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  The Bottle Imp

 

Some versions of the devilish 1995 trick-taking game The Bottle Imp by Günter Cornett come with a copy of the short story by Robert Louis Stevenson that inspired the game. The recent (2017) edition of the game does not.

The story is readily available on the Internet, it having been published in 1891. However, that remote provenance saddles the story with a florid style that falls awkwardly on the modern ear. Certain passages tend to go on a bit, especially for those of us more used to the storytelling style of Michael Bay, which, who am I kidding? is all of us, because who hasn't been tricked into watching one of the Transformers movies, or The Rock, or any of Bay's other frantically cut, FX heavy films, although, truth be told, I did dig The Island (2005), who?

Long story, short: I tried my hand at abridging. This version reduces the length of the story by half by pruning the weakest of Stevenson's offerings of expository detail, a relatively easy task because of his penchant for creating multiple examples of each dramatic point he sought to illustrate. I tried to brisk it up a bit. With a few more explosions. Not really. No original text was harmed in the making of this tale. And so, without further ado...

 

The Bottle Imp

by Robert Louis Stevenson

The good sailor Keawe took shore leave in San Francisco; he pocketed his pay, and set out to explore the city. In the window of a fine house, he noticed a man looking out to sea with longing. That man noticed Keawe marvelling at his mansion.

“We seem to envy each other,” said the man. “But there is no reason you can’t have a house like this. How much money do you have?”

“Fifty dollars,” said Keawe.

“That will do.”

“But surely a house as grand as yours costs more than that,” said Keawe.

“It’s not the house I sell, but this bottle. It contains an imp who grants wishes.” The man took out a round-bellied bottle with a long neck; the glass was white like milk, with changing rainbow colours in the grain. Winthinsides something obscurely moved, like a shadow and a fire. “I will gladly sell it to you.”

“Why part with such power? And why for such a low price?”

“You are wise to ask. The bottle comes with a catch. If you should die in possession of it, you will burn in hell. You cannot cast away the bottle, it will always return to you, but you may sell it, as long as you do so at a loss. At one time, the bottle was worth millions. They say the pharaohs owned it, and Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon and Captain Cook. I bought it for eighty dollars. Now it can be yours for only fifty!”

“How do I know you aren’t telling me a tale?”

“Give it a try. Give me your fifty dollars and ask for your money back. If the imp doesn’t immediately fill your pockets, I will gladly return your money.”

Keawe gave the man all his money, took the bottle and said, “Imp of the bottle, give my pay back.” Instantly, his purse was heavy again.

“Good day,” said the man, his mood much changed; and pushed Keawe out into the street. “Now, be gone, and the devil go with you for me!”

Keawe felt troubled. “Is this bottle truly magic?” thought he. “Is my soul truly in jeopardy? Or was the old man of the mansion a magician, who, with sleight of hand, refilled my purse as some kind of practical joke?” Keawe went back to work and by-and-by returned to his home in Hawai‘i. Deep in his heart, he still coveted a mansion of his own.

 

Upon returning to Hawai‘i, Keawe was met with news that his uncle and cousin were drowned at sea. Keawe was filled with sorrow. The news was all the sadder because his uncle had just finished building a grand house overlooking the sea at Ho‘okena. Keawe inherited the estate; when Keawe saw his new home, it was the picture of his thought of an ideal house.

“Was this the work of the imp?” thought Keawe.

One day, Keawe passed a shop that sold shells and clubs from the wild islands, old heathen deities, old coined money, pictures from China and Japan, and all manner of things that sailors bring in their sea-chests; here he had an idea. Keawe took the bottle from his sea-chest –for there he kept the strange thing still; and took it to this shop. He offered the bottle for a hundred dollars. The shop-man laughed at him at first, and offered him five; but, indeed, it was a curious bottle – so prettily the colours shone under the milky white, and so strangely the shadow played within them; so after he had disputed awhile after the manner of his kind, the shop-man gave Keawe sixty dollars for the thing, and set it on a shelf in the midst of his window.

