Part One: The Old Buccaneer - Chapter 4: The Sea-chest

by Robert Louis Stevenson

　　I lost no time, of course, in telling my mother allthat I knew, and perhaps should have told her longbefore, and we saw ourselves at once in a difficult anddangerous position. Some of the man's money--if he hadany--was certainly due to us, but it was not likelythat our captain's shipmates, above all the twospecimens seen by me, Black Dog and the blind beggar,would be inclined to give up their booty in payment ofthe dead man's debts. The captain's order to mount atonce and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left mymother alone and unprotected, which was not to bethought of. Indeed, it seemed impossible for either ofus to remain much longer in the house; the fall ofcoals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of theclock, filled us with alarms. The neighbourhood, toour ears, seemed haunted by approaching footsteps; andwhat between the dead body of the captain on theparlour floor and the thought of that detestable blindbeggar hovering near at hand and ready to return, therewere moments when, as the saying goes, I jumped in myskin for terror. Something must speedily be resolvedupon, and it occurred to us at last to go forthtogether and seek help in the neighbouring hamlet. Nosooner said than done. Bare-headed as we were, we ranout at once in the gathering evening and the frosty fog.

　　The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away, though outof view, on the other side of the next cove; and whatgreatly encouraged me, it was in an opposite directionfrom that whence the blind man had made his appearanceand whither he had presumably returned. We were notmany minutes on the road, though we sometimes stoppedto lay hold of each other and hearken. But there wasno unusual sound--nothing but the low wash of theripple 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 seethe yellow shine in doors and windows; but that, as itproved, was the best of the help we were likely to getin that quarter. For--you would have thought men wouldhave been ashamed of themselves--no soul would consentto return with us to the Admiral Benbow. The more wetold of our troubles, the more--man, woman, and child--they clung to the shelter of their houses. The name ofCaptain Flint, though it was strange to me, was wellenough known to some there and carried a great weightof terror. Some of the men who had been to field-workon 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 wecalled Kitt's Hole. For that matter, anyone who was acomrade of the captain's was enough to frighten them todeath. And the short and the long of the matter was,that while we could get several who were willing enoughto ride to Dr. Livesey's, which lay in anotherdirection, 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 eachhad said his say, my mother made them a speech. Shewould not, she declared, lose money that belonged toher fatherless boy; "If none of the rest of you dare,"she said, "Jim and I dare. Back we will go, the way wecame, and small thanks to you big, hulking, chicken-hearted men. We'll have that chest open, if we die forit. And I'll thank you for that bag, Mrs. Crossley, tobring back our lawful money in."

　　Of course I said I would go with my mother, and of coursethey all cried out at our foolhardiness, but even thennot a man would go along with us. All they would do wasto give me a loaded pistol lest we were attacked, and topromise to have horses ready saddled in case we werepursued on our return, while one lad was to ride forwardto the doctor's in search of armed assistance.

　　My heart was beating finely when we two set forth inthe cold night upon this dangerous venture. A fullmoon was beginning to rise and peered redly through theupper edges of the fog, and this increased our haste,for it was plain, before we came forth again, that allwould be as bright as day, and our departure exposed tothe eyes of any watchers. We slipped along the hedges,noiseless and swift, nor did we see or hear anything toincrease our terrors, till, to our relief, the door ofthe Admiral Benbow had closed behind us.

　　I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood and panted fora moment in the dark, alone in the house with the deadcaptain's body. Then my mother got a candle in thebar, and holding each other's hands, we advanced intothe 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; "theymight come and watch outside. And now," said she whenI had done so, "we have to get the key off that; andwho's to touch it, I should like to know!" and she gavea kind of sob as she said the words.

　　I went down on my knees at once. On the floor close tohis hand there was a little round of paper, blackenedon the one side. I could not doubt that this was theBlack Spot; and taking it up, I found written onthe other side, in a very good, clear hand, this shortmessage: "You have till ten tonight."

　　"He had till ten, Mother," said I; and just as I saidit, our old clock began striking. This sudden noisestartled us shockingly; but the news was good, for itwas 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 pigtailtobacco bitten away at the end, his gully with the crookedhandle, a pocket compass, and a tinder box were all that theycontained, and I began to despair.

