I told my mother everything I knew at once. Looking back, I should have told her much sooner.
We were suddenly trapped in a terrible situation.
“Some of the captain’s money must belong to us,” my mother said. “But his old shipmates will never willingly give up their stolen treasure just because the captain owed us money.”
She was right.
The two men I had seen—Black Dog and the blind beggar—were not the kind of people who would care about paying a dead man’s debts.
The captain had ordered me to ride straight to Doctor Livesey, but that would mean leaving my mother alone in the inn.
That was impossible.
Neither of us felt safe staying there much longer.
Every small sound frightened us.
The fire crackling in the kitchen.
The clock ticking on the wall.
Even the quiet house seemed full of hidden footsteps.
With the captain’s dead body lying in the next room and the terrible blind man possibly waiting nearby, ready to return, I was so frightened that I felt like I could jump out of my own skin.
“We must do something quickly,” my mother said.
At last, we decided to leave together and ask for help from the nearby village.
We did not waste another moment.
Without even putting on our hats, we rushed outside into the cold evening fog.
The village was only a few hundred yards away, hidden on the other side of the next bay.
What made me feel a little better was that it was in the opposite direction from where the blind man had appeared.
We hurried along the road.
Sometimes we stopped, grabbed each other’s hands, and listened carefully.
But we heard nothing unusual.
Only the soft sound of waves against the shore and the cries of birds in the woods.
By the time we reached the village, candles were already shining in the windows.
I will never forget how relieved I felt when I saw those warm lights.
But sadly, that was the only comfort we received there.
You would think people would have been ashamed to refuse us.
But no one agreed to come back with us to the Admiral Benbow.
The more we explained our danger, the more everyone hid inside their houses.
Men, women, and children all refused.
The name Captain Flint was unfamiliar to me, but many people in the village knew it well.
The name alone was enough to fill them with fear.
Some farm workers who had been near the inn remembered seeing strange men on the road.
They had believed them to be smugglers and had quickly run away.
One man had even seen a small boat hiding in Kitt’s Hole.
To these villagers, anyone connected with the captain was frightening enough.
In the end, several people agreed to ride to Doctor Livesey’s house for help.
But not a single person would come with us to defend the inn.
They say fear spreads from one person to another.
But courage can spread too.
After everyone had made their excuses, my mother stepped forward.
“I will not lose money that belongs to my fatherless son,” she said.
“If none of you are brave enough, then Jim and I will go ourselves.”
“We will return and open that chest, even if it costs us our lives.”
“And Mrs. Crossley, please lend me that bag. I will bring back only the money that truly belongs to us.”
Of course, I immediately said I would go with her.
Everyone shouted that we were being foolish.
But still, no one volunteered to join us.
The only help they offered was a loaded pistol for me.
They also promised to prepare horses in case we were chased on our way back.
One young man agreed to ride toward Doctor Livesey’s house and ask for armed help.
My heart was pounding as my mother and I set off into the freezing night.
A full moon was beginning to rise.
Its red light showed through the top of the fog.
This frightened us even more, because we knew the fog would soon disappear completely.
Then anyone watching could easily see us escape.
We moved quickly and silently beside the hedges.
We heard nothing.
We saw nothing.
At last, to our great relief, the door of the Admiral Benbow closed behind us.
I immediately locked the door.
For a moment, we stood in the darkness, breathing heavily, alone inside the inn with the captain’s dead body.
My mother took a candle from the bar.
Holding hands, we walked into the room.
The captain was lying exactly as we had left him.
He was on his back.
His eyes were open.
One arm stretched out toward us.
“Pull down the curtain, Jim,” my mother whispered.
“They might be watching from outside.”
After I closed it, she looked at the body.
“Now we must get the key from him.”
“But who is going to touch him?”
Her voice broke, and she almost cried.
I knelt beside the captain.
Near his hand was a small round piece of paper.
One side was blackened.
I knew immediately what it was.
The black spot.
I picked it up.
On the other side, written in neat handwriting, were the words:
“You have until ten tonight.”
“He had until ten, Mother,” I said.
At that exact moment, the old clock began to strike.
The sudden sound shocked us both.
But then we realized the good news.
It was only six o’clock.
“Now, Jim,” my mother said.
“The key.”
I searched through the captain’s pockets.
