DERELICT
A REMINISCENCE OF R. L. S.’S “TREASURE
ISLAND” AND CAP’N BILLY BONES,
HIS SONG
“Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest—
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!”
The mate was fixed by the bos’n’s pike,
The bos’n brained with a marlinspike
And Cookey’s throat was marked belike
It had been gripped
By fingers ten;
And there they lay,
All good dead men,
Like break-o’-day in a boozing-ken—
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Fifteen men of a whole ship’s list—
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Dead and bedamned and the rest gone whist!—
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
The skipper lay with his nob in gore
Where the scullion’s ax his cheek had shore—
Arid the scullion he was stabbed times four.
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