“Now,” said Keawe, “I have sold that for sixty which I bought for fifty – or, to say truth, a little less, because one of my dollars was from Chile. Now I shall know the truth.”

Back he went home, and when he opened his chest, there was the bottle, and had come more quickly than himself.

Keawe confided his adventures with the bottle to his friend Lopaka. Lopaka immediately offered to buy the bottle from him. Before paying though, for assurance and out of curiosity, Lopaka asked to see the imp. Keawe commanded it show itself, and a terrifying face pressed itself against the inside of the glass of the bottle. This so startled them both that Keawe dropped the bottle; instead of breaking on the ground like such a flask should, it bounced back into Keawe’s hands like a child’s ball. He dashed it against a large rock; but still it bounced and would not break. Keawe and Lopaka looked at each other with fear; clearly the bottle had been tempered in the flames of hell. Reluctantly, Lopaka honoured his promise and purchased the bottle for forty-nine dollars.

Lopaka wished for a schooner; and he went trading through the islands. Keawe stayed in Ho‘okena and enjoyed the many balconies of his splendid house. He loved the front balcony where he drank the wind of the sea, but equally the back where the land breezes brought the orchids closer to him. He enjoyed the many fine things of glass and gilt that were furnished within the halls of his mansion. He kept everything polished and his house became known as the Bright House it sparkled so. His life was perfect and he was sick with satisfaction; and he was free of the devil he had seen in the bottle.

 

One evening, on his way back to the Bright House, he chanced upon a beautiful woman bathing by the sea. His heart went to her as swift as a bird. He asked her her name and if she were married.

At this she laughed out loud and said, “Kokua. Are you married yourself?”

“Indeed, I am not. And never thought to be until this hour. If you want none of me say so, and I will go on to my own place; but if you think me no worse than any other young man, say so, and I will turn aside to your father’s for the night and tomorrow I will talk with him.”

Kokua said never a word, but she looked at the sea and laughed. She went ahead of him, still without speech; only sometimes she glanced back and glanced away again, and kept the strings of her hat in her mouth; and in this way they came to her father’s house.

That night they dined with Kokua’s father, and although his daughter knew Keawe not, he knew him well, the fame of Keawe’s house having travelled far. All evening they were merry together; and the girl was bold as brass under the eyes of her parents, and made a mock of Keawe, for she had a quick wit.

The next morning, Keawe found Kokua and said, “It is late and I must leave now Kokua. I have professed my love for you but I still don’t know your heart. If you wish to have seen the last of me, say so at once.”

“No,” said Kokua, but this time she did not laugh.

Keawe sang all the way home. He sat and ate in the broad balcony and sang between mouthfuls. He sang on the front balcony and the voice of his singing startled men on ships. He knew that Kokua loved him as he loved her.

“Life may be no better,” Keawe sang to himself as he undressed for his bath. Then his singing stuttered and stopped. For as he undressed, he spied upon his flesh a patch like a patch of lichen on a rock, and he knew the likeness of that patch. He was fallen. It was leprosy which had no cure and which, so contagious an evil, banished one from society.

Now, it is a sad thing for anyone to fall into this sickness. And it would be a sad thing for anyone to leave a house so beautiful, and depart from all their friends to live the rest of their life in the leper colony on the north coast of Moloka‘i. But what was that to Keawe, he who had met his love but yesterday, and won her but that morning, and now saw all his hopes break, in a moment, like a piece of glass?

Keawe recalled the bottle. “A dreadful thing,” thought he, “and dreadful is the imp, and it is a dreadful thing to risk the flames of hell. But what other hope have I to cure my sickness and to wed Kokua?”

“What!” he reasoned, “would I beard the devil once, only to get me a house, and not face him again to win Kokua?”

 

The next day, Keawe caught the steamer to Honolulu, and after a night’s and a day’s travel arrived at its pier. He stepped out among the crowd and began to ask for Lopaka. Lopaka was gone upon an adventure in his schooner so there was no help to be looked for from him. Keawe called to mind a friend of Lopaka’s, a lawyer in town, and inquired of him. They said he was grown suddenly rich. Keawe called a hack and drove to the lawyer’s house. The house was all brand new, and the lawyer, when he came, had the air of a man well pleased.

