4

The Sea-chest

I LOST no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew,

and perhaps should have told her long before, and we saw

ourselves at once in a difficult and dangerous position. Some of

the man's money--if he had any--was certainly due to us,

but it was not likely that our captain's shipmates, above all

the two specimens seen by me, Black Dog and the blind beggar,

would be inclined to give up their booty in payment of the

dead man's debts. The captain's order to mount at once and ride

for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone and

unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed

impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house;

the fall of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock,

filled us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed

haunted by approaching footsteps; and what between the dead

body of the captain on the parlour floor and the thought of that

detestable blind beggar hovering near at hand and ready to return,

there were moments when, as the saying goes, I jumped in my

skin for terror. Something must speedily be resolved upon,

and it occurred to us at last to go forth together and seek help

in the neighbouring hamlet. No sooner said than done.

Bare-headed as we were, we ran out at once in the

gathering evening and the frosty fog.

The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away,

though out of view, on the other side of the next cove;

and what greatly encouraged me, it was in an opposite direction

from that whence the blind man had made his appearance and

whither he had presumably returned. We were not many minutes

on the road, though we sometimes stopped to lay hold of each

other and hearken. But there was no unusual sound-- nothing but

the low wash of the ripple and the croaking of the inmates of the

wood.

It was already candle-light when we reached the hamlet,

and I shall never forget how much I was cheered to see

the yellow shine in doors and windows; but that, as it proved,

was the best of the help we were likely to get in that quarter.

For--you would have thought men would have been ashamed

of themselves--no soul would consent to return with us

to the Admiral Benbow. The more we told of our troubles,

the more--man, woman, and child-- they clung to the shelter

of their houses. The name of Captain Flint, though it was strange

to me, was well enough known to some there and carried a great

weight of terror. Some of the men who had been to field-work

on the far side of the Admiral Benbow remembered, besides,

to have seen several strangers on the road, and taking them

to be smugglers, to have bolted away; and one at least had seen

a little lugger in what we called Kitt's Hole. For that matter,

anyone who was a comrade of the captain's was enough to frighten

them to death. And the short and the long of the matter was,

that while we could get several who were willing enough to ride

to Dr. Livesey's, which lay in another direction, not one would

help us to defend the inn.

They say cowardice is infectious; but then argument is,

on the other hand, a great emboldener; and so when each had said

his say, my mother made them a speech. She would not,

she declared, lose money that belonged to her fatherless boy;

"If none of the rest of you dare," she said, "Jim and I dare.

Back we will go, the way we came, and small thanks to you big,

hulking, chicken-hearted men. We'll have that chest open,

if we die for it. And I'll thank you for that bag, Mrs. Crossley,

to bring back our lawful money in."

Of course I said I would go with my mother, and of course

they all cried out at our foolhardiness, but even then not a man

would go along with us. All they would do was to give me

a loaded pistol lest we were attacked, and to promise to have

horses ready saddled in case we were pursued on our return,

while one lad was to ride forward to the doctor's in search

of armed assistance.

My heart was beating finely when we two set forth in the cold night

upon this dangerous venture. A full moon was beginning to rise

and peered redly through the upper edges of the fog, and this

increased our haste, for it was plain, before we came forth again,

that all would be as bright as day, and our departure exposed

to the eyes of any watchers. We slipped along the hedges,

noiseless and swift, nor did we see or hear anything to increase

our terrors, till, to our relief, the door of the Admiral Benbow

had closed behind us.

I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood and panted for a moment

in the dark, alone in the house with the dead captain's body.

Then my mother got a candle in the bar, and holding each other's

hands, we advanced into the parlour. He lay as we had left him,

on his back, with his eyes open and one arm stretched out.

"Draw down the blind, Jim," whispered my mother;

"they might come and watch outside. And now," said she

when I had done so, "we have to get the key off THAT;

and who's to touch it, I should like to know!" and she gave

a kind of sob as she said the words.

I went down on my knees at once. On the floor close to his hand

there was a little round of paper, blackened on the one side.

I could not doubt that this was the BLACK SPOT; and taking it up,

I found written on the other side, in a very good, clear hand,

this short message: "You have till ten tonight."

"He had till ten, Mother," said I; and just as I said it, our old clock

began striking. This sudden noise startled us shockingly;

but the news was good, for it was only six.

"Now, Jim," she said, "that key."

I felt in his pockets, one after another. A few small coins,

a thimble, and some thread and big needles, a piece

of pigtail tobacco bitten away at the end, his gully with the

crooked handle, a pocket compass, and a tinder box were all

that they contained, and I began to despair.

