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Treasure Island
Chapter 4. The Sea-chest
I lost no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and I should probably have told her long before.
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.
Our captain's shipmates, especially the two I'd seen, Black Dog and the blind beggar, were unlikely to surrender booty to pay his debts.
The captain's order to ride at once for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone and unprotected, which wasn't possible.
It seemed impossible for either of us to stay much longer in the house.
The fall of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled us with alarms.
To our ears, the neighborhood seemed haunted by approaching footsteps.
The captain's dead body lay on the parlor floor.
I thought of the terrible blind beggar nearby, ready to return.
At times, I jumped in my skin for terror.
Something had to be decided quickly, At last, we thought of going out together to seek help in the nearby village.
No sooner said than done, Bare-headed as we were, we ran out at once in the gathering evening and the frosty fog.
The village lay only a few hundred yards away, though out of sight, on the other side of the next cove.
What encouraged me greatly was that it was in the opposite direction from where the blind man had appeared and where he'd probably returned.
We weren't many minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped to hold each other and listen.
But there was no unusual sound, nothing but the low wash of the ripple and the croaking of the creatures in the wood.
It was already candle-light when we reached the village.
I'll never forget how cheered I was to see the yellow shine in doors and windows.
But that, as it turned out, was the best help we were likely to get there.
You'd think men would have been ashamed of themselves, but no one would agree to return with us to the Admiral Benbow.
The more we told of our troubles, the more everyone, man, woman, and child, clung to the shelter of their houses.
The name of Captain Flint, though strange to me, was well known to some there and carried a great weight of terror.
Some of the men who'd been to work on the far side of the Admiral Benbow remembered seeing several strangers on the road.
They'd thought they were smugglers and had run away.
At least one had seen a small 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.
The short and the long of it was this, several were willing to ride to Dr. Livesey's, which lay in another direction.
Not one would help us defend the inn.
They say cowardice is infectious, but argument is a great emboldener.
So when each had said his say, my mother made them a speech.
She wouldn't, she declared, lose money that belonged to her fatherless boy.
"If none of the rest of you dare,"
She said, "Jim and I dare."
She said, "Back we'll go, the way we came, and small thanks to you big, hulking, chicken-hearted men."
"She said, "We'll open that chest if we die, and I'll thank you, Mrs. Crossley, for your bag to hold our lawful money.
Of course I said I'd go with my mother, and of course they all cried out at our foolishness.
But even then, not a man would go with us.
They only gave me a loaded pistol in case of attack and promised saddled horses in case we were chased on our return.
One boy was to ride ahead to the doctor's for armed help.
My heart was beating fast when we two set out in the cold night on this dangerous adventure.
A full moon was beginning to rise and peered redly through the upper edges of the fog.
This increased our haste, since before long it would be as bright as day and any watchers would see our departure.
We slipped along the hedges, silent and quick.
We didn't see or hear anything to increase our fears, until, to our relief, the door of the Admiral Benbow closed behind us.
I slipped the bolt at once, then stood listening in the heavy, fearful silence.
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.
Holding each other's hands, we went into the parlor.
He lay as we'd left him, on his back, with his eyes open and one arm stretched out.
"Pull down the blind, Jim," whispered my mother.
"They might come and watch outside. And now,"
She said when I'd done so, "We have to get the key off that."
"And who's going to touch it, I'd like to know!" she said, giving a kind of sob.
I went down on my knees at once.
On the floor close to his hand there was a little round piece of paper, blackened on one side.
I couldn't doubt that this was the black spot.
Picking 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," I said.
Just as I said it, our old clock began striking.
This sudden noise startled us terribly, but the news was good, because it was only six.
"Now, Jim," she said, "that key."
I felt in his pockets, one after another.
A few small coins, a thimble, some thread, and big needles were inside.
Also, there was a piece of pigtail tobacco, his knife with a crooked handle, a pocket compass, and a tinder box.
I began to despair at finding nothing of value in his pockets.