“What can I do to serve you?” said the lawyer.

“You are a friend of Lopaka’s,” replied Keawe, “and Lopaka purchased from me a certain piece of goods that I thought you might enable me to trace.”

The lawyer’s face became very dark.

“I do not profess to misunderstand you, Mr. Keawe,” said he, “though this is an ugly business to be stirring in. You may be be sure I know nothing, but yet I have a guess, and if you would apply in a certain quarter I think you might have news.”

And he named the name of a man. So it was for days, Keawe went from one to another finding everywhere new clothes and carriages, and fine new houses and men everywhere in great contentment, although, to be sure, when he hinted at his business their faces would cloud over.

At last he came to a door recommended to him where there were the usual marks of a new house, and the young garden, and the electric light shining in the windows; but when the owner came, a shock of hope and fear ran through Keawe; for here was a young man, white as a corpse, and black about the eyes, the hair shedding from his head.

“Here it is, to be sure,” thought Keawe, and so with this man he noways veiled his errand.

“I am come to buy the bottle.”

“The bottle!” gasped the young man. “To buy the bottle!” and he began to choke. He seized Keawe by the arm, carried him into a room, and took some water to calm himself.

“Yes,” said Keawe, “I am come to buy the bottle. What is the price now?”

At that word, the man let the glass slip through his fingers.

“The price,” he said, “the price! You do not know the price?”

“It is for that I am asking you.”

“It has dropped a great deal in value since your time, Mr. Keawe,” said the young man stammering.

“Well, I shall have the less to pay for it. How much did it cost you?”

“Two cents.”

“What?” cried Keawe, “two cents? Why then you can only sell it for one. And he who buys it...”

The words died upon Keawe’s tongue.

The young man fell upon his knees.

“For God’s sake buy it!” he cried. “You can have all my fortune in the bargain. I was mad when I bought it at that price. I had embezzled money at my store; I was lost else; I must have gone to jail.”

“Poor creature,” said Keawe, “you would risk your soul upon so desperate an adventure, and to avoid the proper punishment of your own disgrace; and you think I could hesitate with love in front of me? Give me the bottle, and the change which I make sure you have all ready. Here is a five-cent piece.”

Keawe’s fingers were no sooner clasped upon the stalk of the bottle than he breathed his wish to be a clean man. And, sure enough, when he returned to his hotel room and stripped himself before a glass, his flesh was whole like an infant’s. And here is the strange thing: he had no sooner seen this miracle, than his mind was changed within him, and he cared naught for those leprous scabs, nor banishment from all and Kokua; and had but one thought, over and again, that here he was bound to the bottle for time and eternity, and had no better hope but to be a cinder forever in the flames of hell.

When he came to himself a little, it was night and the sound of the band playing downstairs fell on Keawe’s ears. The tunes were lively but all the while he heard the flames crackle from the bottomless pit. Of a sudden the band played the song he had sung with Kokua the night he met her, and at the strain, courage returned to him.

“It is done now,” he thought, “and once more let me take the good along with the evil.”

 

So it was that he returned to Hawai‘i, and as soon as it could be managed he was wedded to Kokua, and carried her up the mountainside to the Bright House.

Now it was so with these two, that when they were together, Keawe’s heart was stilled; but so soon as he was alone he fell into a brooding horror, and saw the red fire burning in the pit of hell. Kokua was full of song. She went to and fro in the Bright House, the brightest thing in its three storeys; and Keawe beheld and heard her with delight, and then must shrink upon one side, and weep and groan to think upon the price he had paid for her.

There came a day when Kokua’s feet began to be heavy and her songs more rare; and now it was not Keawe only that would weep apart, but each would sunder from the other and sit in opposite balconies with the whole width of the Bright House betwixt. Keawe was so sunk in his despair he scarce observed the change, and was only glad he had more hours to sit alone and brood upon his destiny. But one day, coming softly through the house, he heard the sound of a child sobbing.

