Острів Скарбів / Treasure Island

We slipped along the hedges, noiseless and swift, nor did we see or hear anything to increase our terrors, till, to our 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.

I went down on my knees at once. On the floor close to his hand 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.