SQUIRE TRELAWNEY, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17—and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof. I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow—a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards: "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest—Yo—ho—ho, and a bottle of rum!"

乡绅特里劳尼、利夫西医生和其他这些先生们早就想叫我把有关金银岛的全部细节写出来，从头到尾、毫无保留，除了金银岛的位置，那只是因为至今在那里还有没被挖出来的宝藏。于是我在一七几几年拿起笔来，回到过去我父亲开“本博将军”旅店的时候，那会儿那个褐色皮肤、脸上带着刀疤的老水手第一次住进了我们的旅店。我至今对他记忆犹新。当时他迈着沉重的步子来到旅店门前，他的水手储物箱就放在他身后的一个手推车上。他身材高大，强壮而结实，有着坚果般棕色的皮肤。他穿了一件脏兮兮的蓝色外套，粘乎乎的大辫子垂在肩膀上。他粗糙的双手布满了疤痕，指甲是黑的，还残缺不全。一道脏兮兮的铅灰色刀疤横贯他一侧的脸颊。我记得他一面环顾着小海湾，一面给自己吹着口哨，然后突然扯开嗓子唱起了那首后来他经常挂在嘴边的古老的水手歌：“十五个人站在聚魂棺上——呦——嗬——嗬——还有一瓶朗姆酒！”

In the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.

那苍老的声音高亢而颤抖，仿佛是按照船上的绞盘杆定的调，又按照它唱走了音。然后他用一根随身携带的类似绞盘棒的棍子重重地敲门，当我父亲出来时，他又粗鲁地要了一杯朗姆酒。酒端给他的时候，他慢慢地喝着，就像一个品酒师一样细细地品着，眼睛仍然望着悬崖，还有头上我们旅店的招牌。

"This is a handy cove," said he at length; "and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate?"

“这是个位置便利的小海湾，”他终于开口说道，“而且这个小酒店的位置也不错。客人多么，伙计？”

My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity.

我父亲告诉他，客人不多，遗憾的就是客人太少了。

"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued. "I'm a plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you're at—there," and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. "You can tell me when I've worked through that," said he, looking as fierce as a commander.

“那么，好吧，”他说，“这就是我停泊的住处了。伙计，到这来。”他朝推着手推车的人喊道，“把车子停到边上，帮我卸箱子。我要在这住些日子。”他继续说道，“我是个粗人，只要有朗姆酒、培根和鸡蛋就够了，当然还要那可以看着船起航的悬崖。你们该叫我什么呢？就叫我船长吧。哦，我知道你们什么意思了——看那儿。”他把三四个金币扔到门槛上。“用完了，你们就告诉我一声。”他说道，看起来严厉得像个指挥官。

And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man who came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at the Royal George, that he had inquired what inns there were along the coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of residence. And that was all we could learn of our guest.

说实在的，尽管他衣衫褴褛，语言粗俗，但他的外表却根本不像一个在桅杆前航行的水手，倒像个习惯发号施令或者挥手动拳的大副或者船长。这个带着手推车的人告诉我们，邮车昨天早上把他送到“乔治王”旅店，他打听了岸边有什么旅店，我想他是听说我们的旅店名声很好，别人又都说这儿是个僻静的地方，于是就在众多旅店中选中了我们这家。这就是我们所能知道的关于这个客人的一切了。

He was a very silent man by custom. All day he hung round the cove or upon the cliffs with a brass telescope; all evening he sat in a corner of the parlour next the fire and drank rum and water very strong. Mostly he would not speak when spoken to, only look up sudden and fierce and blow through his nose like a fog-horn; and we and the people who came about our house soon learned to let him be. Every day when he came back from his stroll he would ask if any seafaring men had gone by along the road. At first we thought it was the want of company of his own kind that made him ask this question, but at last we began to see he was desirous to avoid them. When a seaman did put up at the Admiral Benbow (as now and then some did, making by the coast road for Bristol) he would look in at him through the curtained door before he entered the parlour; and he was always sure to be as silent as a mouse when any such was present. For me, at least, there was no secret about the matter, for I was, in a way, a sharer in his alarms. He had taken me aside one day and promised me a silver fourpenny on the first of every month if I would only keep my "weather-eye open for a seafaring man with one leg"and let him know the moment he appeared. Often enough when the first of the month came round and I applied to him for my wage, he would only blow through his nose at me and stare me down, but before the week was out he was sure to think better of it, bring me my fourpenny piece, and repeat his orders to look out for "the seafaring man with one leg".

