Copied from The Dead Men's Song: Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its Author Young Ewing Allison by Champion Ingraham Hitchcock (Louisville, KY:—, 1914) at Gutenberg.org.

This has a few words different from the DT (and above version) not the least of which is "the dead man's chest" rather than "a dead man's chest". "The" makes sense if "dead man's chest" designates a particular rock or island, and anyway, that's the way R. L. Stevenson wrote it.


DERELICT: A Reminiscence of "Treasure Island"
Young E. Allison [1901]

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!
      (Cap'n Billy Bones his song.)

[1] 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!

[2] 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 axe his cheek had shore—
And the scullion he was stabbed times four.
    And there they lay,
      And the soggy skies
    Dripped all day long
      In up-staring eyes—
At murk sunset and at foul sunrise—
  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

[3] Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark—
  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Ten of the crew had the Murder mark—
  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
'Twas a cutlass swipe, or an ounce of lead,
Or a yawing hole in a battered head—
And the scuppers glut with a rotting red.
    And there they lay—
      Aye, damn my eyes!—
    All lookouts clapped
      On paradise—
All souls bound just contrariwise—
  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

[4] Fifteen men of 'em good and true—
  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Every man jack could ha' sailed with Old Pew—
  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
There was chest on chest full of Spanish gold,
With a ton of plate in the middle hold,
And the cabins riot of stuff untold.
    And they lay there
      That had took the plum,
    With sightless glare
      And their lips struck dumb,
While we shared all by the rule of thumb—
  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

[5] More was seen through the sternlight screen—
  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Chartings ondoubt where a woman had been—
  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
A flimsy shift on a bunker cot,
With a thin dirk slot through the bosom spot
And the lace stiff-dry in a purplish blot.
    Or was she wench...
      Or some shuddering maid...?
    That dared the knife
      And that took the blade!
By God! she was stuff for a plucky jade—
  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

[6] 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!
We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight,
With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight,
And we heaved 'em over and out of sight—
    With a yo-heave-ho!
      And a fare-you-well!
    And a sullen plunge
      In the sullen swell
Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell—
  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!