Charpter Four
The Sea-chest
I LOST no time, of course, in telling mymother all that I knew, and
perhaps should have told her long before, andwe saw ourselves at once
in a difficult and dangerous position. Someof the man’s money--if
he had any--was certainly due to us, but itwas not likely that our
captain’s shipmates, above all the twospecimens seen by me, Black
Dog and the blind beggar, would be inclinedto give up their booty in
payment of the dead man’s debts. Thecaptain’s order to mount at
once and ride for Doctor Livesey would haveleft my mother alone
and unprotected, which was not to be thoughtof. Indeed, it seemed
impossible for either of us to remain muchlonger in the house; the fall
of coals in the kitchen grate, the veryticking of the clock, filled
us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to ourears, seemed haunted by
approaching footsteps; and what between thedead body of the captain
on the parlour floor and the thought of thatdetestable blind beggar
hovering near at hand and ready to return,there were moments when, as
the saying goes, I jumped in my skin forterror. Something must speedily
be resolved upon, and it occurred to us atlast to go forth together
and seek help in the neighbouring hamlet. Nosooner said than done.
Bare-headed as we were, we ran out at once inthe 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 greatlyencouraged me, it was
in an opposite direction from that whence theblind man had made his
appearance and whither he had presumablyreturned. We were not many
minutes on the road, though we sometimesstopped to lay hold of each
other and hearken. But there was no unusualsound--nothing but the low
wash of the ripple and the croaking of theinmates of the wood.
It was already candle-light when we reachedthe hamlet, and I shall
never forget how much I was cheered to seethe yellow shine in doors and
windows; but that, as it proved, was the bestof the help we were likely
to get in that quarter. For--you would havethought men would have been
ashamed of themselves--no soul would consentto 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 theirhouses. The name of
Captain Flint, though it was strange to me,was well enough known to
some there and carried a great weight ofterror. Some of the men who
had been to field-work on the far side of theAdmiral Benbow remembered,
besides, to have seen several strangers onthe road, and taking them to
be smugglers, to have bolted away; and one atleast had seen a little
lugger in what we called Kitt’s Hole. Forthat matter, anyone who was a
comrade of the captain’s was enough tofrighten them to death. And the
short and the long of the matter was, thatwhile 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 defendthe inn.
They say cowardice is infectious; but thenargument is, on the other
hand, a great emboldener; and so when eachhad said his say, my mother
made them a speech. She would not, shedeclared, lose money that
belonged to her fatherless boy; “If none ofthe rest of you dare,”
shesaid, “Jim and I dare. Back we will go, the way we came, and small
thanks to you big, hulking, chicken-heartedmen. We’ll have that chest
open, if we die for it. And I’ll thank youfor 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 aman would go along with
us. All they would do was to give me a loadedpistol lest we were
attacked, and to promise to have horses readysaddled in case we were
pursued on our return, while one lad was toride forward to the doctor’s
in search of armed assistance.
My heart was beating finely when we two setforth in the cold night upon
this dangerous venture. A full moon wasbeginning to rise and peered
redly through the upper edges of the fog, andthis increased our haste,
for it was plain, before we came forth again,that all would be as
bright as day, and our departure exposed tothe eyes of any watchers.
We slipped along the hedges, noiseless andswift, nor did we see or hear
anything to increase our terrors, till, toour relief, the door of the
Admiral Benbow had closed behind us.
I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood andpanted for a moment in the
dark, alone in the house with the deadcaptain’s body. Then my mother
got a candle in the bar, and holding eachother’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 mymother; “they might come and
watch outside. And now,” said she when I haddone so, “we have to get
the key off _that;_ and who’s to touch it, Ishould 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 floorclose to his hand there
was a little round of paper, blackened on theone side. I could not
doubt that this was the _black spot;_ andtaking it up, I found written
on the other side, in a very good, clearhand, this short message: “You
have till ten tonight.”
“He had till ten, Mother,” said I; and justas I said it, our old clock
began striking. This sudden noise startled usshockingly; but the news
was good, for it was only six.
“Now, Jim,” she said, “that key.”
I felt in his pockets, one after another. Afew small coins, a thimble,
and some thread and big needles, a piece ofpigtail tobacco bitten away
at the end, his gully with the crookedhandle, a pocket compass, and a
tinder box were all that they contained, andI began to despair.
“Perhaps it’s round his neck,” suggested mymother.
Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore openhis shirt at the neck, and
there, sure enough, hanging to a bit of tarrystring, which I cut with
his own gully, we found the key. At thistriumph we were filled with
hope and hurried upstairs without delay tothe little room where he had
slept so long and where his box had stoodsince the day of his arrival.
It was like any other seaman’s chest on theoutside, the initial “B”
burnedon 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 thoughthe lock was very stiff,
she had turned it and thrown back the lid ina twinkling.
A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose fromthe interior, but nothing
was to be seen on the top except a suit ofvery good clothes, carefully
brushed and folded. They had never been worn,my mother said. Under
that, the miscellany began--a quadrant, a tincanikin, several sticks of
tobacco, two brace of very handsome pistols,a piece of bar silver, an
old Spanish watch and some other trinkets oflittle value and mostly of
foreign make, a pair of compasses mountedwith brass, and five or six
curious West Indian shells. I have oftenwondered since why he should
have carried about these shells with him inhis wandering, guilty, and
hunted life.
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