他是个生性非常沉默寡言的人。整个白天，他都带着一副铜制的望远镜，不是在海湾四周闲逛，就是在悬崖上游荡；整个晚上，他都坐在大厅壁炉旁的一个角落里，拼命地喝着掺着水的朗姆酒。如果有人和他说话，他大多数情况都不会回应，只是会突然抬起头来狠狠看一眼，像吹雾角一样哼一下鼻子。我们和到我们这里来的人们很快就学会随他去了。每天散步回来，他都会问有没有水手路过这里。起初我们觉得是缺少同类人的陪伴使他这么问的，但后来我们开始发现他是想要躲开他们。每当有水手投宿到“本博将军”旅店（时不时地会有一些水手来，途径这条沿海的路到布里斯托尔），他在进大厅前总会先隔着那扇带帘子的门观察一番。如果有这样的人在场，他必定会安静得像个耗子一样。对我来说，至少这件事情不算什么秘密，因为我多少也分担了他的惊恐。一天他把我叫到一边，答应我在每个月的第一天给我一枚四便士的银币，只要我“时刻留神一个独腿水手”，并且这个人一出现，就告诉他。每当月初到来，我向他要报酬的时候，他通常只会冲我把鼻子一哼，然后瞪得我不敢再看他。但不出一个星期，他一定会改变主意，把四便士银币给我，然后重新叮嘱我要我留神那个“独腿水手”。

How that personage haunted my dreams, I need scarcely tell you. On stormy nights, when the wind shook the four corners of the house and the surf roared along the cove and up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions. Now the leg would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip; now he was a monstrous kind of a creature who had never had but the one leg, and that in the middle of his body. To see him leap and run and pursue me over hedge and ditch was the worst of nightmares. And altogether I paid pretty dear for my monthly fourpenny piece, in the shape of these abominable fancies.

那个独腿水手是如何萦绕在我的梦里的，我就不必多说了。在暴风雨夜，当狂风席卷屋子的四角，海浪咆哮着冲上海湾，跳上悬崖的时候，我就会看到一千个他的样子，带着一千种恶魔般的表情。一会是那条腿腿被齐膝砍断，一会儿是从臀部被砍断，一会他又成了一条腿长在在身体中间的怪物。看他跳过树篱和水沟跑着追赶我，是我做过的最糟糕的噩梦。总之，我为了每月的四便士付出了相当多的代价，受到这些可恶的想象的折磨。

But though I was so terrified by the idea of the seafaring man with one leg, I was far less afraid of the captain himself than anybody else who knew him. There were nights when he took a deal more rum and water than his head would carry; and then he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked, old, wild sea-songs, minding nobody; but sometimes he would call for glasses round and force all the trembling company to listen to his stories or bear a chorus to his singing. Often I have heard the house shaking with "Yo—ho—ho, and a bottle of rum," all the neighbours joining in for dear life, with the fear of death upon them, and each singing louder than the other to avoid remark. For in these fits he was the most overriding companion ever known; he would slap his hand on the table for silence all round; he would fly up in a passion of anger at a question, or sometimes because none was put, and so he judged the company was not following his story. Nor would he allow anyone to leave the inn till he had drunk himself sleepy and reeled off to bed.

但是，尽管我被这个独腿水手的念头吓得够呛，这还远远比不上其他认识船长的人对他本人的害怕。有的夜晚，他喝下的掺水朗姆酒超过了他的脑袋所能承受的限度。然后，他有时会坐下，旁若无人地唱他那老掉牙的破水手歌人。但是有时候，他会请大家都喝上一杯，强迫那些吓得瑟瑟发抖的客人们听他讲故事或者跟着他一起唱歌。我常常听到整个屋子震动着，伴随着“呦——嗬——嗬——还有一瓶朗姆酒”的歌声，所有邻座的人为了宝贵的生命，连同他们对死亡的恐惧加入进来。每个人都唱得比别人更大声，以免被骂。因为在这些场合里，他是人们所知道的最重要的人。他会用手拍桌子要周围所有人安静；他会突然对被问到的一个问题大发雷霆，或者他有时候还会因为没有人问问题而认为大家没有在听他讲故事，同样大发雷霆。在他喝困了、跌跌撞撞地上床之前，他也不会允许任何人离开小旅店。

His stories were what frightened people worst of all. Dreadful stories they were—about hanging, and walking the plank, and storms at sea, and the Dry Tortugas, and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. By his own account he must have lived his life among some of the wickedest men that God ever allowed upon the sea, and the language in which he told these stories shocked our plain country people almost as much as the crimes that he described. My father was always saying the inn would be ruined, for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannized over and put down, and sent shivering to their beds; but I really believe his presence did us good. People were frightened at the time, but on looking back they rather liked it; it was a fine excitement in a quiet country life, and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to admire him, calling him a "true sea-dog" and a "real old salt" and such like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England terrible at sea.

