My heart was beating fiercely when we two set forth in the cold night upon this dangerous venture. A full moon was beginning to rise and peered redly through the upper edges of the fog, and this increased our haste, for it was plain, before we came forth again, that all would be bright as day, and our departure exposed to the eyes of any watchers. We slipped along the hedges, noiseless and swift, nor did we see or hear anything to increase our terrors till, to our huge relief, the door of the Admiral Benbow had closed behind us.
I slipped the bolt at once, and we stood and panted for a moment in the dark, alone in the house with the dead captain’s body. Then my mother got a candle in the bar, and, holding each other’s hands, we advanced into the parlor. He lay as we had left him, on his back, with his eyes open, and one arm stretched out.
“Draw down the blind, Jim,” whispered my mother; “they might come and watch outside. And now,” said she, when I had done so, “we have to get the key off that ; and who’s to touch it, I should like to know!” and she gave a kind of sob as she said the words.
I went down on my knees at once. On the floor close to his hand there was a little round of paper, blackened on one side. I could not doubt that this was the black spot ; and, taking it up, I found written on the other side, in a very good, clear hand, this short message, “You have till ten tonight.”
“He had till ten, mother,” said I; and, just as I said it, our old clock began striking. This sudden noise startled us shockingly; but the news was good, for it was only six.
“Now, Jim,” she said, “that key!”
I felt in his pockets, one after another. A few small coins, a thimble, and some thread and big needles, a piece of pigtail tobacco bitten away at the