Chapter: 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 alarm. The neighborhood, to our ears, seemed haunted by approaching
footsteps; and what between the dead body of the captain on the parlor
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
neighboring hamlet. No sooner said than done. Bareheaded 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 Doctor 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 fiercely 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
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 huge 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 parlor. 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 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 to-night."

"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 pig-tail 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 arose 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 cannikin, 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 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 harbor-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 those 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 halfway 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 halfway 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 new-comers 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 neighbors! 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
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.

 Jim tells his mother all he knows about the chest. With the Captain dead, the chances of recovering the money are dim though not impossible. They have to act fast before the Black Dog and the blind beggar return and grab it. The thought of staying alone in the inn, with a dead body and the danger of the place being ransacked by the Captains old mates terrify them both, but they are owed money for the Captain's stay in their Inn. Seeking help to protect them from these desperate men, Jim and his mom approach the people from the town to assist them. Much to their dismay, the village folk not only refuse but also discourage them. The mention of the pirate Captain Flint brings fear to those who have heard of him. They relate this within the presence of some strange men on the road. Jims mother jeers at the men of the village calling them chicken-hearted and decides that she will undertake the task herself as-Jim, a now fatherless boy-rightly deserves the money they presumed to be kept in the sea chest. A loaded pistol, a bag from Mrs. Crossley, and saddled horses is the only help offered. No one will assist them. They return to the Inn and are relieved to see the door still bolted, Jim and him mother enter the inn. He discovers the "black spot" when he finds a small piece of paper with a short message. The message, though unclear, gives them some kind of hope as it says that they have until ten that night. Jim finds the key to the chest hung around the Captains neck. Jims mother opens the chest and under a heap of miscellaneous things his mother finds a canvas bag which jingles with coins. Determined to collect only the amount due to them, Jims mother begins to count. Soon she realizes that this is a mammoth task as the coins are from different countries. Jim is terrified when he hears the tapping sound of the blind beggar's walking stick approaching and asks his mother to quickly grab the entire bag. Stubborn as she is, she refuses to take even a dime more than what she deserves. Jim rushes outside. They hear hurried footsteps approaching them. Sensing the approaching danger, Jims mother faints but he manages to drag her to safety in the thick fog as the men approach.

