My curiosity was stronger than my fear, so I crept back toward the inn, hid behind a bush, and watched as my enemies began to arrive.
Five of them ran along the road, with a man holding a lantern in front.
Right behind them were three men, hand in hand; the man in the middle was blind.
"Knock down the door!" the blind man cried.
"Aye, aye, sir!" two men answered, and then they ran at the door.
I saw them pause in confusion and surprise when they discovered that the door was open.
Then the blind man shouted, "Go in! In! In!"
He cursed at the men for their delay.
Five of them obeyed at once while two stayed in the road with the blind man.
There was a cry of surprise, and then someone shouted from the house, "Bill's dead!"
The blind man swore again. "Search him, and then get the chest!"
I could hear their feet rattling up our stairs; they made the whole house shake.
The window of the captain's room was thrown open with a slam and a jingle of broken glass.
A man leaned out into the moonlight and addressed the blind man on the road below.
"Pew," he cried, "someone got here first. The chest is open."
"Did you find them?" roared Pew, the blind man.
"Some money's there."
"I don't care about the money, you swab," cursed Pew. "Flint's secret papers, I mean."
"We don't see anything that looks like that," the man replied.
"You, below there, are the papers on Bill?" Pew cried to the men on the first floor.
At that, another fellow came to the door of the inn.
"Bill's been searched already," he said. "Nothing's left."
"It's those inn people—it's that boy. I wish I'd put his eyes out!" Pew cried.
"They can't be far. Scatter, lads. Find them!"
Heavy feet pounded to and fro, and the men toppled furniture over and kicked in the doors of every room.
Then the men came out again, one after another, onto the road.
"They aren't here," one announced.
The whistle that had frightened my mother and me earlier sounded two times.
Then, I had thought it was Pew calling his men to assault us,
but now, I realized it was a warning signal from a lookout hiding somewhere near the village.
"There's the signal," a man said.
"That means the law is coming. Let's go!"
"You dogs, you're so close," cried Pew.
"Scatter and look for Bill's secret! Oh, if I only had eyes!"
At Pew's urging, two fellows began to look here and there, but half-heartedly, with an eye to their own danger all the time.
The rest stood on the road, unsure what to do.
"You could be as rich as kings, you fools!" Pew shouted.
"But you're just standing around!
I'll end up a poor beggar, when I could be riding in a fine coach!
If you had any guts, you'd catch that boy."
"Forget it, Pew. We've got the money!" grumbled one man.
"The boy and his parents might have hid the papers," another said.
"Take the money, Pew, and don't stand here squawking."
Pew struck blindly at his men right and left, with his stick hitting a few of them.
They, in turn, cursed at the sightless villain and tried in vain to catch the stick and take it from him.
Their quarrel saved my mother and me, for while it was raging, there was another sound—horses galloping.
The pirates heard it too. They turned and ran, separating in every direction so that in half a minute no one remained but Pew.
He tapped up and down the road in a frenzy, groping and calling.
Finally he took a wrong turn and ran a few steps past me, crying, "Alan, Tom, Job," and other names, "don't leave old Pew, mates—not old Pew!"
The noise of the horses grew louder, and five riders swept down the road at a full gallop. Pew screamed and ran straight into a ditch.
But he was on his feet again in a second and made another dash, now utterly bewildered, right into the path of the nearest horse.
The rider tried to stop, but Pew went down with a terrible cry.
The four hoofs trampled him as he fell on his side and then collapsed face down, moving no more.
As the riders pulled up, I leaped to my feet, horrified at the accident.
A lad from the village was trailing behind the horsemen.
"These men are military officers," he told me.
"I met them and recruited them to help on my way to Dr. Livesey's."
Pew was dead, and his crew had fled back to their ship, chased by the horsemen.
As for my mother, we carried her to the village, and cold water and smelling salts soon had her back to normal.
When I finally returned to the Admiral Benbow with Captain Dance, one of the officers, I saw that the house was completely wrecked.
"We are ruined!" I cried, looking at the result of the pirates' furious hunt.
Captain Dance was sympathetic. "What were they after? Money?"
"No, sir, not money," I replied.
"I believe I have what they were looking for in my breast pocket.
I'd like to show it to Dr. Livesey."
"Well, I have to ride there and report what happened back to him and the squire," he said cheerily as he mounted his horse.
"So come along, Hawkins."
"Thank you, sir," I said as he offered his hand and then pulled me up behind him in the saddle.