Kabanata Kabanata 4 · IV. The Sea-chest

. IV. 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.