Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT) 📖

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 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,