The narrator, Jim Hawkins, begins the first chapter (“The Old Sea Dog at the Admiral Benbow”) by saying that he is writing this history at the request of Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and other gentlemen, leaving out nothing but the location of the island, where some treasure still remains. Jim describes how a large, old sailor arrives one day to his father’s inn, the Admiral Benbow, and rents a room. Saying they can call him “the captain,” he spends his stay watching the sea. He pays Jim a small amount of money to watch out for other seamen, especially a sailor with one leg. He frequently gets drunk in the evenings and terrifies the other guests (who are nonetheless fascinated) by singing violent sea songs and demanding that everyone else join in. The captain is dressed in rough, filthy clothes and spends no money, not even to pay for his room and board, of which fact Jim’s father is too intimidated to remind him.
One night the captain, drunk and roaring, signals for silence while he sings, but Dr. Livesey, the local physician who has come to treat Jim’s ill (indeed, dying) father, goes on with his conversation. In response to the captain’s curses and threats, Livesey calmly predicts that he’ll die soon if he keeps on drinking. And the doctor, who is also a district law enforcement official, says he’ll have the man arrested if he keeps on threatening people.
In the second chapter (“Black Dog Appears and Disappears”) a stranger arrives one January morning while the captain is on the beach with his telescope and Jim is readying the breakfast table. The stranger asks if “his mate Bill” is there, and Jim tells him he knows no one by that name, that he is preparing the table for “the captain.” Jim feels that this person means the captain no good, and he starts out to warn their guest, but the man prevents him from leaving. When the captain approaches, he reacts to the stranger with a kind of sickly fear, addressing him as “Black Dog.” Black Dog orders Jim to bring him rum and then leave the room, and although Jim tries to overhear their conversation, he can make out nothing until suddenly there’s a great crash and a clash of swords. He runs back in, just in time to see Black Dog, wounded, hurrying away. The captain seems greatly upset, demands rum, and says he must leave the inn. But before anything else can happen, he falls down unconscious. Soon the doctor arrives and tells Jim and his mother that the old man has had a stroke. He gets Jim to help him treat the captain, who eventually recovers consciousness. Livesey tells him that unless he stops drinking immediately he’ll have another stroke, which will kill him.
Chapter III (“The Black Spot”) begins later that day. When the captain hears he has been ordered to stay in bed for a week, he declares that this will be impossible. Black Dog and others worse than he will return, wanting to steal his sea chest. They will give him “the black spot,” which he says is a summons. When they come, he says, Jim must get Dr. Livesey to call down the law on them. He explains very little, but says these men are “old Flint’s crew,” that he himself was Flint’s first mate, and that Flint gave him something—he does not say what—before he died. Then the captain takes the medicine the doctor left for him and sleeps.
That evening, Jim’s father dies, and Jim has little time to worry about their guest and his troubles. The next day the captain manages to come downstairs and help himself liberally to rum. For several days he keeps this up, growing weaker and weaker, until the day after the funeral. That afternoon another stranger arrives, a ragged and fearsome-looking blind man. He forces Jim to take him to the captain, who sees him with terror. The blind man puts something into the captain’s hand and leaves quickly. When the captain sees what he has been given, he says: “Six hours. We’ll do them yet.” But as he gets to his feet he reels, sways, and falls dead to the floor.
As Chapter IV (“The Sea Chest”) begins, Jim tells his mother what the captain has told him and, knowing their danger, both walk to the nearby village for help. They arrive at dusk and can find no one brave enough to go back with them, although one boy says he’ll ride for Livesey. Mrs. Hawkins says she’ll go back alone, then, to get what the captain owes her, and Jim has no choice but to go with her. They return to the inn, and Jim reluctantly searches the captain’s corpse to find the key to the sea chest. In the chest they discover various articles, including a few bars of silver, a few English and foreign coins, and a sealed packet. Jim’s mother begins to count what coins she can recognize, but they hear the blind man’s stick approaching and, in the dark, they run out of the inn. They are badly frightened, and Mrs. Hawkins faints. Jim hides her as well as he can, listening, as Chapter V (“The Last of the Blind Man”) opens. He hears several men run into the inn, where they discover the captain is dead and the sea chest has been opened. Whatever they are looking for is gone. As a signal from their watchman sounds, most of the pirates want to run, but the blind man, Pew, insists they stay to search for Jim and his mother. They have reluctantly begun to do so when horsemen approach. The pirates scatter—all but Pew, who blunders down the road, deserted by his comrades, and is run down and killed by a man on horseback.
The boy who rode for Dr. Livesey has returned with a company of revenue men (tax collectors), whom Jim recognizes and hails. They find that the inn has been ransacked and robbed. The revenue officer, Mr. Dance, hearing Jim’s story, says he must go report to the magistrate, Livesey, and will take Jim with him.
Chapter VI (“The Captain’s Papers”) begins at Dr. Livesey’s house, where they are told that the doctor has gone to dine with Squire Trelawney at his hall. They proceed there, and Dance tells his story to the doctor and squire. Livesey is interested in the packet Jim took from the sea chest, but he waits to open it until after Dance has gone. When it is opened, it is found to contain a book listing sums of money and dates covering over twenty years. Livesey deduces it is a record of the captain’s share in plunder taken from many ships and towns by the notorious pirate Flint and his crew. Along with the book is a map showing where the treasure is hidden, buried on an island about 45 square miles in area. The squire immediately proposes to leave for the port city of Bristol, where he’ll obtain a ship, hire a crew, and—taking Livesey as ship’s doctor, Jim as cabin boy, and three other men whom he names (Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter)—they will sail in search of the island and the treasure. Livesey warns him not to tell anyone of his plans and destination, and the squire promises he’ll be “silent as the grave.”
