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 skulking. 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, sponging 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 a 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!
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