nd 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 malingering. 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 the 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!"

Just then the noise of horses topped the rise, and four or five riders
came in sight in the moonlight, and swept at full gallop down the slope.

At this Pew saw his error, turned with a scream, and ran straight for the
ditch, into which he rolled. But he was on his feet again in a second,
and made another dash, now utterly bewildered, right under the nearest of
the coming horses.

Th