“You do well to weep in this house, Kokua,” he said. “And yet I would give the head off my body that you (at least) should be happy.”

“Happy!” she cried. “Keawe, when you lived alone in your Bright House, you were the word of the island for a happy man; laughter and song were in your mouth, and your face was as bright as the sunrise. Then you wedded poor Kokua, and the good God knows what is amiss in her, but from that day you have not smiled!”

“Poor Kokua,” said Keawe. He sat down by her side and sought to take her hand; but that she plucked away.

“Kokua,” he said again. “I had thought all this while to spare you! Well, you shall know all. Then, at least, you will pity poor Keawe; then you will understand how much he loved you in the past that he dared hell for you, and how much he loves you still that he can yet call up a smile when he beholds you.”

With that, he told her all, even from the beginning.

“You have done this for me?” Kokua cried. “You gave your soul and think I will not die to save you in return?”

“Ah, my dear! you might die a hundred times and what difference would that make?” he sighed, “except to leave me lonely till the time comes of my damnation.”

“You know nothing,” said she. “I was educated in a school in Honolulu; I am no common girl. And I tell you, I shall save my lover. What is this you say about a cent? But all the world is not American. In England they have a piece they call a farthing, which is about half a cent. Ah! Sorrow!” she cried, “that makes it scarcely better, for the buyer must be lost and we shall find none so brave as my Keawe! But, then, there is France; they have a small coin which they call a centime, and these go five to the cent or there-about. We could not do better. Come, Keawe, let us go to the French islands. There we have four centimes, three centimes, two centimes, one! Four possible sales to come and go on. Come, Keawe, kiss me and banish care. Kokua will defend you.”

Early the next day Kokua took Keawe’s sea-chest, and first she put the bottle in a corner; and then packed it with the richest of their clothes and the bravest of the knick-knacks in the house. “For,” she said, “we must seem to be rich folks, or who will believe in the bottle?”

Thither they went to Tahiti, the wise island. They hired a grand house, opposite the British Consul’s, to make a great parade of money, and themselves conspicuous with carriages and horses. This it was very easy to do, so long as they had the bottle in their possession; for Kokua was more bold than Keawe, and, whenever she had a mind, called on the imp for twenty or a hundred dollars.

They got on well after the first with the Tahitian language, which is indeed like to the Hawaiian; and as soon as they had any freedom of speech, began to push the bottle. You are to consider it was not an easy subject to introduce; it was not easy to persuade people you were in earnest, when you offered to sell them for four centimes the spring of health and riches inexhaustible. It was necessary besides to explain the dangers of the bottle; and either people disbelieved the whole thing and laughed, or became overcast with gravity and drew away as from persons who had dealings with the devil. So far from gaining ground, Keawe and Kokua began to find they were avoided in town.

Depression fell upon their spirits. They would sit at night in their new house, after a day’s weariness, and not exchange one word, or the silence would be broken by Kokua bursting suddenly into sobs. Sometimes they would pray together; sometimes they would have the bottle out upon the floor and sit all evening watching how the shadow hovered in the midst. If either dozed off, it would be to wake and find the other silently weeping in the dark, or, perhaps, to wake alone, the other having fled from the house and the neighbourhood of the bottle, to pace under the bananas in the little garden, or to wander on the beach by moonlight.

 

One night it was so when Kokua awoke. Keawe was gone. She felt in the bed and his place was cold. A little moonlight filtered through the shutters and she could spy the bottle on the floor. Outside it blew high, the great trees of the avenue cried aloud, and the fallen leaves rattled in the veranda. In the midst of this Kokua was aware of another sound; whether of a beast or of a man she could scarce tell, but it was as sad as death, and cut her to the soul. Softly she arose, set the door ajar, and looked forth into the moonlit yard. There, under the bananas, lay Keawe his mouth in the dust, and as he lay he moaned.

