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[Assistant] I have neither the scholars melancholy, which is emulation, nor the musicians, which is fantastical, nor the courtiers, which is proud, nor the soldiers, which is ambitious, nor the lawyers, which is politic, nor the ladies, which is nice, nor the lovers, which is all these. But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many symbols, extracted from many objects,


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[Assistant] I could not find him at the Elephant, yet there he was and there I found his credit that he did range the time to seek me out. His counsel now might do me golden service.


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[Assistant] Although my soul disputes well with my sense that this may be some error but no madness, yet doth this accident and flood of fortune so part exceed all instance, all discourse, that I am ready to distrust mine eyes and wrangle with my reason that persuades me to any other trust but that I am mad. Or else the lady is mad. Yet it was so she could not sway her house.


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[Assistant] I had a sister whom the blind waves and surges have devoured. A charity. What kin are you to me? What countryman? What name? What parentage?


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[Assistant] But I didn't kill King Henry, but was thine beauty that provoked me. They doubted!


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[Assistant] Chapter 12 Israel Hands


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[Assistant] I lost no time and climbed up the rope onto the deck of the ship. The two men were there, red cap on his back, Israel hands against the side, his face white. There was dark blood around them on the deck.


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[Assistant] I went below to the cabin where there were empty bottles on the floor and tobacco smoke filled the air. I found a bottle with some rum left in it and found some water and some bread and cheese for myself.


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[Assistant] I took the bottle back on deck where Hans drank half the rum before taking the bottle from his mouth.


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[Assistant] By thunder, he said. I wanted some of that. But where have you come from?


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[Assistant] I've come to take control of this ship, Mr. Hans, I said. So please remember, I'm your captain.


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[Assistant] He watched me pull down the Jolly Roger and throw it overboard. Then he said, I expect you'll want to go ashore now. Suppose we talk about it. There was some color back in his cheeks, but he looked very sick.


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[Assistant] Who's going to sail the ship now? You can't do it. But if you give me food and drink...


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[Assistant] And a handkerchief to tie up my wound? I'll tell you how to sail her. Alright, I agreed. We'll go into North Inlet and quietly put her on the beach there. In three minutes,


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[Assistant] I had the Hispaniola sailing easily before the wind along the coast of Treasure Island. Then I went below and got a handkerchief.


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[Assistant] And helped hands tie up the great bleeding wound in his leg. He ate a little and drank more of the rum. Then he began to look a little better.


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[Assistant] We sailed ahead of the wind, the island moving past quickly.


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[Assistant] I was less sorry about deserting the stockade. There was only one thing that worried me.


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[Assistant] It was the way Israel Hands watched me at my work. A cold little smile on his face.


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[Assistant] We could not put the ship on the beach when we reached north inlet because the sea was too high. We had to wait, sitting in silence over another meal.


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[Assistant] Kratten! Hans said to me, still with that smile on his face,


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[Assistant] Would you be very kind? And go down to the cabin?


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[Assistant] I listened to his words, but didn't believe them. He wanted me to leave the deck, that was clear. But why? Wine, I said. Will you have white or red? I don't mind, he said. As long as it's strong, and there's plenty of it.


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[Assistant] I went below, then took off my shoes.


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[Assistant] Israel hands could move about. And now had a weapon. And he was going to try to kill me.


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[Assistant] But I knew that he wouldn't use the knife until the ship was safely on the beach. I went back to the cabin, put my shoes on again and picked up a bottle of wine. Then I went back up on deck.


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[Assistant] He took a long drink from the bottle of wine, saying,


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[Assistant] Afterwards, we sailed into north inlet, and I forgot to watch hands carefully. We were nearly on the beach, and I was looking over the side of the ship. Perhaps I heard a sound, or saw his shadow moving, I don't know. But when I looked round, there he was, half way towards me, with the knife in his right hand.


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[Assistant] And I jumped to one side, leaving him to fall on the deck. Quickly, I took a pistol from my pocket and aimed it at him. But the powder was wet and the pistol didn't fire. He got up and came at me with surprising speed. But suddenly, the Hispaniola hit the sand and went over on one side.


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[Assistant] We were both thrown down and began to roll across the deck, but I was on my feet first.


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[Assistant] And climbed up into the sails, hand over hand.


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[Assistant] When I was in a safe place, I loaded my pistols, this time with dry powder.


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[Assistant] Hans was pulling himself up among the sails now, the knife between his teeth. One more step, I said, and I'll kill you. Jim, he said. He took the knife from his mouth to speak and looked beaten.


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[Assistant] We'll have to make peace, you and I.


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[Assistant] You're too sharp and quick for an old sailor like me. But then, with a sudden movement, his hand went back and something went speeding through the air. I felt a sharp pain and I was pinned to the mast by my shoulder.


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[Assistant] In the terrible pain and surprise of the moment, both my pistols went off and fell from my hands.


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[Assistant] They did not fall alone. With a cry, Hans fell into the water. He came up. The water around him red from his blood. Then he went down again. Forever.


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[Assistant] I felt sick and frightened. The blood from my wound ran over my back and chest. And the knife seemed to burn like hot iron.


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[Assistant] But I was trembling so badly that it shook the knife out of my skin and I could move again.


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[Assistant] I climbed down through the sails, then went below to tie up my wound. There was a lot of blood, but it wasn't deep. Next, I went up on deck. It was now evening and a light wind was blowing.


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[Assistant] So I lowered the sails before climbing down a rope and into the sea. The water was only waist deep and I walked ashore. The sun had gone now and once on dry land I began to walk to the stockade.


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[Assistant] Perhaps the others would blame me for deserting, I thought. But Captain Smollett


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[Assistant] Would be pleased I had taken the Hispaniola, I was sure.


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[Assistant] When I reached the stockade, the house lay in dark shadow. But on the other side,


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[Assistant] A large fire had almost burned itself out. This seemed strange, as it had not been our habit to build large fires. There were no sounds, except for the wind in the trees, and I went quietly round to the eastern side, keeping in the shadows.


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[Assistant] I heard my friends breathing loudly as they slept, and at once felt happier again.


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[Assistant] There was a high voice screaming in the darkness. Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! It was Silver's parrot, Captain Flint. Immediately, men began to wake up, and I heard Silver's voice shout, Who's there? I turned to run, crashed violently against one person,


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[Assistant] Which in a set hand fairly is engrossed, That it may be to-day red ore in poles.


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[Assistant] And mark how well the sequel hangs together. Eleven hours I have spent to write it over, for yesterday night by Catesby was it sent me. The precedent was full as long a doing, and yet within these five hours Hastings lived.


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[Assistant] Untainted, unexamined, free, at liberty. Here's the good world, the wild, hm?


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[Assistant] Who is so gross that cannot see this palpable device? Yet who's so bold but says he sees it not? Bad is the world and all will come to naught.


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[Assistant] Godspeed, fair Helena. Wither away. Call you me fair. That fair again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair. Oh, happy fair.


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[Assistant] Oh, a favour so, yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go. My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye. My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody. Were the world mine, Demetrius being baited,


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[Assistant] As waggish boys in game themselves for swear, So the boy love is perjured everywhere, For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia's eye, He hailed down oaths that he was only mine.


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[Assistant] And for this intelligence, if I have thanks, it is a dear expense. But herein mean I to enrich my pain, to have his sight, thither and back again.


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[Assistant] Oh, but my dear Frankenstein, continued he, stopping short and gazing full in my face,


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[Assistant] I did not before remark how very ill you appear, so thin and pale. You look as if you had been watching for several nights. You have guessed right.


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[Assistant] I have lately been so deeply engaged in one occupation that I have not allowed myself sufficient rest as you see. But I hope. I sincerely hope.


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[Assistant] That all these employments are now at an end and that I am at length free. I trembled excessively.


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[Assistant] I could not endure to think of and far less to allude to the occurrences of the preceding night.


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[Assistant] That the creature whom I had left in my apartment might still be there, alive and walking about. I dreaded to behold this monster. But I feared still more that Henry should see him.


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[Assistant] And treating him therefore to remain a few minutes at the bottom of the stairs, I darted up towards my own room.


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[Assistant] My hand was already on the lock of the door before I recollected myself. I then paused and a cold shivering came over me.


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[Assistant] I threw the door forcibly open as children are accustomed to do when they expect a specter to stand in waiting for them on the other side. But nothing appeared. I stepped fearfully in. The apartment was empty.


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[Assistant] And my bedroom was also freed from its hideous guests.


