Billy Bones

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (November 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Billy Bones is a fictional character, a pirate in the first section of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island.

[edit] Story

Billy Bones appears at the very outset of the story with a mysterious sea chest, looking for a wayside inn with a view of the sea but little traffic. Bones decides upon the Admiral Benbow Inn where he asks to be addressed merely as "Captain".

Though his down-payment for lodgings is adequate, even generous, he stays for many months and browbeats Jim Hawkins's father out of asking for more money -even when his deposit has been spent. He does, however, pay Jim fourpence a month to keep watch for "a seafaring man with one leg". Though he seems sometimes on the verge of deciding this a waste of money, he invariably repents.

An habitual drunkard, Bones terrorizes the customers of the Benbow with his swearing, singing and general bullying. Yet he begins to attract customers by his very notoriety and earns some admiration from locals who consider him a "real old salt".

Bones' name is discovered when Dr. Livesey bares his arm as a prelude to a surgical bloodletting and finds the name tattooed there.

The winter after his arrival sees Bones visited by Black Dog, a villainous-looking man with a maimed hand. There is a noisy argument between the two and Bones drives off Black Dog. As soon as the unwelcome visitor is gone, Bones suffers a stroke.

He is tended by the doctor but does not heed Livesey's warning over his excessive drinking. He is plainly weakened by his stroke and the shock of Dog's visit, and at one point Hawkins even hears him sing a country love-song, a gentle relic of his innocent days as a youth.

A few days later, a blind pirate known only as Pew reaches the inn, and Bones is plainly terrified. Pew slips a "black spot" into Bones' hand and departs. Immediately, Bones suffers a second stroke and dies.