WE rode hard all the way, till we drew up before Dr Livesey's door.
The house was all dark to the front.
Mr Dance told me to jump down and knock, and Dogger gave me a stirrup to descend by. The door was opened almost at once by the maid.
`Is Dr Livesey in?' I asked.
No, she said; he had come home in the afternoon, but had gone up to the Hall to dine and pass the evening with the squire.
`So there we go, boys,' said Mr Dance.
This time, as the distance was short, I did not mount, but ran with Dogger's stirrup-leather to the lodge gates, and the long, leafless, moonlit avenue to where the white line of the Hall buildings looked on either hand on great old gardens Here Mr Dance dismounted, and, taking me along with him was admitted at a word into the house.
The servant led us down a matted passage, and showed us at the end into a great library, all lined with bookcases a busts upon the top of them, where the squire and Dr Livesey sat, pipe in hand, on either side of a bright fire.
I had never seen the squire so near at hand. He was a t; man, over six feet high, and broad in proportion, and he had a bluff, rough-and-ready face, all roughened and redden' and lined in his long travels. His eyebrows were very black and moved readily, and this gave him a look of some tempt not bad, you would say, but quick and high.
`Come in, Mr Dance,' says he, very stately and condescending.
`Good-evening, Dance,' says the doctor, with a nod. `And good-evening to you, friend Jim. What good wind brings you here?'
The supervisor stood up straight and stiff, and told his story like a lesson; and you should have seen how the two gentlemen leaned forward and looked at each other, and forgot to smoke in their surprise and interest.
When they heard how my mother went back to the inn, Dr Livesey fairly slapped his thigh, and the squire cried `Bravo!' and broke his long pipe against the grate. Long before it was done, Mr Trelawney (that, you will remember, was the squire's name) had got up from his seat, and was striding about the room, and the doctor, as if to hear the better, had taken off his powdered wig, and sat there, looking very strange indeed with his own close-cropped, black poll.
At last Mr Dance finished the story.
`Mr Dance,' said the squire, `you are a very noble fellow. And as for riding down that black, atrocious miscreant, I regard it as an act of virtue, sir, like stamping on a cockroach. This lad Hawkins is a trump, I perceive.
Hawkins, will you ring that bell? Mr Dance must have some ale.'
`And so, Jim,' said the doctor, `you have the thing that they were after, have you?'
`Here it is, sir,' said I, and gave him the oilskin packet. The doctor looked it all over, as if his fingers were itching to open it; but, instead of doing that, he put it quietly in the pocket of his coat.
`Squire,' said he, `when Dance has had his ale he must, of course, be off on his Majesty's service; but I mean to keep Jim Hawkins here to sleep at try house, and, with your permission, I propose we should have up the cold pie, and let him sup.'
`As you will, Livesey,' said the squire; `Hawkins has earned better than cold pie.'
So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put on a side-table, and I made a hearty supper, for I was as hungry as a hawk, while Mr Dance was further complimented, and at last dismissed.
`And now, squire,' said the doctor.
`And now, Livesey,' said the squire, in the same breath. `One at a time, one at a time,' laughed Dr Livesey. `You have heard of this Flint, I suppose?'
`Heard of him!' cried the squire. `Heard of him, you say! He was the bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed. Blackbeard was a child to Flint.
The Spaniards were so prodigiously afraid of him, that, I tell you, sir, I was sometimes proud he was an Englishman. I've seen his top - sails with these eyes, of Trinidad, and the cowardly son of a rum-puncheon that sailed with put back - put back, sir, into Port of Spain.'
`Well, I've heard of him myself, in England,' said the doctor. `But the point is, had he money?'
`Money!' cried the squire. `Have you heard the story? What were these villains after but money? What do they care for but money? For what would they risk their rascal carcases but money?'
`That we shall soon know,' replied the doctor. `But you are so confoundedly hot-headed and exclamatory that I cannot get a word in. What I want to know is this: Supposing that I have here in my pocket some clue to where Flint buried his treasure, will that treasure amount to much?'
`Amount, sir!' cried the squire. `It will amount to this; we have the clue you talk about, I fit out a ship in Bristol dock and take you and Hawkins here along, and I'll have the treasure if I search a year.'
`Very well,' said the doctor. `Now, then, if Jim is agreeable we'll open the packet;' and he laid it before him on the table.
The bundle was sewn together, and the doctor had to get out his instrument-case, and cut the stitches with his medical scissors. It contained two things - a book and a sealed paper.
`First of all we'll try the book,' observed the doctor.