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[Assistant] I could hardly believe that so great a good fortune could have befallen me, but when I became assured that my enemy had indeed fled,


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[Assistant] I clapped my hands for joy and ran down to Clairvaux. We ascended into my room, and a servant presently brought breakfast, but I was unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed me.


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[Assistant] I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness and my pulse beat rapidly.


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[Assistant] I was unable to remain for a single instant in the same place.


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[Assistant] I jumped over the chairs, clapped my hands and laughed aloud.


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[Assistant] Clairvallet first attributed my unusual spirits to joy on his arrival, but when he observed me more attentively,


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[Assistant] He saw a wildness in my eyes for which he could not account.


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[Assistant] And my loud unrestrained heartless laughter frightened and astonished him. My dear Victor, cried he.


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[Assistant] Cried I, putting my hands before my eyes, for I thought I saw the dreaded spectre glide into the room.


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[Assistant] He can tell! Oh, save me! Save me! I imagined that the monster seized me. I struggled furiously and fell down in a fit. Poor Clairvaux. What must have been his feelings?


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[Assistant] A meeting which he anticipated with such joy so strangely turned to bitterness. But I was not the witness of his grief.


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[Assistant] For I was lifeless and did not recover my senses for a long, long time.


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[Assistant] This was the commencement of a nervous fever which confined me for several months.


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[Assistant] During all that time Henry was my only nurse. I always learned that


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[Assistant] Knowing my father's advanced age and unfitness for so long a journey.


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[Assistant] And how wretched my sickness would make Elizabeth, he spared them this grief by concealing the extent of my disorder.


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[Assistant] He knew that I could not have a more kind and attentive nurse than himself, and


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[Assistant] Firm in the hope he felt of my recovery he did not doubt that instead of doing harm,


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[Assistant] He performed the kindest action that he could towards them. But I was in reality very ill.


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[Assistant] And surely nothing but the unbounded and unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to life.


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[Assistant] The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was forever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him. Doubtless, my words surprised Henry.


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[Assistant] Yet first, believe them to be the wanderings of my disturbed imagination.


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[Assistant] But the pertinacity with which I continually recurred to the same subject


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[Assistant] And with frequent relapses that alarmed and grieved my friend, I recovered.


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[Assistant] I remember the first time I became capable of observing outward objects with any kind of pleasure. I perceived that the fallen leaves had disappeared.


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[Assistant] And that the young buds were shooting forth from the trees that shaded my window. It was a divine spring. And the season contributed greatly to my convalescence.


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[Assistant] I felt also sentiments of joy and affection revive in my bosom. My gloom disappeared.


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[Assistant] And in a short time I became as cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion. Dearest clever, exclaimed I, how kind, how very good you are to me.


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[Assistant] This whole winter instead of being spent in study as you promised yourself has been consumed in my sick room. How shall I ever repay you?


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[Assistant] I feel the greatest remorse for the disappointment of which I have been the occasion, but you will forgive me.


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[Assistant] You will repay me entirely if you do not discompose yourself, but get well as fast as you can, and since you appear in such good spirits I may speak to you on one subject, may I not? I trembled. One subject? What could it be?


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[Assistant] Compose yourself, said Verbal, who observed my change of colour. I will not mention it if it agitates you.


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[Assistant] But your father and cousin would be very happy if they received a letter from you in your own handwriting.


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[Assistant] They hardly know how ill you have been and are uneasy at your long silence. Is that all, my dear Henrik?


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[Assistant] How could you suppose that my first thought would not fly towards those dear, dear friends whom I love and who are so deserving of my love? If this is your present temper, my friend,


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[Assistant] You will perhaps be glad to see a letter that has been lying here some days for you. It is from your cousin, I believe.


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[Assistant] Chapter 6. Clairvaux then put the following letter into my hands. It was from my own Elizabeth. My dearest cousin, you have been ill, very ill.


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[Assistant] And even the constant letters of Dear Kind Henry are not sufficient to reassure me on your account. You are forbidden to write, to hold a pen.


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[Assistant] For a long time I have thought that each post would bring this line, and my persuasions have restrained my uncle from undertaking a journey to Ingolstadt.


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[Assistant] I figure to myself that the task of attending on your sick bed has devolved on some mercenary old nurse who could never guess your wishes nor minister to them with the care and affection of your poor cousin. Yet that is over now. Clairvile writes that indeed you are getting better.


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[Assistant] I eagerly hope that you will confirm this intelligence soon in your own handwriting. Get well and return to us.


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[Assistant] Your father's health is vigorous, and he asks but to see you, but to be assured that you are well. And not a care will ever cloud his benevolent countenance.


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[Assistant] How pleased you would be to remark the improvement of our earnest. He is now sixteen and full of activity and spirit.


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[Assistant] He is desirous to be a true Swiss and to enter into foreign service, but we cannot part with him at least until his elder brother returns to us.


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[Assistant] My uncle is not pleased with the idea of a military career in a distant country, but Ernest never had your powers of application. He looks upon study as an odious fetter.


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[Assistant] His time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the lake.


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[Assistant] Little alteration except the growth of our dear children has taken place since you left us. The blue lake and snow-clad mountains? They never change.


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[Assistant] And I think our placid home and our contented hearts are regulated by the same immutable laws.


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[Assistant] My trifling occupations take up my time and amuse me, and I am rewarded for any exertions by seeing none but happy, kind faces around me.


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[Assistant] Since you left us, but one change has taken place in our little household.


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[Assistant] I will relate her history therefore in a few words.


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[Assistant] Madame Moritz, her mother, was a widow with four children, of whom Justine was the third.


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[Assistant] This girl had always been the favorite of her father, but through a strange perversity her mother could not endure her, and after the death of Monsieur Moritz, treated her very ill. My aunt observed this.


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[Assistant] And when Justine was 12 years of age, prevailed on her mother to allow her to live at our house.


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[Assistant] The republican institutions of our country have reduced simpler and happier manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies that surround it.


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[Assistant] Hence there is less distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants, and the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined and moral.


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[Assistant] A servant in Geneva does not mean the same thing as a servant in France and England.


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[Assistant] Justine, thus received in our family, learned the duties of a servant, a condition which in our fortunate country does not include the idea of ignorance and a sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.


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[Assistant] And I recollect you once remarked that if you were in an ill humor, one glance from Justine could dissipate it.


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[Assistant] For the same reason that Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of Angelica, she looked so frank-hearted and happy.


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[Assistant] My aunt conceived a great attachment for her by which she was induced to give her an education superior to that which she had at first intended. This benefit was fully repaid. Justine was the most grateful little creature in the world


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[Assistant] I do not mean that she made any professions, I never heard one pass her lips, but you could see by her eyes that she almost adored her protectress.


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[Assistant] Although her disposition was gay and in many respects inconsiderate, yet she paid the greatest attention to every gesture of my aunt.


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[Assistant] She thought her the model of all excellence and endeavored to imitate her phraseology and manners so that even now she often reminds me of her.


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[Assistant] When my dearest aunt died, everyone was too much occupied in their own grief to notice poor Justine, who had attended her during her illness with the most anxious affection. Poor Justine was very ill, but other trials were reserved for her. One by one, her brothers and sister died.


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[Assistant] She began to think that the deaths of her favorites was a judgment from heaven to chastise her partiality. She was a Roman Catholic.


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[Assistant] And I believe her confessor confirmed the idea which she had conceived.


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[Assistant] Accordingly a few months after your departure for Ingolstadt Justine was called home by her repentant mother


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[Assistant] Poor girl. She wept when she quitted our house. She was much altered since the death of my aunt.


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[Assistant] Grief had given softness and a winning mildness to her manners which had before been remarkable for vivacity.


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[Assistant] Nor was her residence at her mother's house of a nature to restore her gaiety. The poor woman was very vacillating in her repentance.


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[Assistant] She sometimes begs Justine to forgive her unkindness.


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[Assistant] Which at first increased her irritability, but she is now at peace forever.


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[Assistant] She died on the first approach of cold weather, at the beginning of this last winter.


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[Assistant] I must say also a few words to you my dear cousin of little darling William. I wish you could see him.


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[Assistant] When he smiles, two little dimples appear on each cheek which are rosy with health.


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[Assistant] He has already had one or two little wives, but Louisa Biron is his favorite, a pretty little girl of five years of age.


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[Assistant] Now, my dear Victor, I dare say you wish to be indulged in a little gossip concerning the good people of Geneva.


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[Assistant] The Prissy Miss Mansfield has already received the congratulatory visits on her approaching marriage with a young Englishman, John Melbourne Esquire.


