The Sea-chest

I LOST no time, of course, in telling my mother all that I knew, and
perhaps should have told her long before, and we saw ourselves at once
in a difficult and dangerous position. Some of the man's money--if
he had any--was certainly due to us, but it was not likely that our
captain's shipmates, above all the two specimens seen by me, Black
Dog and the blind beggar, would be inclined to give up their booty in
payment of the dead man's debts. The captain's order to mount at
once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone
and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed
impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house; the fall
of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled
us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed haunted by
approaching footsteps; and what between the dead body of the captain
on the parlour floor and the thought of that detestable blind beggar
hovering near at hand and ready to return, there were moments when, as
the saying goes, I jumped in my skin for terror. Something must speedily
be resolved upon, and it occurred to us at last to go forth together
and seek help in the neighbouring hamlet. No sooner said than done.
Bare-headed as we were, we ran out at once in the gathering evening and
the frosty fog.

The hamlet lay not many hundred yards away, though out of view, on the
other side of the next cove; and what greatly encouraged me, it was
in an opposite direction from that whence the blind man had made his
appearance and whither he had presumably returned. We were not many
minutes on the road, though we sometimes stopped to lay hold of each
other and hearken. But there was no unusual sound--nothing but the low