of the inn. “Where am I?”

“You are at the Admiral Benbow, Black Hill Cove, sir ” said I.

“Will you give me your hand, my kind young friend, and lead me in?”

I held out my hand. The blind man pulled me close up to him.

“Now, boy,” he said, “take me to the captain.”

“Sir,” said I, “I cannot do that.”

“Take me to him,” he said, in a  cruel, cold, ugly voice.  “Or I'll break your arm.”

Our sick old captain was sitting in the parlour, dazed with rum. The blind man clung close to me, holding me in one iron fist.

As I opened the parlour door, the poor captain raised his eyes.

“Now, Bill,” said the blind man, passing. something from the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain's. “And now that's done,”he said.

Releasing me,the blind man skipped out of the parlour and into the road. I could hear his stick go tap-tap-tapping into the distance.

I released the captain’s wrist. He opened his hand and looked down. There was the circle of paper the beggar had forced into it.

It was a black spot.

The captain stood swaying for a moment. Then, with a peculiar sound, he fell to the floor. I ran to him at once, calling to my mother.  

It was too late. The captain was dead.

I cried for the captain. Though I had never liked the man I had grown to pity him . This was the second death I had known, and the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart.

Quick Check

1. A blind attends the funeral of Jim’s father.
2. The blind man hits the captain with his stick
3. Jim always like the captain.