skipped out of the parlour and into the road, where, as I still stood
motionless, I could hear his stick go tap-tap-tapping into the distance.
It was some time before either I or the captain seemed to gather our
senses, but at length, and about at the same moment, I released his
wrist, which I was still holding, and he drew in his hand and looked
sharply into the palm.
Ten o clock! he cried. Six hours. We ll do them yet, and he sprang
to his feet.
Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his throat, stood swaying
for a moment, and then, with a peculiar sound, fell from his whole
height face foremost to the floor.
I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But haste was all in vain.
The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy. It is a curious
thing to understand, for I had certainly never liked the man, though of
late I had begun to pity him, but as soon as I saw that he was dead, I
burst into a flood of tears. It was the second death I had known, and
the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart.
IV
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
20