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[Assistant] Her ugly sister, Manon, married Monsieur Douillard, the rich banker, last autumn.


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[Assistant] Your favorite school fellow, Louis Manoir, has suffered several misfortunes since the departure of Clairvaux from Geneva.


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[Assistant] But he has already recovered his spirits, and is reported to be on the point of marrying a lively, pretty French woman, Madame Tavernier. She is a widow, and much older than Renoir.


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[Assistant] But she is very much admired and a favorite with everybody. I have written myself into better spirits, dear cousin, but my anxiety returns upon me as I conclude.


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[Assistant] I will write instantly and relieve them from the anxiety they must feel. I wrote.


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[Assistant] Chapter 5 I go to Bristol.


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[Assistant] And I spent many hours studying Flint's map and dreaming of treasure.


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[Assistant] Then a letter arrived, addressed to Dr. Livesey.


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[Assistant] Or Jim Hawkins, if the doctor is away.


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[Assistant] I do not know whether you are at home or in London.


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[Assistant] So I am sending copies of this letter to both places.


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[Assistant] The ship is bought and ready for sea. You never saw a better ship and with the name Hispaniola. I got her through my old friend, Blandly, who


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[Assistant] With everyone in Bristol, worked hard to find me a suitable ship, when they heard the reason for our voyage. Treasure, I mean. Dr. Livesey won't like that, I said to Tom Redruth. The Squire's been talking. I read on. I wanted a crew of twenty men,


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[Assistant] As we may meet pirates or enemy ships.


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[Assistant] But I had the greatest difficulty finding six. Then...


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[Assistant] I met the man quite by accident and we began a conversation. I learned he was an old seaman who kept an inn and he knew all the seamen in Bristol.


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[Assistant] The poor man had lost his health on shore and wanted to get work as a cook and go to sea again.


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[Assistant] I felt sorry for him and employed him immediately to be the ship's cook.


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[Assistant] Long John Silver. He is called...


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[Assistant] And he has lost a leg fighting for his country. Well sir, I thought I had only found a cook. But it was a crew I had discovered.


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[Assistant] Between Silver and myself, we got together a crew of the toughest semen you can imagine. I am in wonderful health.


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[Assistant] But I shall not enjoy a moment until my ship goes to sea. So come quickly, Livesey. Do not lose an hour.


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[Assistant] And let young Hawkins go at once to say goodbye to his mother.


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[Assistant] And then come quickly to Bristol with Redruth. John Trelawney. P.S.


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[Assistant] Blandly found us an excellent man to be captain.


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[Assistant] And Silver found a man called Arrow to be first officer.


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[Assistant] Next day, I went to the Admiral Benbow and said goodbye to my mother. I was sad to leave.


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[Assistant] But when Redruth and I began our journey to Bristol, my thoughts turned to the voyage and the search for treasure.


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[Assistant] Mr. Trelawney was waiting for us at an inn near the sea. Here you are! He cried when we arrived.


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[Assistant] The doctor came from London last night. So now the ship's company is complete. We sail tomorrow.


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[Assistant] The Squire gave me a note to take to Long John Silver at the Spyglass Inn.


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[Assistant] It was a bright little place, where the customers were mostly seaman. As I entered, a man came out of a side room, and I knew immediately he must be Long John.


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[Assistant] His left leg was cut off above the knee, and he walked with a crutch under his left shoulder. He was tall and strong, with a big smiling face.


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[Assistant] Now when I read about Long John, in Squire Trelawney's letter,


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[Assistant] I had been afraid he might be the one-legged seaman that old Bill had talked about, but one look at the man in front of me was enough. I knew old Bill and black dog and the blind man pew. I thought I knew what a pirate looked like, a very different person from this clean and smiling man. Mr. Silver, sir.


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[Assistant] I asked, holding out the note. Yes, my boy. He said, that's my name. And who are you? And then he saw the Squire's letter and looked surprised. Oh, he said loudly. I see you're on you cabin boy. I'm pleased to meet you. Just then.


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[Assistant] A customer got up suddenly and hurried to the door.


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[Assistant] I recognized him as the man with only three fingers on his left hand. The one who had come to the Admiral Bembo. Stop him! I shouted. It's Black Dog! I don't care who he is!


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[Assistant] Said Silver, he hasn't paid for his drinks. Run and catch him, Harry. A man jumped up and ran after Black Dog. What was his name? Asked Silver. Black what? Dog sir, I said.


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[Assistant] Hasn't Mr. Trelawney told you about the pirates? He was one of them. A pirate? I didn't know that, said Silver. I've seen him before, when he came with a blind man. That was Blind Pew, another pirate, I said. That was his name, said Silver.


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[Assistant] But when the man Harry came back without the pirate, Silver seemed angry. And I believed he was.


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[Assistant] Silver told me many interesting things about the ships that we passed.


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[Assistant] I began to think he was going to be a good companion to have when we were at sea.


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[Assistant] When we got to the inn, the Squire and Dr. Livesey were there.


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[Assistant] Long John told them about Black Dog, saying, That was how it was? Wasn't it Hawkins? And I had to agree.


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[Assistant] We were all sorry about Black Dog getting away. But there was nothing we could do.


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[Assistant] All the crew must be on board by four o'clock this afternoon, Trelawney told Long John. Right, sir, said the sea cook, and he left us to return to his inn.


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[Assistant] I don't always think you find the best men, but I'll say this, John Silver seems a good man. Now, let's go and see the ship.


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[Assistant] Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the others.


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[Assistant] The day when the old seaman came to stay.


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[Assistant] I can almost see him in front of me as I write.


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[Assistant] He arrived with his sea chest, a tall, strong man with a cut across one cheek. He sang that old sea song as he walked up to the inn door.


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[Assistant] The old seaman called for a glass of rum and stood outside, drinking and looking around.


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[Assistant] Our inn was on the cliffs above Black Hill Cove and was a wild, lonely place. But the seaman seemed to like it.


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[Assistant] Do many people come here? He asked. No, my father told him. Then it's the place for me, said the seaman. I'll stay here for a bit. You can call me captain.


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[Assistant] He threw down three or four gold coins.


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[Assistant] All day he walked around the cove or up on the cliffs. All evening he sat in a corner of the room and drank rum and water.


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[Assistant] He only spoke to our other customers when he was drunk.


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[Assistant] Then he told them terrible stories of his wild and criminal life at sea.


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[Assistant] Our customers were mostly quiet farming people. The captain frightened them and they soon learned to leave him alone.


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[Assistant] Every day, he asked if any seaman had gone along the road.


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[Assistant] We thought he wanted friends of his own kind, but then we began to understand that there was a different reason.


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[Assistant] He told me to watch for a seaman with one leg.


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[Assistant] And to let him know the moment when a man like that appeared


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[Assistant] He promised to give me a silver coin every month for doing this.


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[Assistant] I dreamed about this one-legged seaman for many nights afterwards.


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[Assistant] The captain stayed week after week, month after month. His gold coins were soon used up. But my father was a sick man, and afraid to ask for more.


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[Assistant] Doctor Livesey came late one afternoon. After he had seen my father, he had dinner with my mother, then stayed to smoke his pipe. I noticed the difference between the doctor


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[Assistant] Dr. Livesey did not like the song. He looked up angrily before he went on talking to Old Taylor, the gardener. Others in the room took no notice of the song. The captain beat the table with his hand for silence. The voices in the room died away, all except Dr. Livesey's.


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[Assistant] The captain swore softly, then said, Silence! Are you speaking to me, sir? asked the doctor. Yes, the captain told him, swearing again.


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[Assistant] The world will soon be free of a dirty scoundrel. The captain jumped to his feet with a knife in his hand, but the doctor never moved. He spoke to the captain in a calm and clear voice so that others in the room could hear.


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[Assistant] I promise you shall die a criminal's death under the law.


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[Assistant] Then followed a battle of looks between them. But the captain soon put away his weapon and sat down like a beaten dog. Soon after, Dr. Livesey rode away on his horse. The captain was silent for the rest of the evening and for many evenings afterwards.


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[Assistant] Chapter 9 The Man of the Island


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[Assistant] But almost immediately, I ran into a new danger.


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[Assistant] I heard some small stones falling from the side of a steep hill. I stopped to look round and saw a figure jump quickly behind a tree. Frightened, I turned back towards the boats. But the figure appeared again and moved with the speed of an animal. But it was a man. I knew that now.


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[Assistant] I remembered I had a pistol if I needed it, and turned back towards this man of the island. He was hiding behind another tree, but stepped out to meet me.


