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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, came to the door of
the inn. "Bill's been overhauled a'ready," said he;
"nothin' left."
"It's these people of the inn--it's that boy. I wish I
had put his eyes out!" cried the blind man, Pew.
"There were no time ago--they had the door bolted when
I tried it. Scatter, lads, and find 'em."
"Sure enough, they left their glim here," said the
fellow from the window.
"Scatter and find 'em! Rout the house out!" reiterated
Pew, striking with his stick upon the road.
Then there followed a great to-do through all our old
inn, heavy feet pounding to and fro, furniture thrown
over, doors kicked in, until the very rocks re-echoed
and the men came out again, one after another, on the
road and declared that we were nowhere to be found.
And just the same whistle that had alarmed my mother
and myself over the dead captain's money was once more
clearly audible through the night, but this time twice
repeated. I had thought it to be the blind man's trumpet,
so to speak, summoning his crew to the assault, but I now
found that it was a signal from the hillside towards the
hamlet, and from its effect upon the buccaneers, a signal
to warn them of approaching danger.
"There's Dirk again," said one. "Twice! We'll have to
budge, mates."
"Budge, you skulk!" cried Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a
coward from the first--you wouldn't mind him. They
must be close by; they can't be far; you have your
hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs! Oh,
shiver my soul," he cried, "if I had eyes!"
This appeal seemed to produce some effect, for two of
the fellows began to look here and there among the
lumber, but half-heartedly, I thought, and with half an
eye to their own danger all the time, while the rest
stood irresolute on the road.
"You have your hands on thousands, you fools, and you
hang a leg! You'd be as rich as kings if you could
find it, and you know it's here, and you stand there
skulking. There wasn't one of you dared face Bill, and
I did it--a blind man! And I'm to lose my chance for you!
I'm to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when
I might be rolling in a coach! If you had the pluck of a
weevil in a biscuit you would catch them still."
"Hang it, Pew, we've got the doubloons!" grumbled one.
"They might have hid the blessed thing," said another.
"Take the Georges, Pew, and don't stand here squalling."
Squalling was the word for it; Pew's anger rose so high
at these objections till at last, his passion
completely taking the upper hand, he struck at them
right and left in his blindness and his stick sounded
heavily on more than one.
These, in their turn, cursed back at the blind
miscreant, threatened him in horrid terms, and tried in
vain to catch the stick and wrest it from his grasp.
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