最让大家害怕的还是他的那些故事。那都是些让人恐怖的故事——关于绞刑、走木板、海上风暴、干燥的托尔图加斯、西班牙大陆上的野蛮行径和野蛮地区。根据他的叙述，他想必和上帝造出的最邪恶的一些人在海上过了一辈子。他讲这些故事所用的语言，几乎能和他描述的那些罪行一样，使我们这些平庸的乡下人震惊万分。我父亲总是说这个小旅店会被毁掉，因为人们很快将不再来这里忍受暴戾、压制、瑟瑟发抖地爬上床，但我却真心相信他的出现会给我们带来好处。人们当时被吓坏了，但是回头想想反倒更加喜欢了。因为这给平静的乡村生活带来了很好的刺激。甚至有一群年轻人装作崇拜他，称他为“真正的水手”、“真正的老水手”及其他诸如此类的称呼，还说正是因为有这样的人，英格兰才得以称霸海上。

In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us, for he kept on staying week after week, and at last month after month, so that all the money had been long exhausted, and still my father never plucked up the heart to insist on having more. If ever he mentioned it, the captain blew through his nose so loudly that you might say he roared, and stared my poor father out of the room. I have seen him wringing his hands after such a rebuff, and I am sure the annoyance and the terror he lived in must have greatly hastened his early and unhappy death.

一方面来说，他的确也在毁灭着我们，因为他在这里住了一个星期又一个星期，最后是一个月又一个月，所有他付的钱早就花光了，可我父亲始终没有鼓起勇气坚持向他要更多的钱。如果我父亲一提起这件事，船长便会大声哼下鼻子，简直可以说是在咆哮，然后瞪着我可怜的父亲，吓得他退出房间。我曾见到父亲在一番回绝后痛苦地绞着他的双手。我确信，一定是这种恼怒和恐惧加速了他的不幸早逝。

All the time he lived with us the captain made no change whatever in his dress but to buy some stockings from a hawker. One of the cocks of his hat having fallen down, he let it hang from that day forth, though it was a great annoyance when it blew. I remember the appearance of his coat, which he patched himself upstairs in his room, and which, before the end, was nothing but patches. He never wrote or received a letter, and he never spoke with any but the neighbours, and with these, for the most part, only when drunk on rum. The great sea-chest none of us had ever seen open.

船长和我们住在一起的日子里，从没有换过任何衣服，除了从小贩那里买过几双袜子。他帽子的一角耷拉了下来，从那天起他就让它一直那么耷拉着，尽管当风吹来的时候，它会使他极不舒服。我还记得他那件大衣的样子。他曾在楼上的房间亲自给它打过补丁，直到最后，这件衣服除了补丁，什么都不剩了。他从不写信，也从未收到过别人的来信，而且除了邻居他也从不和任何人说话，即使和这些人说话，大多数也只是在喝朗姆酒的时候。那个航海的大储物箱，我们也从没见到它打开过。

He was only once crossed, and that was towards the end, when my poor father was far gone in a decline that took him off. Dr. Livesey came late one afternoon to see the patient, took a bit of dinner from my mother, and went into the parlour to smoke a pipe until his horse should come down from the hamlet, for we had no stabling at the old Benbow. I followed him in, and I remember observing the contrast the neat, bright doctor, with his powder as white as snow and his bright, black eyes and pleasant manners, made with the coltish country folk, and above all, with that filthy, heavy, bleared scarecrow of a pirate of ours, sitting, far gone in rum, with his arms on the table. Suddenly he—the captain, that is—began to pipe up his eternal song: "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest—Yo—ho—ho, and a bottle of rum!

他只是有一次被顶撞过，那是他快离开旅店的日子，当时我可怜的父亲身体正每况愈下，已病入膏肓。一天傍晚，利夫西医生来看病人，吃了一点我母亲做的晚饭，然后走进大厅抽烟，直到他的马从小村子过来，因为我们“本博将军”老店没有马厩。我跟着他进了客厅。我记得看到这位整洁、鲜亮的医生，涂着雪白的粉，有着明亮的黑眼睛和令人愉悦的风度，同那些不受拘束的乡下佬，特别是和我们那粗鄙、笨拙、头脑迷糊的海盗比起来，简直有天壤之别。那位海盗正坐在大厅里，喝得烂醉，胳膊搭在桌子上。突然他——这位船长——又扯开嗓子唱起那首老掉牙的歌：“十五个人站在聚魂棺上——呦——嗬——嗬，还有一瓶朗姆酒！

Drink and the devil had done for the rest—Yo—ho—ho, and a bottle of rum!"