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[Assistant] Who are you? I asked, staring at him. Ben Gunn, he answered. And his voice sounded rough and strange.


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[Assistant] His skin was burnt nearly black by the sun.


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[Assistant] And his clothes were made from pieces of a ship's sail. Poor Ben Gunn. He went on. Alone. For three years.


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[Assistant] Were you shipwrecked? I asked. No, my friend, he said. Marooned.


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[Assistant] Living on wild goats. And fish.


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[Assistant] But I'm desperate for real English food. You don't have a piece of cheese, do you? Many nights, I dreamed of cheese.


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[Assistant] If I can get on board ship again, I said, you can have as much cheese as you want. Who's going to prevent you, he said. And tell me your name. Jim, I told him. Well, Jim, he said, looking around and lowering his voice to a whisper. I'm rich.


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[Assistant] I began to think that I had found a friend. And I answered him at once. It's not Flint's ship. Flint is dead. But there are some of Flint's men aboard. And that's bad news for us. A man. With one leg? He asked. Fear in his voice. Silver? I asked. Yes. Silver.


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[Assistant] He said, that was his name. He's the cook and their leader too. And I told him the whole story of our voyage and the danger we were now in.


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[Assistant] You're in trouble, Jim, he said, when I'd finished. Well, Ben Gunn will help you.


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[Assistant] Will your squire be generous? If I do, do you think? I don't want him to give me a job.


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[Assistant] But will he give me one thousand pounds out of money that's really mine? I'm sure he will, I said. And take me home on your ship? If we can escape from the others, I told him, we'll need your help to get the ship home.


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[Assistant] When he and six seamen hid the treasure, he said, they were on shore nearly a week. Then Flint came back alone.


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[Assistant] Not a man on board could guess how he had killed the others. Then I was in another ship three years ago and we saw this island. Boys, I said.


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[Assistant] Let's go ashore and find Flint's treasure. Twelve days we searched.


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[Assistant] And the men got angrier with me every day. Then they went back to the ship. Ben gun, they said. You can stay here and find Flint's money. Here's a gun, a spade, and an axe. Well Jim, I've been here for three years.


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[Assistant] That I made with my two hands, he said. I keep her under the white rock. We might try that after dark.


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[Assistant] They've begun to fight! I cried. Follow me!


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[Assistant] Then Fiery Expedition be my wing, Jove's Mercury and Herald for a King! Go, Master Men! My council is my field!


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[Assistant] Chapter 15 End of an Adventure


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[Assistant] The pirates could not believe it. But Silver remained calm and changed his plan quickly. Jim, he whispered, take that and be ready for trouble. And he passed me a pistol.


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[Assistant] At the same time, he began to move quietly and after a few steps,


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[Assistant] The hole was between us and the other five.


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[Assistant] He looked quite friendly now, and I couldn't help whispering, So, you've changed sides again. The pirates began to jump into the hole and to dig in the ground with their fingers. Morgan found a two-ginny coin, and it went from hand to hand.


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[Assistant] Two guineas! shouted George Merry, shaking it at silver.


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[Assistant] That's your seven hundred thousand pounds. You're the man for bargains, are you? You're the one who never made a mistake. Wanting to be captain again, George, said Silver. But this time, everyone was on George Merry's side, and they began to climb out of the hole. There's just the two of them, said George. The old one-legged man,


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[Assistant] Who brought us all here for nothing? And that boy, who I'm going to have the heart of.


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[Assistant] He was raising his arm, and his voice, ready to lead them. But there was a sudden, crack, crack, crack, as three gunshots came from the woods. George Merry fell head first into the hole, and another fell on his side, dead. The other three turned and ran.


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[Assistant] A moment later, Dr. Livesey, Gray, and Ben Gunn joined us with smoking guns from among the trees.


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[Assistant] We began to run at a great speed through the trees.


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[Assistant] And Silver was soon 30 meters behind us. Doctor! He shouted. There's no hurry! Look! We saw he was right. In a more open place, we could see the three pirates still running. And we were already between them and the boats. So we sat down to rest while Long John


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[Assistant] Thank you, doctor, he said. You came at the right time to save me and Hawkins. He looked at Ben Gunn.


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[Assistant] We walked down the hill to the boats. And, as we did so, the doctor told Silver and me his story. But it was really Ben's story from beginning to end.


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[Assistant] Ben, in his lonely walks around the island, had found the skeleton and found the treasure. He had carried the gold on his back in many journeys and had taken it to a cave on the northeast corner of the island two months before the Hispaniola arrived.


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[Assistant] Ben had told the doctor this, and the next morning, the doctor gave Silver the map, which was now useless, and gave him the food at the stockade, because there was plenty in Ben Gunn's cage.


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[Assistant] When the doctor saw I had to go with the pirates to find the treasure, he had left the squire to look after the captain, then took Grey and Ben Gunn with him to be ready to help us. I was lucky Hawkins was with me, said Silver.


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[Assistant] By this time we were at the boats. The doctor smashed one with an axe. And then we all got into the other and rode to North Inlet.


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[Assistant] The Hispaniola was moving by herself now. The sea high enough to take her off the beach. We went round to Rum Cove.


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[Assistant] The nearest landing place for Ben Gunn's cave of treasure. Then Grey left us there before rowing back to guard the ship for the night.


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[Assistant] You're a scoundrel and a murderer.


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[Assistant] But I'm told that I must save you from the law. Thank you, sir, replied Long John. I don't want your thanks, cried the Squire. We all entered the cave. It was large and pleasant.


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[Assistant] With fresh water coming from a place in the ground and a floor of sand.


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[Assistant] Captain Smollett lay in front of a big fire, and in a corner I saw coins and gold bars. It was Flint's treasure.


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[Assistant] Already it had cost the lives of 17 men from the Hispaniola. And how many others? How many ships had gone to the bottom of the sea? How many brave men had been murdered for this? Perhaps no man alive could tell.


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[Assistant] Next morning, we moved all the gold to the beach. Then we took it by boat to the Hispaniola. It was a big job for so small a number of men.


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[Assistant] The three pirates who were still on the island did not trouble us. They were not going to fight anymore. And we decided we must leave them on the island. We left powder, food, clothes, and medicine for them.


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[Assistant] Then at last, one sunny morning, we sailed out of North Inlet


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[Assistant] I think we were all pleased to lose the scoundrel at so small a price.


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[Assistant] We found a crew for the ship at the port and then had a good voyage home.


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[Assistant] Only five of the men who had sailed from Bristol with the Hispaniola returned with her. We all took a large piece of the treasure, and some used it sensibly, and some did not.


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[Assistant] Captain Smollett no longer goes to sea. Grey saved his money


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[Assistant] And is now half owner and captain of a fine ship.


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[Assistant] Ben Gunn got a thousand pounds, which he spent or lost in three weeks. Then he came begging, and was given a job as a gatekeeper. Of silver, we have heard no more. That frightening seaman with one leg has gone out of my life. I will never return to Treasure Island, but in my worst dreams,


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[Assistant] I still hear the sharp, high scream of Captain Flint, the parrot.


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[Assistant] Rather than quote from my play, I might as well tell you about beauty. Uhm, I've written


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[Assistant] A play on Fahrenheit 451, which I produced on the stage many times in the last 30 years. And then I've written an opera, which has been performed all over the country. It's been in New York recently. And, but when I was writing those plays,


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[Assistant] Captain Bayley came to me as a character and said, hey,


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[Assistant] In your novel, you didn't put this truth about me, or that truth. I said, well, what truth are you talking about? He said, well, don't you want to find out why I burn books? We know that I do.


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[Assistant] But there's no reason given in the novel. I said, okay, tell me, and I'll write it down and put it in the play.


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[Assistant] So baby went into a long dialogue for me in which he said, look, we all grow up with a love of books.


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[Assistant] And we think that a certain book at a certain time can save our life.


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[Assistant] We're 13 years old and we read a book and we run to our friends and we say, Oh my God, you got to read this because it's the best book ever written. And that lasts maybe for a year or two years. And then you find another book. Maybe it's the Bible, huh?


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[Assistant] And you go to your friends and say, well you gotta read this, cause this is fantastic. And it saved your life even more than the last book.


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[Assistant] Crises begin to happen in your life. Maybe a friend commits suicide. Uh, your mother is sick, dies of cancer. Your father is sick and he may be out of work and maybe he doesn't die, but he, he grows old overnight, huh? And maybe you have a bad love affair and you look in your books and suddenly the pages are empty, huh? They can't, only up to a point can a book help you.


