Treasure Island | Page 8

a hood that made him appear positively de-
formed. I never saw in my life a more dreadful-looking figure. He
stopped a little from the inn, and raising his voice in an odd sing-song,
addressed the air in front of him, "Will any kind friend inform a poor
blind man, who has lost the precious sight of his eyes in the gracious de-
fence of his native country, England—and God bless King Ge-
orge!—where or in what part of this country he may now be?"
"You are at the Admiral Benbow, Black Hill Cove, my good man," said
I.
"I hear a voice," said he, "a young voice. Will you give me your hand,
my kind young friend, and lead me in?"
I held out my hand, and the horrible, soft-spoken, eyeless creature
gripped it in a moment like a vise. I was so much startled that I struggled
to withdraw, but the blind man pulled me close up to him with a single
action of his arm.
"Now, boy," he said, "take me in to the captain."
"Sir," said I, "upon my word I dare not."
"Oh," he sneered, "that's it! Take me in straight or I'll break your arm."
And he gave it, as he spoke, a wrench that made me cry out.
"Sir," said I, "it is for yourself I mean. The captain is not what he used
to be. He sits with a drawn cutlass. Another gentleman—"
"Come, now, march," interrupted he; and I never heard a voice so
cruel, and cold, and ugly as that blind man's. It cowed me more than the
pain, and I began to obey him at once, walking straight in at the door
and towards the parlour, where our sick old buccaneer was sitting,
dazed with rum. The blind man clung close to me, holding me in one
iron fist and leaning almost more of his weight on me than I could carry.
"Lead me straight up to him, and when I'm in view, cry out, 'Here's a
friend for you, Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this," and with that he gave me a
twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I
was so utterly terrified of the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the
captain, and as I opened the parlour door, cried out the words he had
ordered in a trembling voice.
The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look the rum went out of
him and left him staring sober. The expression of his face was not so
much of terror as of mortal sickness. He made a movement to rise, but I
do not believe he had enough force left in his body.
17

"Now, Bill, sit where you are," said the beggar. "If I can't see, I can hear
a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold out your left hand. Boy, take
his left hand by the wrist and bring it near to my right."
We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass something from
the hollow of the hand that held his stick into the palm of the captain's,
which closed upon it instantly.
"And now that's done," said the blind man; and at the words he sud-
denly left hold of me, and with incredible accuracy and nimbleness,
skipped out of the parlour and into the road, where, as I still stood mo-
tionless, I could hear his stick go tap-tap-tapping into the distance.
It was some time before either I or the captain seemed to gather our
senses, but at length, and about at the same moment, I released his wrist,
which I was still holding, and he drew in his hand and looked sharply
into the palm.
"Ten o'clock!" he cried. "Six hours. We'll do them yet," and he sprang to
his feet.
Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his throat, stood swaying
for a moment, and then, with a peculiar sound, fell from his whole
height face foremost to the floor.
I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But haste was all in vain.
The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy. It is a curious
thing to understand, for I had certainly never liked the man, though of
late I had begun to pity him, but as soon as I saw that he was dead, I
burst into a flood of tears. It was the second death I had known, and the
sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart.
18

Chapter 4
The Sea-chest
I lost no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and per-
haps 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 Doc-
tor Livesey would have left