酒和魔鬼带走了其余的人——呦——嗬——嗬，还有一瓶朗姆酒！”

At first I had supposed "the dead man's chest" to be that identical big box of his upstairs in the front room, and the thought had been mingled in my nightmares with that of the one-legged seafaring man. But by this time we had all long ceased to pay any particular notice to the song; it was new, that night, to nobody but Dr. Livesey, and on him I observed it did not produce an agreeable effect, for he looked up for a moment quite angrily before he went on with his talk to old Taylor, the gardener, on a new cure for the rheumatics. In the meantime, the captain gradually brightened up at his own music, and at last flapped his hand upon the table before him in a way we all knew to mean silence. The voices stopped at once, all but Dr. Livesey's; he went on as before speaking clear and kind and drawing briskly at his pipe between every word or two. The captain glared at him for a while, flapped his hand again, glared still harder, and at last broke out with a villainous, low oath, "Silence, there, between decks!"

我起初以为他歌中唱的“聚魂棺”就是他楼上的那个大箱子的样子，并且这个想法已经在我的噩梦里和那个独腿水手搅在了一起。但是这个时候，我们对这首歌都不是特别在意了。那个晚上，它只对利夫西医生是新鲜的，并且我也并没有在他身上察觉到应有的效果。因为他在和园丁老泰勒聊天的过程中，非常愤怒地抬头看了一下，接着又谈论起治疗风湿的新疗法。与此同时，船长逐渐被自己的音乐抖擞起精神来，最后他一掌拍在了他面前的桌子上，我们都明白这意味着要安静。所有人立刻都不再说话了，除了利夫西医生。他继续像刚才一样清晰、和蔼地说着，每一两个词之间都轻快地抽一口烟斗。船长瞪了他一会儿，又拍了一下桌子，眼睛瞪得更加凶狠，最后终于用恶狠狠的低沉声音咒骂道：“安静，甲板上下的人都给我安静！”

"Were you addressing me, sir?" says the doctor; and when the ruffian had told him, with another oath, that this was so, "I have only one thing to say to you, sir," replies the doctor, "that if you keep on drinking rum, the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel!"

“你是在和我说话吗，先生？”医生说。当这个无赖用另一句咒骂告诉他是这样的时候，医生回答说：“我只对你说一件事，先生，那就是，如果你继续喝朗姆酒的话，世界上就会很快少一个无比肮脏的恶棍！”

The old fellow's fury was awful. He sprang to his feet, drew and opened a sailor's clasp-knife, and balancing it open on the palm of his hand, threatened to pin the doctor to the wall.

老家伙的愤怒很可怕。他跳了起来，拿出并打开一把水手用的折叠小刀，搁在手掌上左右掂量着，威胁说要把医生钉到墙上去。

The doctor never so much as moved. He spoke to him as before, over his shoulder and in the same tone of voice, rather high, so that all the room might hear, but perfectly calm and steady: "If you do not put that knife this instant in your pocket, I promise, upon my honour, you shall hang at the next assizes."

医生动都没动一下。他转过身来，用和刚才一样的语调，声音相当高，好让全屋子的人都能听到，但又像之前一样相当平静而坚定地对他说：“如果你不立刻把刀子放回你的口袋，我以我的名誉保证，你会在下一次巡回审判中被绞死。”

Then followed a battle of looks between them, but the captain soon knuckled under, put up his weapon, and resumed his seat, grumbling like a beaten dog.

接着，他们展开了一场对视战，但是船长很快便败下阵来，收起他的武器，重新回到自己的座位，像一只挨了打的狗一样咕哝着。

"And now, sir," continued the doctor, "since I now know there's such a fellow in my district, you may count I'll have an eye upon you day and night. I'm not a doctor only; I'm a magistrate; and if I catch a breath of complaint against you, if it's only for a piece of incivility like tonight's, I'll take effectual means to have you hunted down and routed out of this. Let that suffice."

“听着，先生，”医生继续说道，“既然我现在已经知道我的管辖区里有这么一个家伙，你尽可放心，我会日夜盯着你。我不只是一个医生，还是一个治安官。如果我听到一句抱怨你的话，哪怕只是像今晚一样的无礼，我都会立刻采取有效的措施，把你抓起来，赶出这里。就这样。”

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.

之后不久，利夫西医生的马来到门前，他上马离开了，但是那天晚上船长一直保持着沉默，并且之后的许多晚上都是这样。 MYvVMZd9Cbe9IcmQWz5veXwMussFirrr05uGSgsziZ85KHFwgvc7kmusz4JdABU7