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[Assistant] We must love books, but we must never think that a book by itself, we, we have to have other things. We have to save ourselves. We do the job and then a good friend or a good lover can help us sustain ourselves against the cruelties of life.


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[Assistant] Well, what happened to Baby, of course, is a bad love affair, and, uh,


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[Assistant] A mother who died of cancer, a father who got oil, all these things, friendships that dissolved, and he looked in the books and said, wait a minute, they can't help me anymore, huh? Well, to hell with them. If they can't help me, I'll kill them, huh? I'll kill the books. So Bailey became a book burner, huh?


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[Assistant] That's not in the novel. I'm so sorry I didn't think at the time and make that speech and put it in.


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[Assistant] It may very well be that I'll have enough courage or I don't know how to describe it. It would be an act against the book to do it. And I don't believe a writer should interfere with his younger self. But that speech is so powerful.


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[Assistant] The deity presses a button and the shelves move aside and there are a thousand books there. And Montag says, my god, you're the fire chief, you're the book burner, what are these books doing here? He says, Montag, it's no crime to have books, it's a crime to read them. He says, I've got all these books here, it's my harem, I'm a sultan, I never touch, I never touch.


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[Assistant] So the irony is, having all these books here, but they've never been opened.


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[Assistant] Gotta put that in the novel somewhere someday, maybe two. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] I think it's interesting to consider the functions of books in our life. That uhm, you grow up with two pillows and a book in bed, huh? When you fluff the pillows, then you fluff the book too. And the security, the book is your security blanket during the night. And if you should ever need courage, you can turn on the flashlight under the covers and


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[Assistant] Gained courage, uh, from the book, huh? So, it was only natural that at a certain point in writing, uh, Fahrenheit 451, I had Montag hide a book behind some cushions where he had been resting in the living room before the fire chief showed up. And the suspense in the scene comes from the fact that at any moment, the fire chief might discover there's a book in bed there, and uh, and Mildred


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[Assistant] And her hand freezes on it behind the pillow and you have to wait to see if she's gonna pull it out and give the game away. So I hadn't thought of that much, but I realized the reason behind it is probably the fact


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[Assistant] I never went to bed when I was a kid, especially when I was sick.


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[Assistant] Without not just one book lying there, but six or seven.


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[Assistant] Of course, uh, she's secretly jealous of his love affair, uh, with all these books.


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[Assistant] And with a growing and unsuspected and secret love affair with the girl next door, huh? It's never, you don't talk about it. But when I did the play, I made it a little bit more explicit. Because she was such a wonderful, sappy, romantic, intelligent, uh, girl.


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[Assistant] He cast the girl next door much too old. He had Julie Christie playing the role.


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[Assistant] Well, it shouldn't be a grown woman that teaches Montag about books. It should be a girl who doesn't really quite know what she's doing.


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[Assistant] And her joy in, in reading and books is so infectious that he begins to be curious. How can one be so happy, uh, doing this forbidden thing? So that makes him curious and he becomes his student, the student. So the fun comes from that situation then of a sappy romantic girl teaching an older man, not an older woman. No, that's no fun. And, uh, so.


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[Assistant] In my opera and my staging, I always am positive of getting a 16 year old girl who's irresistible. I had a thing like this happen recently.


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[Assistant] And I gave him a copy of my script, Leviathan 99. And he kissed it and crushed it to his bosom. And, you know, it made me so happy, so joyful. He was Clarice suddenly.


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[Assistant] And I wanted to grab him and kiss him because he was so gorgeous in his being so young and so full of enthusiasm instead of having his finger up his nose, huh? Yeaah.


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[Assistant] Montag saw the luminous dial of his waterproof watch. Five. Five o'clock in the morning. Another year ticked by in a single hour and dawn waiting beyond the far bank of the river. Why do you trust me?


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[Assistant] The city has never cared so much about us to bother with an elaborate chase like this to find us. A few crackpots with


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[Assistant] Verses in their heads can't touch them. And they know it and we know it. Everyone knows it. So long as the vast population doesn't water about.


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[Assistant] Quoting the Magna Carta and the Constitution, it's all right. The firemen were enough to check that, now and then. No, the cities don't bother us, and you look like hell. They moved along the bank of the river going south.


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[Assistant] Montag tried to see the men's faces, the old faces he remembered from the firelight, blind and tired.


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[Assistant] He was looking for a brightness, a resolve, a triumph over tomorrow that hardly seemed to be there.


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[Assistant] Perhaps he'd expected their faces to burn and glitter with the knowledge they carried.


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[Assistant] To glow as lanterns glow with the light in them.


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[Assistant] But all the light had come from the campfire, and these men had seemed no different than any others who had run a long race, searched a long search, seen good things destroyed, and now very late were gathered to wait for the end of the party in the blowing out of the lamps.


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[Assistant] They weren't at all certain that the things they carried in their heads might make every future dawn glow with their pure light.


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[Assistant] They were sure of nothing save that the books were unfouled behind their quiet eyes. The books were waiting with their pages uncut for the customers who might come by in later years, some with clean and some with dirty fingers.


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[Assistant] Montag squinted from one face to another as they walked.


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[Assistant] Don't judge a book by its cover, someone said, and they all laughed quietly, moving downstream.


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[Assistant] Amed, the camel driver, who became the prophet of the Arabian desert, and whose followers almost conquered the entire known world, for the greater glory of Allah, the only true God.


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[Assistant] You will remember how they filled all the chapters devoted to the story of the ancient world.


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[Assistant] The Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, the Jews, the Arameans, the Chaldeans, all of them Semites, had been the rulers of Western Asia for 30 or 40 centuries.


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[Assistant] had fought the Indo-European Romans for the mastery of the Mediterranean. Carthage had been defeated and destroyed.


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[Assistant] And for 800 years, the Romans had been masters of the world.


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[Assistant] In the seventh century, however, another Semitic tribe appeared upon the scene and challenged the power of the West.


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[Assistant] They were the Arabs, peaceful shepherds who had roamed through the desert since the beginning of time without showing any signs of imperial ambitions. Then they listened to Muhammad.


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[Assistant] The story of Ahmed, the son of Abdallah and Aminah, usually known as Mohammed or He Who Will Be Praised, reads like a chapter in the Thousand and One Nights. He was a camel driver born in Mecca.


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[Assistant] He seems to have been an epileptic, and he suffered from spells of unconsciousness when he dreamed strange dreams and heard the voice of the angel Gabriel, whose words were afterwards written down in a book called the Quran.


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[Assistant] And he was constantly falling in with Jewish merchants and with Christian traders.


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[Assistant] And he came to see that the worship of a single god was a very excellent thing. His own people, the Arabs, still revered queer stones and trunks of trees as their ancestors had done tens of thousands of years before.


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[Assistant] In Mecca, their holy city, stood a little square building, the Kaaba, full of idols and strange odds and ends of hoodoo worship.


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[Assistant] Muhammad decided to be the Moses of the Arab people. He could not well be a prophet and a camel driver at the same time.


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[Assistant] So he made himself independent by marrying his employer, the rich widow Chadija.


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[Assistant] Then he told his neighbors in Mecca that he was the long-expected prophet sent by Allah to save the world. The neighbors laughed most heartily.


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[Assistant] And when Mohammed continued to annoy them with his speeches, they decided to kill him. They regarded him as a lunatic and a public boar who deserved no mercy.


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[Assistant] Muhammad heard of the plot, and in the dark of night he fled to Medina, together with Abu Bakr, his trusted pupil. This happened in the year 622. It is the most important date in Muhammadian history, and is known as the Hegera, the year of the great flight.


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[Assistant] Here you see a picture of two men walking through the desert at night, the flight of Mohammed.


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[Assistant] In Medina, Mohammed, who was a stranger, found it easier to proclaim himself a prophet than in his home city, where everyone had known him as a simple camel driver.


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[Assistant] Soon he was surrounded by an increasing number of followers or Muslims who accepted the Islam


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[Assistant] The submission to the will of God, which Muhammad praised as the highest of all virtues. For seven years he preached to the people of Medina. Then he believed himself strong enough to begin a campaign against his former neighbors, who had dared to sneer at him in his holy mission in his old camel-driving days.


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[Assistant] At the head of an army of Medinese, he marched across the desert. His followers took Mecca without great difficulty, and having slaughtered a number of the inhabitants, they found it quite easy to convince the others that Muhammad was really a great prophet.


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[Assistant] From that time on until the year of his death, Muhammad was fortunate in everything he undertook. There are two reasons for the success of Islam. In the first place, the creed which Muhammad taught to his followers was very simple.


