Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson [books for 10th graders txt] 📗
- Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
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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 advanced into
the 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; “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 the 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 tonight.”
“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 pigtail
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 rose 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
canikin, 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 had 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 harbour-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 these 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 half-way 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 half-way 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 newcomers 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 neighbours; 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 at 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.
5
The Last of the Blind Man
MY curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear,
for I could not remain where I was, but crept back to
the bank again, whence, sheltering my head behind a
bush of broom, I might command the road before our
door. I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began
to arrive, seven or eight of them, running hard, their
feet beating out of time along the road and the man
with the lantern some paces in front. Three men ran
together, hand in hand; and I made out, even through
the mist, that the middle man of this trio was the
blind beggar. The next moment his voice showed me that
I was right.
“Down with the door!” he cried.
“Aye, aye, sir!” answered two or three; and a rush was
made upon the Admiral Benbow, the lantern-bearer
following; and then I could see them pause, and hear
speeches passed in a lower key, as if they were
surprised to find the door open. But the pause was
brief, for the blind man again issued his commands.
His voice sounded louder and higher, as if he were
afire with eagerness and rage.
“In, in, in!” he shouted, and cursed them for their delay.
Four or five of them obeyed at once, two remaining on
the road with the formidable beggar. There was a
pause, then a cry of surprise, and then a voice
shouting from the house, “Bill’s dead.”
But the blind man swore at them again for their delay.
“Search him, some of you shirking lubbers, and the rest
of you aloft and get the chest,” he cried.
I could hear their feet rattling up our old stairs, so
that the house must have shook with it. Promptly
afterwards, fresh sounds of astonishment arose; the
window of the captain’s room was thrown open with a
slam and a jingle of broken glass, and a man leaned out
into the moonlight, head and shoulders, and addressed
the blind beggar on the road below him.
“Pew,” he cried, “they’ve been before us. Someone’s
turned the chest out alow and aloft.”
“Is it there?” roared Pew.
“The money’s there.”
The blind man cursed the money.
“Flint’s fist, I mean,” he cried.
“We don’t see it here nohow,” returned the man.
“Here, you below there, is it on Bill?” cried the blind
man again.
At that another fellow, probably him who had remained
below to search the captain’s body,
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