I found a few coins.
A thimble.
Some thread and large needles.
A piece of tobacco.
His knife with the crooked handle.
A small compass.
And a tinder box.
But no key.
I began to lose hope.
“Perhaps he wore it around his neck,” my mother suggested.
I hated the thought, but I forced myself to do it.
I opened his shirt.
There it was.
The key hung from a piece of tar-covered string around his neck.
I cut the string with his own knife.
At last, we had it.
We hurried upstairs to the small room where the captain had slept for so long.
His chest was still there, just as it had been since the day he arrived.
From the outside, it looked like any sailor’s chest.
A large letter “B” had been burned into the top.
The corners were damaged from years of rough travel.
“Give me the key,” my mother said.
The lock was stiff, but she quickly turned it.
The lid opened.
A strong smell of tobacco and tar came out.
On top was only a fine set of clothes.
They were carefully folded and had never been worn.
Underneath was a strange collection of items.
There was a navigation instrument.
A small metal cup.
Several pieces of tobacco.
Two beautiful pistols.
A piece of silver.
An old Spanish watch.
Some foreign trinkets.
A brass compass.
And several unusual seashells from the West Indies.
I often wondered later why the captain had carried those shells with him during his dangerous and troubled life.
But we found nothing valuable enough to matter.
Then, beneath an old sailor’s coat covered with sea salt, we discovered the real treasure.
There was an oilcloth package that looked like it contained papers.
And there was a canvas bag.
When I touched it, I heard the sound of gold coins inside.
“I will prove that I am an honest woman,” my mother said.
“I will take only what is owed to us.”
“Hold Mrs. Crossley’s bag, Jim.”
She began counting the captain’s unpaid money from the sailor’s bag into the other one.
It was a slow and difficult task.
The coins came from many different countries.
There were doubloons, louis d’ors, guineas, pieces of eight, and many others.
They were all mixed together.
The guineas were the rarest, and those were the only coins my mother knew well enough to count properly.
We were halfway finished when suddenly I grabbed my mother’s arm.
A sound had reached us through the silent, freezing air.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
It was the blind man’s stick striking the frozen road.
It came closer.
And closer.
We held our breath.
Then the stick struck the inn door.
We heard the handle move.
The bolt rattled.
The blind man was trying to get inside.
Then came a long silence.
Inside and outside, everything was still.
At last, the tapping began again.
Slowly, thankfully, it moved away.
The sound faded until we could hear nothing.
“Mother,” I whispered.
“Take everything and let’s leave.”
I was certain that the locked door would make him suspicious.
Soon the whole group of villains might come after us.
But my mother refused.
Even though she was frightened, she would not take a single coin more than she was owed.
“It is not even seven o’clock,” she said.
“I know my rights, and I will have them.”
She was still arguing when a low whistle sounded from far away on the hill.
That was enough.
We both understood.
“I will take what I have,” my mother said, jumping up.
“And I will take this to settle the matter,” I said, picking up the oilcloth package.
The next moment, we were stumbling downstairs.
We left the candle burning beside the empty chest.
Then we opened the door and ran.
We had escaped just in time.
The fog was quickly disappearing.
The moon was already shining clearly over the hills.
Only the bottom of the valley and the area around the inn were still covered by a thin layer of mist.
That mist was the only thing hiding our escape.
Before we even reached halfway to the village, we would have to cross into the moonlight.
Then we heard it.
Several footsteps running behind us.
When we looked back, we saw a light moving closer.
Someone was carrying a lantern.
“My dear,” my mother suddenly said.
“Take the money and run ahead.”
“I think I am going to faint.”
I thought everything was over.
I cursed the villagers for refusing to help us.
I blamed my mother for being too honest.
I blamed her for insisting on taking only the exact amount she deserved.
And now, in this moment, I even blamed her weakness.
Luckily, we had reached the little bridge.
I helped my mother, who was barely standing, toward the edge of the bank.
There she let out a weak sigh and collapsed against me.
I do not know where I found the strength.
Perhaps I handled her too roughly.
But I managed to pull her down the bank and drag her under the bridge.
I could go no farther.
The bridge was too low.
I could only crawl beneath it.
So there we stayed.
My mother almost completely exposed.
And both of us close enough to hear everything happening at the inn.