f you shirking lubbers, and the rest of you aloft and
get the chest," he cried.

I could hear their feet rattling up our old stairs, so that the house
must have shook with it. Promptly afterwards, fresh sounds of
astonishment arose; the window of the captain's room was thrown open with
a slam and a jingle of broken glass; and a man leaned out into the
moonlight, head and shoulders, and addressed the blind beggar on the road
below him.

"Pew," he cried, "they've been before us. Someone's turned the chest out
alow and aloft."

"Is it there?" roared Pew.

"The money's there."

The blind man cursed the money.

"Flint's fist, I mean," he cried.

"We don't see it here nohow," returned the man.

"Here, you below there, is it on Bill?" cried the blind man again.

At that, another fellow, probably him who had remained below to search
the captain's body, came to the door of the inn. "Bill's been overhauled
a'ready," said he; "nothin' left."

"It's these people of the inn--it's that boy. I wish I had put his eyes
out!" cried the blind man, Pew. "They were here no time ago--they had the
door bolted when I tried it. Scatter, lads, and find 'em."

"Sure enough, they left their glim here," said the fellow from the
window.

"Scatter and find 'em! Rout the house out!" reiterated Pew, striking with
his stick upon the road.

Then there followed a great to-do through all our old inn, heavy feet
pounding to and fro, furniture thrown over, doors kicked in, until the
very rocks re-echoed, and the men came out again, one after another, on
the road, and declared that we were nowhere to be found. And just then
the same whistle that had alarmed my mother and myself over the dead
captain's money was once more clearly audible through the night, but this
time twice repeated. I had thought it to be the blind man's trumpet, so
to speak, summoning his crew to the assault; but I now found that it was
a signal from the hillside towards the hamlet, and, from its effect upon
the buccaneers, a signal to warn them of approaching danger.

"There's Dirk again," said one. "Twice! We'll have to budge, mates."

"Budge, you skulk!" cried Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the
first--you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far;
you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs. Oh, shiver my
soul," he cried, "if I had eyes!"

This appeal seemed to produce some effect, for two of the fellows began
to look here a