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

　　Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open his shirtat the neck, and there, sure enough, hanging to a bitof tarry string, which I cut with his own gully, wefound the key. At this triumph we were filled withhope and hurried upstairs without delay to the littleroom where he had slept so long and where his box hadstood 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 hotiron, and the corners somewhat smashed and broken as bylong, rough usage.

　　"Give me the key," said my mother; and though the lockwas very stiff, she had turned it and thrown back thelid in a twinkling.

　　A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose from theinterior, but nothing was to be seen on the top excepta suit of very good clothes, carefully brushed andfolded. They had never been worn, my mother said.Under that, the miscellany began--a quadrant, a tincanikin, several sticks of tobacco, two brace of veryhandsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an old Spanishwatch and some other trinkets of little value andmostly of foreign make, a pair of compasses mountedwith brass, and five or six curious West Indian shells.I have often wondered since why he should have carriedabout these shells with him in his wandering, guilty,and hunted life.

　　In the meantime, we had found nothing of any value butthe silver and the trinkets, and neither of these werein our way. Underneath there was an old boat-cloak,whitened with sea-salt on many a harbour-bar. Mymother pulled it up with impatience, and there laybefore us, the last things in the chest, a bundle tiedup in oilcloth, and looking like papers, and a canvasbag that gave forth, at a touch, the jingle of gold.

　　"I'll show these rogues that I'm an honest woman," saidmy mother. "I'll have my dues, and not a farthingover. Hold Mrs. Crossley's bag." And she began tocount over the amount of the captain's score from thesailor's bag into the one that I was holding.

　　It was a long, difficult business, for the coins wereof all countries and sizes--doubloons, and louis d'ors,and guineas, and pieces of eight, and I know not whatbesides, all shaken together at random. The guineas,too, were about the scarcest, and it was with theseonly that my mother knew how to make her count.

　　When we were about half-way through, I suddenly put myhand upon her arm, for I had heard in the silent frostyair a sound that brought my heart into my mouth--thetap-tapping of the blind man's stick upon the frozenroad. It drew nearer and nearer, while we sat holdingour breath. Then it struck sharp on the inn door, andthen we could hear the handle being turned and the boltrattling as the wretched being tried to enter; and thenthere was a long time of silence both within andwithout. At last the tapping recommenced, and, to ourindescribable joy and gratitude, died slowly away againuntil 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 seemedsuspicious and would bring the whole hornet's nestabout our ears, though how thankful I was that I hadbolted it, none could tell who had never met thatterrible blind man.

　　But my mother, frightened as she was, would not consentto take a fraction more than was due to her and wasobstinately unwilling to be content with less. It wasnot yet seven, she said, by a long way; she knew herrights and she would have them; and she was stillarguing with me when a little low whistle sounded agood way off upon the hill. That was enough, and morethan 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, leavingthe candle by the empty chest; and the next we hadopened the door and were in full retreat. We had notstarted a moment too soon. The fog was rapidlydispersing; already the moon shone quite clear on thehigh ground on either side; and it was only in theexact bottom of the dell and round the tavern door thata thin veil still hung unbroken to conceal the firststeps of our escape. Far less than half-way to thehamlet, very little beyond the bottom of the hill, wemust come forth into the moonlight. Nor was this all,for the sound of several footsteps running came alreadyto our ears, and as we looked back in their direction,a light tossing to and fro and still rapidly advancingshowed that one of the newcomers carried a lantern.

　　"My dear," said my mother suddenly, "take the money andrun 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 Iblamed my poor mother for her honesty and her greed,for her past foolhardiness and present weakness! Wewere just at the little bridge, by good fortune; and Ihelped her, tottering as she was, to the edge of thebank, where, sure enough, she gave a sigh and fell onmy shoulder. I do not know how I found the strength todo it at all, and I am afraid it was roughly done, butI managed to drag her down the bank and a little wayunder the arch. Farther I could not move her, for thebridge was too low to let me do more than crawl belowit. So there we had to stay--my mother almost entirelyexposed and both of us within earshot of the inn.