That night, we were busy stowing things away, and many of the squire's friends came aboard to wish him a good voyage and a safe return.
Members of the crew were making their preparations for the trip.
Tim Cooper was making a last check of his sea bag, Abe Gray was carving a good-luck charm, and Alan Jenkins sat sewing a patch on his shirt.
I was tired, but I didn't want to leave the deck.
Everything was so exciting—from the captain's commands to the glimmer of the ship's lanterns.
"Cook, give us a song," Alan cried cheerfully.
"Aye, mates," Long John said. "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest—"
The crew joined in: "Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"
The song carried me back to the Admiral Benbow and the old captain, but soon the anchor was up, and the Hispaniola started to move away from the docks.
Our adventure had begun!
The voyage to Treasure Island was fairly uneventful, except Mr. Arrow turned out to be even worse than the captain feared.
After a day or two, he started to appear on deck with hazy eyes, red cheeks, and other signs of drunkenness.
Time after time, he was ordered below deck in disgrace.
"Where does he get the rum?" Dr. Livesey wondered.
"I've asked him," I said. "When he's drunk, he laughs at me, and when he's sober, he says he only drinks water.
"He's useless as a first mate and is a bad influence on the men. At this rate, he'll soon be dead," the doctor predicted.
So nobody was much surprised, or very sorry, when one dark night, he disappeared and was seen no more.
"Overboard?" the captain said. "Well, that saves us the trouble of putting him in irons."
But now we needed a first mate, so Job Anderson, took over the position, along with his regular job of supervising the masts and rigging.
Mr. Trelawney volunteered to take watch, and Israel Hands, the helmsman—the man who steers the ship—was very helpful.
Israel was an experienced seaman who could keep things running well, and he was a great confidant of Long John Silver too.
Aboard ship, Silver hung his crutch on a rope around his neck so he could have both hands free to work.
Even in stormy weather, Long John could walk back and forth from one side of the ship to the other using ropes he'd rigged across the deck.
"He's no common man," Israel told me. "He's strong as a lion and can speak like an educated man when he wants to!"
Long John was always glad to see me in the galley, which he kept spotlessly clean. His parrot, named Montego, was in a cage in one corner.
"Come in and sit down, Hawkins," Long John would say. "Montego here is predicting a successful voyage."
The parrot screeched, "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!"
He pointed to Montego.
"That bird," Silver said, "is maybe two hundred years old, Hawkins. They live almost forever. Only the devil has seen more wickedness."
"Stand by, matey," Montego screamed.
The cook gave the bird some sugar.
"Be gone, sea rat!" the bird swore at him.
Long John shook his head. "Argh, she's been around men who aren't very polite, so my poor innocent bird swears like a sailor.
Of course, she has no idea what she's saying."
Meanwhile, the squire and the captain were still not getting along.
The squire despised the captain, and when the captain spoke to the squire, he was sharp and wasted no words.
"I may have been wrong about the crew," the captain finally admitted to Trelawney one day. "They've behaved pretty well."
And he liked the ship. "The Hispaniola responds to my directions better than any ship I've ever sailed, sir.
But," he added, "we're not home yet, and I still don't like the voyage."
The squire would angrily march up and down the deck.
"If I hear any more complaints from that man," he said to the doctor, "I shall explode."
The squire was overly generous to the crew, providing extra food at mealtimes and steamed pudding whenever someone had a birthday,
and there was always a barrel of apples from which anyone could help himself.
"Never knew good to come of it," the captain said to Dr. Livesey. "Spoil the crew, and you'll make devils. That's my belief."
But good did come out of the apple barrel, because without it, we all might have perished by the hand of treachery.
Everyone was in fine spirits one day, because we were near the end of the first part of our adventure.
Just after sundown, as I headed toward my berth, I decided I wanted an apple.
On deck, the men on watch were all busy looking out for the island.
All was quiet except for the man at the helm, who was whistling while he watched the sails rippling in the wind,
and the swish of the sea against the sides of the ship.
There was scarcely an apple left, so I climbed into the barrel to reach the last ones.
Sitting down at the bottom, eating in the dark with the ship rocking gently, I was on the verge of falling asleep.
Suddenly, a heavy man sat down close by, and the barrel shook as he leaned his shoulders against it.
I was about to jump up when I heard Long John's voice, but after listening a while, I wouldn't have shown myself for the entire world.
I stayed there, trembling and listening, fearful and curious.
Within moments, I realized the lives of all the honest men aboard depended upon me alone.