"Maybe it's around his neck," suggested my mother.
Overcoming a strong disgust, I tore open his shirt at the neck.
There, sure enough, hanging on a bit of tarry string, which I cut with his own knife, we found the key.
At this success, we were filled with hope.
We hurried upstairs without delay to the little room where he'd slept so long and where his box had stood since the day of his arrival.
It looked like any other seaman's chest on the outside.
The initial "B" was burned on top with a hot iron, and the corners were somewhat smashed and broken from long, rough use.
"Give me the key," said my mother.
Though the lock was very stiff, she turned it and threw back the lid in a moment.
A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose from the inside.
But nothing was to be seen on top except a suit of very good clothes, carefully brushed and folded.
They'd never been worn, my mother said.
Under that, the miscellany began, it included a quadrant, a tin can, and several sticks of tobacco.
There were two pairs of very handsome pistols and a piece of bar silver.
An old Spanish watch and some other trinkets of little value were also there, Most of these items were foreign.
There was also a pair of compasses mounted with brass and five or six curious West Indian shells.
I've often wondered since why he'd carried these shells with him in his wandering, guilty, and hunted life.
In the meantime, we'd found nothing of any value except the silver and the trinkets, and neither of these was what we needed.
Underneath there was an old boat-cloak, whitened with sea-salt on many a harbor bar.
My mother pulled it up with impatience.
There lay before us, the last things in the chest, a bundle tied up in oilcloth that looked like papers.
Beside it was a canvas bag that, at a touch, gave forth 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 penny more. Hold Mrs. Crossley's bag."
She began to count the amount of the captain's bill from the sailor's bag into the one I was holding.
It was a long, difficult job, because the coins were from all countries and sizes, doubloons, louis d'ors, guineas, pieces of eight.
And I don't know what else, all shaken together at random.
The guineas were about the rarest, 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 on her arm.
I heard in the frost a sound bringing my heart to my mouth, the tap-tap of the blind man's stick on the road.
It drew nearer and nearer while we sat holding our breath.
Then it struck sharply on the inn door.
Then we could hear the handle being turned and the bolt rattling as the poor creature tried to enter.
Then there was a long silence both inside and outside.
At last, the tapping started again, To our indescribable joy and gratitude, it died slowly away until we couldn't hear it anymore.
"Mother," I said, "take the whole thing and let's go." I was sure the bolted door must have seemed suspicious and would bring the whole hornet's nest about our ears.
But how thankful I was that I'd bolted it, no one could tell who'd never met that terrible blind man.
But my mother, frightened as she was, wouldn't agree to take a penny more than was due to her.
She was stubbornly unwilling to be content with less.
It wasn't yet seven, she said, by a long way.
She knew her rights and she'd have them.
She was still arguing with me when a low whistle sounded a good way off on 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," I said, picking up the oilskin packet.
The next moment, we were both groping downstairs, leaving the candle by the empty chest.
Then we opened the door and were in full retreat.
We hadn't started a moment too soon.
The fog was quickly clearing, Already the moon shone quite clearly on the high ground on either side.
Only in the valley bottom and around the tavern door did a thin veil hang unbroken to hide our first steps.
Far less than halfway to the village, very little beyond the bottom of the hill, we'd have to come out into the moonlight.
That wasn't all, the sound of several running footsteps came to our ears.
As we looked back in their direction, a light tossing to and fro and still quickly advancing showed that one of the newcomers carried a lantern.
"My dear," said my mother suddenly, "take the money and run on. I'm 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 foolishness and present weakness.
We were just at the little bridge, by good luck.
I helped her, tottering as she was, to the edge of the bank.
There, sure enough, she gave a sigh and fell on my shoulder.
I don't know how I found the strength to do it at all, and I'm afraid it was roughly done.
But I managed to drag her down the bank and a little way under the arch.
I couldn't move her farther, because the bridge was too low to let me do more than crawl below it.
So there we had to stay, my mother almost completely exposed, and both of us within earshot of the inn.