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[Assistant] The disciples were told that they must love Allah, the ruler of the world, the Merciful and Compassionate.


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[Assistant] They must honor and obey their parents. They were warned against dishonesty in dealing with their neighbors and were admonished to be humble and charitable to the poor and to the sick.


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[Assistant] Finally, they were ordered to abstain from strong drink and to be very frugal in what they ate. That was all.


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[Assistant] There were no priests who acted as shepherds of their flocks, and asked that they be supported at the common expense. The Mohammedian churches or mosques were merely large stone halls without benches or pictures, where the faithful could gather, if they felt so inclined, to read and discuss chapters from the Quran, the holy book. But the average Mohammedian carried his religion with him,


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[Assistant] For the rest of the time he let Allah rule the world as he saw fit and accepted whatever fate brought him with patient resignation. Of course, such an attitude towards life did not encourage the faithful to go forth and invent electrical machinery or bother about railroads and steamship lines.


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[Assistant] But it gave every Mohammedian a certain amount of contentment. It bade him be at peace with himself and with the world in which he lived, and that was a very good thing.


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[Assistant] The second reason, which explains the success of the Muslims in their warfare upon the Christians, had to do with the conduct of those Mohammedian soldiers.


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[Assistant] This made sudden death in the field preferable to a long but dreary existence upon this earth.


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[Assistant] It gave the Muhammadians an enormous advantage over the Crusaders, who were in constant dread of a dark hereafter, and who stuck to the good things of this world as long as they possibly could.


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[Assistant] Incidentally, it explains why even today Muslim soldiers will charge into the fire of European machine guns, quite indifferent to the fate that awaits them, and why they are such dangerous and persistent enemies.


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[Assistant] Having put his religious house in order, Muhammad now began to enjoy his power as the undisputed ruler of a large number of Arab tribes. But success has been the undoing of a large number of men who were great in the days of adversity.


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[Assistant] He tried to gain the goodwill of the rich people by a number of regulations which could appeal to those of wealth.


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[Assistant] Four wives became a positive luxury except to those who possessed camels and dromedaries and date orchards beyond the dreams of avarice.


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[Assistant] A religion, which had at first been meant for the hardy hunters of the high-skied desert, was gradually transformed to suit the needs of the smug merchants who lived in the bazaars of the cities. It was a regrettable change from the original program, and it did very little good to the cause of Muhammadianism. As for the Prophet himself, he went on preaching the truth of Allah.


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[Assistant] And proclaiming new rules of conduct until he died quite suddenly.


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[Assistant] His successor as Caliph, or leader of the Muslims, was his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, who had shared the early dangers of the Prophet's life.


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[Assistant] The husband of Muhammad's daughter, Fatima. But a quarrel broke out upon a point of Muslim doctrine, and Ali was murdered.


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[Assistant] After his death, the Caliphate was made hereditary, and the leaders of the faithful, who had begun their career as the spiritual head of a religious sect, became the rulers of a vast empire. They built a new city on the shores of the Euphrates, near the ruins of Babylon, and called it Baghdad.


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[Assistant] And organizing the Arab horsemen into regiments of cavalry.


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[Assistant] They set forth to bring the happiness of their Muslim faith to all unbelievers.


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[Assistant] In the year 700 AD, a Mohammedian general by the name of Tariq crossed the old gates of Hercules and reached the high rock on the European side which he called Jibbal al-Tariq, the Hill of Tariq, or Gibraltar.


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[Assistant] Eleven years later, in the battle of Ceres de la Frontera, he defeated the king of the Visigoths, and then the Muslim army moved northward, and following the route of Hannibal, they crossed the passes of the Pyrenees.


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[Assistant] They defeated the Duke of Aquitania, who tried to halt them near Bordeaux, and marched upon Paris. But in the year 732, one hundred years after the death of the Prophet, they were beaten in a battle between Tours and Poitiers.


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[Assistant] On that day, Charles Martel, Charles with the hammer, the Frankish chieftain, saved Europe from a Mohammedian conquest.


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[Assistant] He drove the Muslims out of France, but they maintained themselves in Spain, where Abd al-Rahman founded the Caliphate of Cordova, which became the greatest center of science and art of medieval Europe.


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[Assistant] The Smorish kingdom, so called because the people came from Mauritania in Morocco, lasted seven centuries. It was only after the capture of Grenada, the last Muslim stronghold in the year 1492, that Columbus received the royal grant, which allowed him to go upon a voyage of discovery.


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[Assistant] The Mohammedians soon regained their strength in the new conquests which they made in Asia and Africa. And today, there are as many followers of Mohammed as there are of Christ.


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[Assistant] Here you see a picture of the Earth with a cross against a crescent moon, and it's called the struggle between the cross and the crescent.


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[Assistant] He was three hundred yards downstream when the hound reached the river.


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[Assistant] Overhead, the great reckoning fans of the helicopters hovered.


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[Assistant] A storm of light fell upon the river and Montag dived under the great illumination, as if the sun had broken the clouds.


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[Assistant] He felt the river pull him farther on its way into darkness. Then the lights switched back to the land. The helicopters swerved over the city again, as if they had picked up another trail. They were gone. The hound was gone.


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[Assistant] Now there was only the cold river and Montag floating in a sudden peacefulness, away from the city and the lights and the chase, away from everything.


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[Assistant] He felt as if he had left a stage behind in many actors. He felt as if he had left the great seance and all the murmuring ghosts. He was moving from an unreality that was frightening into a reality that was unreal because it was new.


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[Assistant] The black land slid by and he was going into the country among the hills.


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[Assistant] For the first time in a dozen years, the stars were coming out above him in great processions of weaning fire.


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[Assistant] He saw a great juggernaut of stars form in the sky and threaten to roll over and crush him.


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[Assistant] He floated on his back when the valise filled and sank.


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[Assistant] The river was mild and leisurely, going away from the people who ate shadows for breakfast, and steamed for lunch, and vapors for supper. The river was very real. It held them comfortably.


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[Assistant] And gave him the time at last, the leisure, to consider this month, this year, and a lifetime of yours. He listened to his heart slow. His thoughts stopped rushing with his blood.


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[Assistant] We saw the moon low in the sky now. The moon there, and the light of the moon caused by what?


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[Assistant] By the sun of course. And what lights the sun? It's own fire. And the sun goes on day after day. Burning and burning. The sun and time. The sun and time. And burning. Burning.


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[Assistant] The river boppled him along gently, burning. The sun and every clock on the earth, it all came together and became a single thing in his mind.


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[Assistant] After a long time of floating on the land and a short time of floating in the river, he knew why he must never burn again in his life. The sun burnt every day. It burnt time.


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[Assistant] The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis and time was busy burning the ears and the people anyway without any help from him. So if he burned things with the firemen and the sun burned time, that meant that everything burned.


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[Assistant] One way or another, in books, in records, in people's heads, Any way at all, so long as it was safe, Free from moths, silverfish, rust, and dry rot, And men with matches.


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[Assistant] The world was full of burning of all types and sizes. Now the guild of the asbestos weaver must open shop very soon.


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[Assistant] He felt his heel bump land touch pebbles and rocks, scrape sand. The river had moved him toward shore.


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[Assistant] He looked in at the great black creature without eyes or light, without shape.


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[Assistant] With only a size that went a thousand miles without wanting to stop.


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[Assistant] With its grass hills and forests that were waiting for him.


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[Assistant] He hesitated to leave the comforting flow of the water. He expected the hound there. Suddenly the trees might blow under a great wind of helicopters. But there was only the normal autumn wind high up going by like another river.


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[Assistant] Why wasn't the hound running? Why had the search veered inland? Montag listened. Nothing. Nothing.


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[Assistant] Millie, he thought, all this country here, listen to it. Nothing and nothing. So much silence, Millie. I wonder how you'd take it. Would you shout, shut up, shut up? Millie, Millie. And he was sad.


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[Assistant] Millie was not here, and the hound was not here, but the dry smell of hay blowing from some distant field put Montag on the land.


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[Assistant] He remembered a farm he had visited when he was very young. One of the rare few times he discovered that somewhere behind the seven veils of unreality, beyond the walls of parlors and beyond the tin moat of the city, cows chewed grass and pigs sat in warm ponds at noon and dogs barked after white sheep on a hill.


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[Assistant] Now the dry smell of hay, the motion of the waters, made him think of sleeping in the fresh hay in a lonely barn away from the loud highways, behind a quiet farmhouse, and under an ancient windmill that whirred like the sound of the passing years, overhead. He lay in the high barn loft all night.