“Heaven!” she thought, “how careless have I been – how weak! It is he, not I, that stands in this eternal peril; it was he, not I that took the curse. It was for my sake, and for the love of a creature of such poor help, that he now beholds so close to him the flames of hell –ay, and smells the smoke of it– lying there in the wind. Am I so dull of spirit that never till now have I surmised my duty? But now, I take up my soul in both the hands of my affection; now I say farewell to the white steps of heaven and the waiting faces of my friends. A love for a love, and let mine be equalled with Keawe’s! A soul for a soul, and be it mine to perish!”

She was a deft woman with her hands, and was soon apparelled. She took in her hands the change –the precious centimes they kept ever at their side; and ventured into the night. When she was in the avenue, clouds came on the wind, and the moon was blackened. The town slept, and she knew not wither to turn till she heard one coughing in the shadow of the trees.

“Old man,” said Kokua, “what do you here abroad in the cold night?”

The man could scarce express himself for coughing, but she made out that he was old and poor, and a stranger in the island.

“Will you do me a service?” said Kokua. “As one stranger to another, will you help a daughter of Hawai‘i?”

“Ah,” said the old man. “So you are the witch from the eight islands, and even my old soul you seek to entangle. But I have heard of you, and defy your wickedness.”

“Sit down here,” said Kokua, “and let me tell you a tale.” And she told him the story of Keawe from beginning to end.

“And what should I do?” said she, “If I went to him myself and offered to buy the bottle, he would refuse. But if you go, he will sell it eagerly; I will await you here; you will buy it for four centimes, and I will buy it again for three. And the Lord strengthen a poor girl!”

“If you meant falsely,” said the old man, “I think God would strike you dead.”

“Be sure he would. I could not be so treacherous.”

“Give me the four centimes and await me here,” said the old man.

Now, when Kokua stood alone in the street, her spirit died. The wind roared in the trees, and it seemed to her the rushing of the flames of hell; the shadows tossed in the light of the street lamp, and they seemed to her the snatching hands of evil ones. If she had had the strength, she must have run away, and if she had had the breath, she must have screamed aloud; in truth, she could do neither, and stood and trembled in the avenue, like an affrighted child.

Then she saw the old man returning, and he had the bottle in his hand.

“I have done your bidding,” said he. “I left your husband weeping like a child; tonight he will sleep easy.”

“Before you give it me,” Kokua panted, “take the good with the evil; ask to be delivered from your cough.”

“I am an old man,” replied the other, “and too near the gate of the grave to take a favour from the devil. Why do you not take the bottle? Do you hesitate?”

“Not hesitate!” cried Kokua. “I am only weak. It is my hand resists; my flesh shrinks back from the accursed thing.”

The old man looked upon Kokua kindly. “Poor child!” said he, “you fear; your soul misgives you. Well, let me keep it. I am old and can never more be happy in this world; and as for the next...”

“Give it me!” gasped Kokua. “There is your money. Do you think I am so base as that?”

“God bless you, child.”

Kokua concealed the bottle under her shawl, said farewell to the old man, and walked off, she cared not wither. For all roads were now the same to her, and led equally to hell. As she wandered, all that she had heard of hell came back to her; she saw the flames blaze, and she smelt the smoke, and her flesh withered on the coals. Near day she came to her mind again, and returned to the house. It was even as the old man said – Keawe slumbered like a child.

“Now, my husband,” she whispered, “it is your turn to sleep. When you wake it will be your turn to sing and laugh. But for poor Kokua, alas! no more sleep, no more singing.”

With that she lay down in the bed by his side, and her misery was so extreme that she fell in a deep slumber instantly.

Late in the morning, Keawe woke her, and gave her the good news. He was silly with delight, for he paid no heed to her distress, ill though she dissembled it. The words stuck in her mouth. It mattered not; Keawe did the speaking. She ate not a bite, but who was to observe it? Keawe cleared the dish. Kokua saw and heard him like some strange thing in a dream; there were times when she forgot or doubted, and put her hands to her brow; to know herself doomed and hear her husband babble seemed so monstrous.

All the while, Keawe was eating and talking, and planning the time of their return, and thanking her for saving him, and fondling her, and calling her the true helper after all. He laughed at the old man that was fool enough to buy the bottle.

