Treasure Island | Page 9

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 oc-
curred to us at last to go forth together and seek help in the neighbour-
ing 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
19

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 mat-
ter, 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 moth-
er made them a speech. She would not, she declared, lose money that be-
longed 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 ad-
vanced into the parlour. He lay as we had left him, on his back, with his
eyes open and one arm stretched out.
20

"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