Silver

by Andrew Motion

  It was already candlelight when we reached the hamlet, and I shall never forget how much I was cheered to see the yellow shine in doors and windows; but that, as it proved, was the best of the help we were likely to get in that quarter. For – you would have thought men would have been ashamed of themselves – no soul would consent to return with us to the “Admiral Benbow”. The more we told of our troubles, the more – man, woman, and child – they clung to the shelter of their houses. The name of Captain Flint, though it was strange to me, was well enough known to some there, and carried a great weight of terror. Some of the men who had been to field-work on the far side of the “Admiral Benbow” remembered, besides, to have seen several strangers on the road, and, taking them to be smugglers, to have bolted away; and one at least had seen a little lugger in what we called Kitt’s Hole. For that matter, any one who was a comrade of the captain’s was enough to frighten them to death. And the short and the long of the matter was, that while we could get several who were willing enough to ride to Dr Livesey’s, which lay in another direction, not one would help us to defend the inn.

  They say cowardice is infectious; but then argument is, on the other hand, a great emboldener; and so when each had said his say, my mother made them a speech. She would not, she declared, lose 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 huge 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 band 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 cannikin, 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. It has often set me thinking since that 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 halfway 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 hornets’ 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 halfway to the hamlet, very little beyond the bottom of the hill, we must come forth into the moonlight. Nor was this a
ll; 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.

  CHAPTER V

  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.

  “Ay, ay, 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. “They were here 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 then 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 malingering. 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, spongeing 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.

  This quarrel was the saving of us; for while it was still raging, another sound came from the top of the hill on the side of the hamlet – the tramp of horses galloping. Almost at the same time a pistol-shot, flash and report, came from the hedge-side. And that was plainly the last signal of danger; for the buccaneers turned at once and ran, separating in every direction, one seaward along the cove, one slant across the hill, and so on, so that in half a minute not a sign of them remained but Pew. Him they had deserted, whether in sheer panic, or out of revenge for his ill words and blows, I know not; but there he remained behind, tapping up and down the road in a frenzy, and groping and calling for his comrades. Finally he took the wrong turn, and ran a few steps past me, towards the hamlet, crying:

  “Johnny, Black Dog, Dirk,” and other names, “you won’t leave old Pew, mates – not old Pew!”

  Just then the noise of horses topped the rise, and four or five riders came in sight in the moonlight, and swept at full gallop down the slope.

  At this Pew saw his error, turned with a scream, and ran straight for the ditch, into which he rolled. But he was on his feet again in a second, and made another dash, now utterly bewildered, right under the nearest of the coming horses.

  The rider tried to save him, but in vain. Down went Pew with a cry that rang high into the night; and the four hoofs trampled and spurned him and passed by. He fell on his side, then gently collapsed upon his face, and moved no more.

  I leaped to my feet and hailed the riders. They were pulling up, at any rate, horrified at the accident; and I soon saw what they were. One, tailing out behind the rest, was a lad that had gone from the hamlet to Dr Livesey’s; the rest were revenue officers, whom he had met by the way, and with whom he had had the intelligence to return at once. Some news of the lugger in Kitt’s Hole had found its way to Supervisor Dance, and set him forth that night in our direction, and to that circumstance my mother an
d I owed our preservation from death.

  Pew was dead, stone dead. As for my mother, when we had carried her up to the hamlet, a little cold water and salts and that soon brought her back again, and she was none the worse for her terror, though she still continued to deplore the balance of the money. In the meantime, the supervisor rode on, as fast as he could, to Kitt’s Hole; but his men had to dismount and grope down the dingle, leading, and sometimes supporting, their horses, and in continual fear of ambushes; so it was no great matter for surprise that when they got down to the Hole the lugger was already under way, though still close in. He hailed her. A voice replied, telling him to keep out of the moonlight or he would get some lead in him, and at the same time a bullet whistled close by his arm. Soon after, the lugger doubled the point and disappeared. Mr Dance stood there, as he said, “like a fish out of water”, and all he could do was to despatch a man to B— to warn the cutter. “And that,” said he, “is just about as good as nothing. They’ve got off clean, and there’s an end. Only,” he added, “I’m glad I trod on Master Pew’s corns;” for by this time he had heard my story.

  I went back with him to the “Admiral Benbow”, and you cannot imagine a house in such a state of smash; the very clock had been thrown down by these fellows in their furious hunt after my mother and myself; and though nothing had actually been taken away except the captain’s money-bag and a little silver from the till, I could see at once that we were ruined. Mr Dance could make nothing of the scene.

  “They got the money, you say? Well, then, Hawkins, what in fortune were they after? More money, I suppose?”

  “No, sir; not money, I think,” replied I. “In fact, sir, I believe I have the thing in my breast-pocket; and, to tell you the truth, I should like to get it put in safety.”