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
wash of the ripple and the croaking of the crows in the wood.

It was already candle-light when we reached the hamlet, and I shall never
forget how much I was cheered to see the yellow shine in doors and
windows; but that, as it proved, was the best of the help we were likely
to get in that quarter. For--you would have thought men would have been
ashamed of themselves--no soul would consent to return with us to the
"Admiral Benbow." The more we told of our troubles, the more--man, woman,
and child--they clung to the shelter of their houses. The name of Captain
Flint, though it was strange to me, was well enough known to some there,
and carried a great weight of terror. Some of the men who had been to
field-work on the far side of the "Admiral Benbow" remembered, besides,
to have seen several strangers on the road, and, taking them to be
smugglers, to have bolted away; and one at least had seen a little lugger
in what we called Kitt's Hole. For that matter, any one who was a comrade
of the captain's was enough to frighten them to death. And the short and
the long of the matter was, that while we could get several who were
willi