“A worthy old man he seemed,” Keawe said. “But no one can judge by appearances. For why did the old reprobate require the bottle?”

“My husband,” said Kokua humbly, “his purpose may have been good.”

“Ha!” laughed Keawe. “An old rogue, I tell you; and an ass to boot. For the bottle was hard enough to sell at four centimes; at three it will be quite impossible. It is true I bought it myself at a cent, when I knew not there were smaller coins. I was a fool. There will never be found another; and whoever has that bottle now will carry it to the pit.”

“Oh my husband! Is it not a terrible thing to save oneself by the eternal ruin of another? It seems to me I could not laugh. I would be humbled. I would be filled with melancholy. I would pray for the poor holder.”

Then Keawe, because he felt the truth of what she said, grew angry. “You may be filled with melancholy if you please. It is not the mind of a good wife. If you thought at all of me, you would sit shamed.”

Thereupon he went out, and Kokua was alone, and but sat in the house, and now had the bottle out and viewed it with unutterable fear, and now, with loathing, hid it out of sight.

By-and-by, Keawe returned, and would have her take a drive.

“My husband, I am ill,” she said. “I am out of heart. Excuse me, I can take no pleasure.”

Then was Keawe more wroth than ever. With her, because he thought she was brooding over the case of the old man; and with himself, because he thought she was right, and was ashamed to be so happy.

“This is your truth,” cried he, “and this your affection! Your husband is just saved from eternal ruin, which he encountered for the love of you – and you can take no pleasure!”

He went forth again furious, and wandered in the town all day. He met friends and drank with them; they hired a carriage and drove into the country; and there drank again. All the time Keawe was ill at ease, because he was taking his pastime while his wife was sad, and because he knew in his heart that she was more right than he; and the knowledge made him drink the deeper.

 

Now, there was an old brutal sailor drinking with him, one that had been a boatswain of a whaler, a runaway, a digger in gold mines, a convict in prisons. He had a low mind and a foul mouth; he loved to drink and to see others drunken; and he pressed the glass upon Keawe. Soon there was no more money in the company.

“Here, you!” says the boatswain, “you are rich you have always been saying. You have a bottle or some foolishness.”

“Yes,” says Keawe, “I am rich; I will go back and get some money from my wife who keeps it.”

“That’s a bad idea, mate,” said the boatswain. “Never you trust a petticoat with dollars. They’re all as false as water.”

Now, this word struck in Keawe’s mind; for he was muddled with what he had been drinking. “I should not wonder but she was false, indeed,” he thought. “Why else should she be so cast down at my release? But I will show her I am not a man to be fooled. I will catch her in the act.”

Accordingly, when they were back in town, Keawe bade the boatswain wait for him at the corner, by the old gaol, and went alone to the door of his house. The night had come again; there was a light within, but never a sound; and Keawe crept about the corner, opened the door softly, and looked in.

There was Kokua on the floor, lamp at her side; before her was a milk-white bottle, with a round belly and a long neck; and as she viewed it, Kokua wrung her hands.

A long time Keawe stood and looked in the doorway. At first he was struck stupid. Had his bargain with the old man gone amiss, and the bottle come back to him? And then fear fell upon him; and his knees were loosened, and the fumes of the wine departed from his head like mists off a river in the morning.

“I must make sure of this,” he thought. So he closed the door, and went softly round the corner again, and then came noisily in as though he were but now returned. And, lo! by the time he opened the front door no bottle was to be seen; and Kokua sat in a chair and started up like one awakened out of sleep.

“I have been drinking all day and making merry,” said Keawe. “I have been with good companions, and now I only come back for money, and return to drink and carouse with them again.” And he went straight to the chest and took out money. But he looked besides in the corner where they kept the bottle, and there was no bottle there.

At this the house span about him. “It is what I feared,” he thought. “It is she who has bought it.” And then he came to himself a little more, and rose up; but the sweat streamed on his face as thick as the rain and as cold as well water.

“Kokua,” said he, “I said to you today words that ill became me. Now I return to carouse with my jolly companions,” and at that he made gentle his voice, “I will take more pleasure in the cup if you forgive me.”