"Perhaps it's round his neck," suggested my mother.

Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open his shirt at the neck,

and there, sure enough, hanging to a bit of tarry string, which I cut

with his own gully, we found the key. At this triumph we were

filled with hope and hurried upstairs without delay to the little room

where he had slept so long and where his box had stood

since the day of his arrival.

It was like any other seaman's chest on the outside, the initial "B"

burned on the top of it with a hot iron, and the corners somewhat

smashed and broken as by long, rough usage.

"Give me the key," said my mother; and though the lock was very

stiff, she had turned it and thrown back the lid in a twinkling.

A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose from the interior,

but nothing was to be seen on the top except a suit of very good

clothes, carefully brushed and folded. They had never been worn,

my mother said. Under that, the miscellany began--a quadrant,

a tin canikin, several sticks of tobacco, two brace of very

handsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an old Spanish watch

and some other trinkets of little value and mostly of foreign make,

a pair of compasses mounted with brass, and five or six curious

West Indian shells. I have often wondered since why he should

have carried about these shells with him in his wandering,

guilty, and hunted life.

In the meantime, we had found nothing of any value but the silver

and the trinkets, and neither of these were in our way.

Underneath there was an old boat-cloak, whitened with sea-salt

on many a harbour-bar. My mother pulled it up with impatience,

and there lay before us, the last things in the chest, a bundle

tied up in oilcloth, and looking like papers, and a canvas bag

that gave forth, at a touch, the jingle of gold.

"I'll show these rogues that I'm an honest woman," said my mother.

"I'll have my dues, and not a farthing over. Hold Mrs. Crossley's

bag." And she began to count over the amount of the captain's

score from the sailor's bag into the one that I was holding.

It was a long, difficult business, for the coins were of all countries

and sizes--doubloons, and louis d'ors, and guineas, and

pieces of eight, and I know not what besides, all shaken together

at random. The guineas, too, were about the scarcest, and it was

with these only that my mother knew how to make her count.

When we were about half-way through, I suddenly put my hand

upon her arm, for I had heard in the silent frosty air a sound

that brought my heart into my mouth--the tap-tapping of the blind

man's stick upon the frozen road. It drew nearer and nearer,

while we sat holding our breath. Then it struck sharp

on the inn door, and then we could hear the handle being turned

and the bolt rattling as the wretched being tried to enter;

and then there was a long time of silence both within and without.

At last the tapping recommenced, and, to our indescribable joy

and gratitude, died slowly away again until it ceased to be heard.

"Mother," said I, "take the whole and let's be going,"

for I was sure the bolted door must have seemed suspicious

and would bring the whole hornet's nest about our ears,

though how thankful I was that I had bolted it, none could tell

who had never met that terrible blind man.

But my mother, frightened as she was, would not consent to take

a fraction more than was due to her and was obstinately unwilling

to be content with less. It was not yet seven, she said,

by a long way; she knew her rights and she would have them;

and she was still arguing with me when a little low whistle

sounded a good way off upon the hill. That was enough,

and more than enough, for both of us.

"I'll take what I have," she said, jumping to her feet.

"And I'll take this to square the count," said I, picking up the

oilskin packet.

Next moment we were both groping downstairs, leaving the candle

by the empty chest; and the next we had opened the door

and were in full retreat. We had not started a moment too soon.

The fog was rapidly dispersing; already the moon shone quite clear

on the high ground on either side; and it was only in the exact

bottom of the dell and round the tavern door that a thin veil

still hung unbroken to conceal the first steps of our escape.

Far less than half-way to the hamlet, very little beyond

the bottom of the hill, we must come forth into the moonlight.

Nor was this all, for the sound of several footsteps running

came already to our ears, and as we looked back in their direction,

a light tossing to and fro and still rapidly advancing showed that

one of the newcomers carried a lantern.

"My dear," said my mother suddenly, "take the money and run on.

I am going to faint."

This was certainly the end for both of us, I thought. How I cursed

the cowardice of the neighbours; how I blamed my poor mother

for her honesty and her greed, for her past foolhardiness

and present weakness! We were just at the little bridge,

by good fortune; and I helped her, tottering as she was,

to the edge of the bank, where, sure enough, she gave a sigh

and fell on my shoulder. I do not know how I found the strength

to do it at all, and I am afraid it was roughly done, but I managed

to drag her down the bank and a little way under the arch.

Farther I could not move her, for the bridge was too low

to let me do more than crawl below it. So there we had to stay--

my mother almost entirely exposed and both of us within earshot

of the inn.

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