Treasure Island / Wyspa Skarbów

Robert LouisStevensonTreasure Island Wyspa SkarbówCzytamy w oryginale

Treasure Island / Wyspa Skarbów

Seria Czytamy w oryginale to atrakcyjna pomoc dla uczących się języka angielskiego. Śledząc losy bohaterów powieści możemy na bieżąco porównywać tekst angielski i polski, ucząc się na podstawie wielkiej literatury. Adaptacja została przygotowana z myślą o czytelnikach średniozaawansowanych, jednak dzięki wersji polskiej z książki korzystać mogą również początkujący.

Aby zmienić wersję językową – kliknij w numer akapitu.

Zapraszamy na www.44.pl gdzie dostępne są dodatkowe pomoce do samodzielnej nauki: angielska wersja audio (format mp3) oraz zeszyt ćwiczeń z kluczem odpowiedzi.

Treasure IslandChapter I  The Old Sea-Dog

[ 1 ] Squire Trelawney, Dr Livesey and the other gentlemen have asked me to write everything I know about the Treasure Island. Everything apart from where it is, and that’s only because there is still some treasure left there. My name is Jim Hawkins and it was with me that the whole story started. I was just a boy then, working at my father’s guest-house ‘Admiral Benbow’, but I still remember very clearly how the brown, old seaman first came to live under our roof.

[ 2 ] He was tall and strong, and was wearing an old dirty blue coat. He had a white sword cut across his right cheek. I remember him looking around the room that my father had offered him, and singing that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards:

[ 3 ] ‘Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest –

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!’

[ 4 ] ‘This is a nice room,’ he said. ‘Do many people come here?’

[ 5 ] My father told him no, very few.

[ 6 ] ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘This is the place for me. ‘I’ll bring up my chest. You can call me captain.’ [ 7 ] and he threw three or four gold coins on the floor

[ 8 ] ‘Tell me when I’ve spent that.’

[ 9 ] He was a very silent man. He spent all day in his room or walking on the cliffs, looking for ships. Every day, he asked if we had seen any seamen around. At first we thought that he missed other sailors, but soon we understood that he was really trying to avoid them. I knew even more than the rest of my family. One day the captain took me aside and offered me a silver coin every month for keeping my eyes open for a seaman with one leg. The captain seemed afraid of him, and I began to have nightmares about a one-legged seaman too.

[ 10 ] But though I was so terrified by the idea of the one-legged seaman, I was less afraid of the captain than everyone else in the guest-house. In the evening he drank lots of rum and frightened all the other guests in the dining room. They had to listen to the terrible stories he told about his sea adventures, and sing his sea-songs with him. My father was worried that soon we would have no customers at all, but he was a weak man, and ill too. He was so afraid of the captain that he never asked him for more money, even after his gold coins were long gone. We were sure he had money in his sea chest, but we never saw it open.

[ 11 ] There was only one man who was not afraid of the captain. That was Dr Livesey. One day the doctor came to our guest-house, and just then the captain started to sing his:

[ 12 ] ‘Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest –

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest –

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!’

[ 13 ] He had already drunk a lot that day and was singing loudly. Dr Livesey didn’t like the song and he started to talk to old Taylor, our gardener.

[ 14 ] ‘Silence there!’ shouted the captain.

[ 15 ] But Dr Livesey paid no attention.

[ 16 ] ‘Silence!’ shouted the captain again.

[ 17 ] ‘Are you talking to me, sir?’ asked the doctor calmly. ‘If so, I have only one thing to tell you, sir, if you drink more rum, soon there will be one dirty scoundrel less in the world.’

[ 18 ] The old seaman was very angry. He took out his knife and jumped towards Dr Livesey. But the doctor was very calm.

[ 19 ] ‘If you do anything now, or ever I hear anybody complain about you,’ he said. ‘I’ll find you and put you in prison immediately. I’m not only a doctor but also a magistrate.’

[ 20 ] The captain went back to his seat like a beaten dog and it was much calmer in our guest-house for some time.

[ 21 ] But not for very long. One cold January morning, when my mother was upstairs with my sick father, and the captain was on the beach, I was alone downstairs preparing the captain’s breakfast. Suddenly the door opened and a thin man with a white face came in. I noticed that he had only three fingers on his left hand. But he had two legs, so he wasn’t the terrible one-legged sailor I was looking out for.

[ 22 ] ‘Is this table for my friend, Bill?’ he asked me. [ 23 ] I told him I didn’t know any Bill, and that the table was for the captain.

[ 24 ] ‘Has your captain got a cut on his right cheek? Yes? Well, then he is my friend Bill! Is he in the house?’

[ 25 ] I told him the captain was out walking. He decided to wait for Bill, as he called him. He didn’t look nice and I began to feel worried. He went outside the inn and was looking around like a cat waiting for a mouse. When he saw the captain coming back, he jumped back and hid behind the door. The captain came into the room and went straight to the table.

[ 26 ] ‘Bill!’ said the stranger. The captain turned around.

[ 27 ] ‘Black Dog!’ he said and his face changed. ‘What do you want?’

[ 28 ] ‘Bill, let’s talk, like old friends,’ Black Dog said.

[ 29 ] They asked me to bring them rum and then sent me back to the kitchen. I did my best to listen, but I couldn’t hear much because they were talking very quietly. But then they both got angry and started to shout. Soon they were fighting and throwing chairs and tables in anger. It didn’t last long and as I came into the room, I saw Black Dog running away. The captain clearly won this battle but he didn’t look good himself. He fell on the floor and couldn’t get up again. Fortunately, Dr Livesey came into the guest-house at that very moment. He examined the captain and told me that he just had a stroke. Then he helped me carry the captain to bed.

[ 30 ] ‘Just as I told you, Billy Bones! Now, stay in bed for at least a week and no rum,’ the doctor said. ‘One glass won’t kill you but if you have one, you’ll have more, and then you’ll die.’

[ 31 ] It was about noon that day when I went upstairs to give the captain his medicine. He was very weak and looked frightened.

[ 32 ] ‘You saw that seaman today, Jim? He’s bad, but the others are worse than him. They want my sea chest, but they can’t get it before they give me the black spot. So Jim, if you see that Black Dog again, or the seaman with one leg, get on a horse and tell the doctor to bring help.

[ 33 ] But for the next few days I had no time to look out for any seamen or look after the captain much. My poor father died suddenly and I both was sad and shocked. I was also very busy helping my mother run the guest-house and preparing everything for the funeral.

Chapter II The Brown Packet

[ 34 ] It