She clasped his knees in a moment; she kissed his knees with flowing tears.

“O,” she cried, “I asked but a kind word!”

“Let us never one think hardly of the other,” said Keawe, drawing her up; and departed.

Now, the money that Keawe had taken was only some of that store of centime pieces they had laid in at their arrival. It was very sure he had no mind to be drinking. His wife had given her soul for him, now he must give his for hers.

 

At the corner, there was the boatswain waiting.

“My wife has the bottle,” said Keawe, “and, unless you help me to recover it, there can be no more money and no more liquor tonight.”

“You do not mean to say you are serious about that bottle?” cried the boatswain.

“Do I look as if I was jesting?”

“You look as serious as a ghost.”

“Well then,” said Keawe, “Here are two centimes; you must go to my wife, and offer her these for the bottle, which (if I am not much mistaken) she will give you instantly. Bring it to me here, and I will buy it back from you for one; for that is the law with this bottle, that it must be sold for a less sum. But whatever you do, never breathe a word that you have come from me.”

“Mate, I wonder are you making a fool of me?”

“It will do you no harm if I am.”

“That is so,” said the boatswain.

“And if you doubt me,” added Keawe, “you can try. As soon as you are clear of the house, wish to have your pocket full of money, or a bottle of the best rum, or what you please, and you will see the virtue of the thing.”

“Very well, Kanaka,” says the boatswain. “I will try; but if you are having your fun out of me, I will take my fun out of you with a belaying pin.”

So the whaler-man went off up the avenue; and Keawe stood and waited.

It seemed a long time before he heard a voice singing in the darkness of the avenue. He knew the voice to be the boatswain’s; but it was strange how drunken it appeared upon a sudden.

Next, the man himself came stumbling into the light of the street lamp. He had the devil’s bottle buttoned in his coat; another bottle was in his hand; and even as he came in view he raised it to his mouth and drank.

“You have it,” said Keawe; and he reached for the bottle.

“Hands off!” cried the boatswain, jumping back. “Take a step near me, and I’ll smash your mouth. You thought you could make a fool of me, did you?”

“What do you mean?” cried Keawe.

“Mean?” cried the boatswain. “This is a pretty good bottle, this is; that’s what I mean. How I got it for two centimes I can’t make out; but I’m sure you shan’t have it for one.”

“You mean you won’t sell?” gasped Keawe.

“No, SIR!” cried the boatswain. “But I’ll give you a drink of this fine rum, if you like.”

“I tell you,” said Keawe, “the man who has that bottle goes to hell.”

“I reckon I’m going anyway,” returned the sailor; “and this bottle’s the best thing to go with I’ve struck yet. No sir!” he cried again, “This is my bottle now, and you can go and fish for another.”

“Can this be true?” Keawe cried. “For your own sake, I beseech you, sell it me!”

“I don’t value any of your talk,” replied the boatswain. “You thought I was a flat; now you see I’m not; and there’s an end. If you won’t have a swallow of the rum, I’ll have one myself. Here’s your health, and goodnight to you!”

So off he went down the avenue towards town, and there goes the bottle out of the story.

But Keawe ran to Kokua light as the wind; and great was their joy that night; and great, since then, has been the peace of all their days in the Bright House.

 

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Card Game or Storyboard?

The card game, The Bottle Imp, uses a deck of 37 numbered cards illustrated with scenes from Stevenson's story. If you wish to tell the story in pictures, arrange the deck like so:

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Want a copy of The Bottle Imp to include in the game box of The Bottle Imp? Here you go. Six suspense filled layouts. Print them double-sided on letter stock, cut, fold, and staple to make a 24 page booklet that will fit in the 2017 edition of the game.

 imp_1_front.pdf   (print double-sided with imp_1_back.pdf)

 imp_1_back.pdf

 

 imp_2_front.pdf   (print double-sided with imp_2_back.pdf)

 imp_2_back.pdf

 

 imp_3_front.pdf   (print double-sided with imp_3_back.pdf)

 imp_3_back.pdf