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[Assistant] Listening to distant animals and insects and trees, the little motions and stirrings. During the night, he thought, below the loft, he would hear a sound like feet moving, perhaps. He would tense and sit up. The sound would move away.


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[Assistant] He would lie back and look out the loft window very late in the night and see the lights go out in the farmhouse itself until a very young and beautiful woman would sit in an unlit window braiding her hair.


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[Assistant] It would be hard to see her. But her face would be like the face of the girl so long ago in his past now. So very long ago.


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[Assistant] The girl who had known the weather and never been burnt by the fireflies, the girl who had known what dandelions meant rubbed off on her chin, then she would be gone from the warm window and appear again upstairs in her moon-whitened room.


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[Assistant] And then, to the sound of death, the sound of the jets cutting the sky in two black pieces beyond the horizon.


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[Assistant] He would lie in the loft, hidden and safe, watching those strange new stars over the rim of the earth, fleeing from the soft color of dawn.


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[Assistant] In the morning he would not have needed sleep, for all the warm odours and sights of a complete country night would have rested and slept him while his eyes were wide and his mouth, when he thought to test it, was half a smile.


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[Assistant] And there, at the bottom of the Halov stair, waiting for him would be an incredible thing. He would step carefully down in the pink light of early morning, so fully aware of the world that he would be afraid and stand over the small miracle, and at last bend to touch it. A cool glass of fresh milk and a few apples and pears laid at the foot of the steps.


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[Assistant] Some signs that the immense world would accept him.


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[Assistant] And give him the long time he needed to think of all the things that must be thought.


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[Assistant] The land rushed at him, a tidal wave. He was crushed by darkness, and the look of the country, and the million odours on the wind that iced his body.


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[Assistant] He fell back under the breaking curve of darkness, and sound and smell, his ears roaring. He whirled, the stars poured over his sight like flaming meteors. He wanted to plunge in the river again and let it idle him safely on down, somewhere.


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[Assistant] This dark land rising was like that day in his childhood, swimming, when from nowhere the largest wave in the history of remembering slammed him down in salt mud and green darkness, water burning mouth and nose, retching his stomach, screaming, too much water, too much land. Out of the black wall before him a whisper.


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[Assistant] After all the running and rushing and sweating it out and half drowning, to come this far, work this hard, and think yourself safe, and sigh with relief, and come out on the land at last only to find the hound.


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[Assistant] He smelled the heavy musk like perfume mingled with blood and the gummed exhalation of the animal's breath, all cardamom and moss and ragweed odour in this huge night where the trees ran at him, pulled away, ran, pulled away, to the pulse of the heart behind his eyes.


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[Assistant] There must have been a billion leaves on the land. He, he waded them, a dry river smelling of hot cloves and warm dust. And the other smells, there was a smell like a cut potato from all the land, raw and cold and white from having the moon on it most of the night.


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[Assistant] There was a smell like pickles from a bottle and a smell like parsley on the table at home.


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[Assistant] There was a faint yellow odor like mustard from a jar.


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[Assistant] There was a smell like carnations from the yard next door.


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[Assistant] He put down his hand and felt a weed rise up like a child, brushing him. His fingers smelled of licorice.


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[Assistant] The more he breathed the land in, the more he was filled up with all the details of the land. He was not empty. There was more than enough here to fill him. There would always be more than enough.


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[Assistant] He walked in the shallow tide of leaves stumbling.


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[Assistant] And in the middle of the strangeness of familiarity his foot hit something that rang dully.


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[Assistant] He moved his hand on the ground, a yard this way, a yard that. The railroad track. The track that came out of the city and rusted across the land through forests and woods, deserted now by the river. Here was the path to wherever he was going. Here was the single familiar thing


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[Assistant] The magic charm he might need a little while to touch, to feel beneath his feet.


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[Assistant] As he moved on into the bramble bushes and the lakes of smelling and feeling and touching.


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[Assistant] Among the whispers and the blowing down of leaves, he walked on the track.


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[Assistant] And he was surprised to learn how certain he suddenly was of a single fact he could not prove.


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[Assistant] Once, long ago, Clarisse had walked here where he was walking now.


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[Assistant] All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.


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[Assistant] We know very little about the first true men. We have never seen their pictures.


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[Assistant] In the deepest layer of clay of an ancient soil, we have sometimes found pieces of their bones. These lay buried amidst the broken skeletons of other animals that have long since disappeared from the face of the earth.


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[Assistant] Anthropologists, learned scientists who devote their lives to the study of man as a member of the animal kingdom, have taken these bones and they have been able to reconstruct our earliest ancestors with a fair degree of accuracy.


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[Assistant] The great-great-grandfather of the human race was a very ugly and unattractive mammal. He was quite small, much smaller than the people of today. The heat of the sun and the biting wind of the cold winter had colored his skin a dark brown.


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[Assistant] His head and most of his body, his arms and legs too, were covered with long, coarse hair.


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[Assistant] He had very thin but strong fingers which made his hands look like those of a monkey. His forehead was low and his jaw was like the jaw of a wild animal which uses its teeth both as fork and knife.


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[Assistant] He lived in the damp blackness of vast forests, as the Pygmies of Africa do to this very day.


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[Assistant] When he felt the pangs of hunger, he ate raw leaves and the roots of plants.


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[Assistant] Or he took the eggs away from an angry bird and fed them to his own young. Once in a while


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[Assistant] After a long and patient chase he would catch a sparrow, or a small wild dog, or perhaps a rabbit.


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[Assistant] These he would eat raw, for he had never discovered that food tasted better when it was cooked.


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[Assistant] During the hours of day, this primitive human being prowled about looking for things to eat.


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[Assistant] When night descended upon the earth, he hid his wife and his children in a hollow tree, or behind some heavy boulders, for he was surrounded on all sides by ferocious animals, and when it was dark, these animals began to prowl about, looking for something to eat for their mates and their own young, and they liked the taste of human beings.


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[Assistant] It was a world where you must either eat or be eaten, and life was very unhappy because it was full of fear and misery.


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[Assistant] In summer, man was exposed to the scorching rays of the sun.


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[Assistant] And during the winter his children would freeze to death in his arms. When such a creature hurt itself, and hunting animals are forever breaking their bones or spraining their ankles, he had no one to take care of him, and he must die a horrible death.


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[Assistant] Like many of the animals who fill the zoo with their strange noises, early man liked to jabber.


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[Assistant] That is to say, he endlessly repeated the same unintelligible gibberish, because it pleased him to hear the sound of his own voice.


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[Assistant] In due time, he learned that he could use this guttural noise to warn his fellow beings whenever danger threatened. And he gave certain little shrieks which came to mean, there is a tiger! Or, here come five elephants.


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[Assistant] Then the others grunted something back at him, and their growl meant, I see them, or let us run away and hide.


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[Assistant] But, as I have said before, of these beginnings we know so very little. Early man had no tools, and he built himself no houses. He lived and died, and left no trace of his existence, except a few collar bones, and a few pieces of his skull.


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[Assistant] These tell us that many thousands of years ago the world was inhabited by certain mammals who were quite different from all the other animals, who had probably developed from another unknown ape-like animal which had learned to walk on its hind legs and use its forepaws as hands.


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[Assistant] Recorded by Michelle Crandall, Fremont, California, August 2008.


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[Assistant] This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Story of Mankind by Hendrik van Loon. Chapter 33. Pope vs. Emperor.


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[Assistant] The strange double loyalty of the people of the Middle Ages, and how it led to endless quarrels between the Popes and the Holy Roman Emperors.


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[Assistant] It is very difficult to understand the people of bygone ages.


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[Assistant] Your own grandfather, whom you see every day, is a mysterious being who lives in a different world of ideas and clothes and manners.


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[Assistant] Even if he was a free citizen, able to come and go at will, he rarely left his own neighborhood. There were no printed books, and only a few manuscripts.


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[Assistant] Here and there a small band of industrious monks taught reading and writing, and some arithmetic,


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[Assistant] But science and history and geography lay buried beneath the ruins of Greece and Rome.


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[Assistant] Such information, which goes from father to son, is often slightly incorrect in details, but it will preserve the main facts of history with astonishing accuracy.


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[Assistant] After more than two thousand years, the mothers of India still frighten their naughty children by telling them that Iksander will get them.


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[Assistant] Who visited India in the year 330 before the birth of Christ, but whose story has lived through all these ages?


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[Assistant] They were ignorant of many things which every schoolboy today knows before he has entered the third grade. But the Roman Empire, which is merely a name to you,


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[Assistant] Was to them something very much alive. They felt it.


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[Assistant] They willingly recognized the Pope as their spiritual leader because he lived in Rome and represented the idea of the Roman superpower.


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[Assistant] And they were profoundly grateful when Charlemagne and afterwards Otto the Great


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[Assistant] Revived the idea of a world empire and created the Holy Roman Empire, that the world might again be as it always had been.


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[Assistant] But the fact that there were two different heirs to the Roman tradition placed the faithful burghers of the Middle Ages in a difficult position.


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[Assistant] While the worldly master, the emperor, looked after the physical well-being of his subjects, the spiritual master, the pope, guarded their souls,


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[Assistant] In practice, however, the system worked very badly. The Emperor invariably tried to interfere with the affairs of the Church, and the Pope retaliated and told the Emperor how he should rule his domains.


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[Assistant] Then they told each other to mind their own business in very unceremonious language, and the inevitable end was war. Under those circumstances, what were the people to do?


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[Assistant] A good Christian obeyed both the Pope and his King, but the Pope and the Emperor were enemies. Which side should a dutiful subject and an equally dutiful Christian take? It was never easy to give the correct answer.


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[Assistant] When the Emperor happened to be a man of energy, and was sufficiently well provided with money to organize an army,


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[Assistant] He was very apt to cross the Alps and march on Rome, besiege the Pope in his own palace if need be, and force his holiness to obey the imperial instructions, or suffer the consequences. But more frequently the Pope was the stronger.


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[Assistant] Then the emperor or the king, together with all his subjects, was excommunicated.


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[Assistant] This meant that all churches were closed, that no one could be baptized, that no dying man could be given absolution. In short, that half of the functions of medieval government came to an end.


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[Assistant] More than that, the people were absolved from their oath of loyalty to their sovereign, and were urged to rebel against their master.


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[Assistant] But if they followed this advice of the distant pope and were caught, they were hanged by their nearby liege lord, and that too was very unpleasant.


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[Assistant] Indeed, the poor fellows were in a difficult position, and none fared worse than those who lived during the latter half of the eleventh century.


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[Assistant] When the Emperor Henry IV of Germany and Pope Gregory VII fought a two-round battle


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[Assistant] Which decided nothing, and upset the peace of Europe for almost fifty years.


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[Assistant] By a decree of Pope Nicholas II, the principal priests and deacons of the churches in and around Rome were organized into the so-called College of Cardinals, and this gathering of prominent churchmen, the word cardinal meant principal,


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[Assistant] Was given the exclusive power of electing the future popes.


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[Assistant] In the year 1073 the College of Cardinals elected a priest by the name of Hildebrand, the son of very simple parents in Tuscany, as Pope, and he took the name of Gregory VII. His energy was unbounded


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[Assistant] His belief in the supreme powers of his holy office was built upon a granite rock of conviction and courage.


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[Assistant] In the mind of Gregory, the Pope was not only the absolute head of the Christian Church, but also the highest court of appeal in all worldly matters.


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[Assistant] The pope who had elevated simple German princes to the dignity of emperor could depose them at will.


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[Assistant] He could veto any law passed by duke or king or emperor, but whosoever should question a papal decree, let him beware, for the punishment would be swift and merciless.


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[Assistant] Gregory sent ambassadors to all the European courts to inform the potentates of Europe of his new laws and asked them to take due notice of their contents.


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[Assistant] William the Conqueror promised to be good, but Henry IV, who since the age of six had been fighting with his subjects, had no intention of submitting to the papal will.


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[Assistant] He called together a college of German bishops, accused Gregory of every crime under the sun,


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[Assistant] And then had him deposed by the council of worms.


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[Assistant] The pope answered with excommunication and a demand that the German princes rid themselves of their unworthy ruler.


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[Assistant] The German princes, only too happy to be rid of Henry, asked the pope to come to Augsburg and help them elect a new emperor. Gregory left Rome and traveled northward.


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[Assistant] At all costs he must make peace with the Pope, and he must do it at once. In the midst of winter he crossed the Alps and hastened to Canossa, where the Pope had stopped for a short rest.


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[Assistant] Henry, dressed as a penitent pilgrim, but with a warm sweater underneath his monkish garb, waited outside the gates of the castle of Canossa.


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[Assistant] Then he was allowed to enter and was pardoned for his sins.


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[Assistant] But this time, when Henry crossed the Alps, he was at the head of a large army, besieged Rome, and forced Gregory to retire to Salerno, where he died in exile. This first violent outbreak decided nothing.


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[Assistant] As soon as Henry was back in Germany, the struggle between Pope and Emperor was continued.


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[Assistant] The Hohenstaufen family, which got hold of the Imperial German throne shortly afterwards, were even more independent than their predecessors.


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[Assistant] Gregory had claimed that the popes were superior to all kings because they, the popes, at the day of judgment, would be responsible for the behavior of all the sheep of their flock.


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[Assistant] Frederick of Hohenstaufen, commonly known as Barbarossa, or Redbeard,


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[Assistant] Set up the counterclaim that the empire had been bestowed upon his predecessor by God himself, and as the empire included Italy and Rome,


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[Assistant] He began a campaign which was to add these lost provinces to the northern country.


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[Assistant] Barbara Rossa was accidentally drowned in Asia Minor during the Second Crusade, but his son Frederick II, a brilliant young man who in his youth


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[Assistant] It is true that Frederick seems to have felt a deep and serious contempt for the rough Christian world of the North.


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[Assistant] And took Jerusalem from the infidel, and was duly crowned as King of the Holy City.


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[Assistant] Even this act did not placate the popes. They deposed Frederick and gave his Italian possessions to Charles of Anjou, the brother of that King Louis of France who became famous as Saint Louis.


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[Assistant] This led to more warfare. Conrad V, the son of Conrad IV, and the last of the Hornsdalfens, tried to regain the kingdom, and was defeated and decapitated at Naples.


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[Assistant] But twenty years later the French, who had made themselves thoroughly unpopular in Sicily, were all murdered during the so-called Sicilian Vespers. And so it went.


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[Assistant] The quarrel between the popes and the emperors was never settled, but after a while the two enemies learned to leave each other alone.


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[Assistant] In the year 1273, Rudolf of Habsburg was elected emperor. He did not take the trouble to go to Rome to be crowned.


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[Assistant] This meant peace, but two entire centuries, which might have been used for the purpose of internal organization, had been wasted in useless warfare.


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[Assistant] The little cities of Italy, by a process of careful balancing, had managed to increase their power and their independence at the expense of both emperors and popes.


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[Assistant] When the rush for the Holy Land began, they were able to handle the transportation problem of the thousands of eager pilgrims, who were clamouring for passage.


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[Assistant] And at the end of the crusades they had built themselves such strong defenses of brick and of gold that they could defy pope and emperor with equal indifference.


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[Assistant] Right on October 22nd, 2008 in San Diego, California.


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[Assistant] Chapter 19 of The Story of Mankind. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.


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[Assistant] For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Story of Mankind by Hendrik van Loon. Chapter 19.


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[Assistant] How Athens and Sparta fought a long and disastrous war for the leadership of Greece.


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[Assistant] Athens and Sparta were both Greek cities, and their people spoke a common language. In every other respect they were different. Athens rose high from the plain.


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[Assistant] It was a city exposed to the fresh breezes from the sea, willing to look at the world with the eyes of a happy child.


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[Assistant] Sparta on the other hand was built at the bottom of a deep valley.


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[Assistant] The people of Athens loved to sit in the sun and discuss poetry or listen to the wise words of a philosopher.


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[Assistant] The Spartans, on the other hand, never wrote a single line that was considered literature


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[Assistant] And they sacrificed all human emotions to their ideal of military preparedness.


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[Assistant] The Spartans, on the other hand, never wrote a single line that was considered literature, but they knew how to fight, they liked to fight, and they sacrificed all human emotions to their ideal of military preparedness.


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[Assistant] Pericles, the leader of the Athenian democracy, sent far and wide to find famous sculptors and painters and scientists to make the city more beautiful, and the young Athenians more worthy of their home.


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[Assistant] At the same time he kept a watchful eye on Sparta, and built high walls which connected Athens with the sea, and made her the strongest fortress of that day.


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[Assistant] An insignificant quarrel between two little Greek cities led to the final conflict.


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[Assistant] During the third year of the war, the plague had entered the city.


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[Assistant] More than half of the people and Pericles the great leader had been killed.