We rode hard all the way, till we drew up before Doctor 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 stirrupto descend by. The door was opened almost at once by the maid.

"Is Doctor Livesey in?" I asked.

"No," she said. He had come home in the afternoon, but had gone up tothe Hall to dine and pass the evening with the squire.

This time, as the distance was short, I did not mount, but ran withDogger's stirrup-leather to the lodge gates, and up the long, leafless,moonlit avenue to where the white line of the Hall buildings looked oneither hand on great old gardens. Here Mr. Dance dismounted and, takingme 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 intoa great library, all lined with bookcases and busts upon top of them,where the squire and Doctor Livesey sat, pipe in hand, on either side ofa bright fire.

I had never seen the squire so near at hand. He was a tall man, over sixfeet high, and broad in proportion, and he had a bluff, rough-and-readyface, all roughened and reddened and lined in his long travels. Hiseyebrows were very black, and moved readily, and this gave him a look ofsome temper, not bad, you would say, but quick and high.

"Come in, Mr. Dance," said he, very stately and condescending.

"Good evening, Dance," said the doctor, with a nod. "And good evening toyou, friend Jim. What good wind brings you here?"

The supervisor stood up straight and stiff, and told his story like alesson; and you should have seen how the two gentlemen leaned forwardand looked at each other, and forgot to smoke in their surprise andinterest. When they heard how my mother went back to the inn, DoctorLivesey fairly slapped his thigh, and the squire cried "Bravo!" andbroke his long pipe against the grate. Long before it was done, Mr.Trelawney (that, you will remember, was the squire's name) had got upfrom his seat, and was striding about the room, and the doctor, as if tohear the better, had taken off his powdered wig, and sat there, lookingvery strange indeed with his own close-cropped, black poll.

"Mr. Dance," said the squire, "you are a very noble fellow. And as forriding down that black, atrocious miscreant, I regard it as an act ofvirtue, sir, like stamping on a cockroach. This lad Hawkins is a trump,I perceive. Hawkins, will you ring that bell? Mr. Dance must have someale."

"And so, Jim," said the doctor, "you have the thing that they wereafter, 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 openit; but, instead of doing that, he put it quietly in the pocket of hiscoat.

"Squire," said he, "when Dance has had his ale he must, of course, beoff on his Majesty's service; but I mean to keep Jim Hawkins here tosleep at my house, and, with your permission, I propose we should haveup the cold pie, and let him sup."

"As you will, Livesey," said the squire; "Hawkins has earned better thancold pie."

So a big pigeon pie was brought in and put on a side-table, and I made ahearty supper, for I was as hungry as a hawk, while Mr. Dance wasfurther 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 Doctor Livesey. "You have heardof this Flint, I suppose?"

"Heard of him!" cried the squire. "Heard of him, you say! He was theblood-thirstiest 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 topsails withthese eyes, off Trinidad, and the cowardly son of a rum-puncheon that Isailed with put back--put back, sir, into Port of Spain."

"Well, I've heard of him myself, in England," said the doctor. "But thepoint is, had he money?"

"Money!" cried the squire. "Have you heard the story? What were thesevillains after but money? What do they care for but money? For whatwould they risk their rascal carcasses but money?"

"That we shall soon know," replied the doctor. "But you are soconfoundedly 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 pocketsome clue to where Flint buried his treasure, will that treasure amountto much?"

"Amount, sir!" cried the squire. "It will amount to this: If we have theclue you talk about, I'll fit out a ship in Bristol dock, and take youand Hawkins here along, and I'll have that treasure if I search a year."

"Very well," said the doctor. "Now, then, if Jim is agreeable, we'llopen the packet," and he laid it before him on the table.

The bundle was sewn together, and the doctor had to get out hisinstrument case and cut the stitches with his medical scissors. Itcontained two things--a book and a sealed paper.

"First of all we'll try the book," observed the doctor.

The squire and I were both peering over his shoulder as he opened it,for Doctor Livesey had kindly motioned me to come round from theside-table, where I had been eating, to enjoy the sport of the search.On the first page there were only some scraps of writing, such as a manwith a pen in his hand might make for idleness or practice. One was thesame as the tattoo mark, "Billy Bones his fancy"; then there was "Mr. W.Bones, mate," "No more rum," "Off Palm Key he got itt," and some othersnatches, mostly single words and unintelligible. I could not helpwondering who it was that had "got itt," and what "itt" was that he got.A knife in his back as like as not.

"Not much instruction there," said Doctor Livesey, as he passed on.

The next ten or twelve pages were filled with a curious series ofentries. There was a date at one end of the line and at the other a sumof money, as in common account-books; but instead of explanatorywriting, only a varying number of crosses between the two. On the 12thof June, 1745, for instance, a sum of seventy pounds had plainly becomedue to someone, and there was nothing but six crosses to explain thecause. In a few cases, to be sure, the name of a place would be added,as "Offe Caraccas"; or a mere entry of latitude and longitude, as "62°17' 20", 19° 2' 40"."

The record lasted over nearly twenty years, the amount of the separateentries growing larger as time went on, and at the end a grand total hadbeen made out, after five or six wrong additions, and these wordsappended, "Bones, his pile."

"I can't make head or tail of this," said Doctor Livesey.

"The thing is as clear as noonday," cried the squire. "This is theblack-hearted hound's account-book. These crosses stand for the names ofships or towns that they sank or plundered. The sums are the scoundrel'sshare, and where he feared an ambiguity, you see he added somethingclearer. 'Offe Caraccas,' now; you see, here was some unhappy vesselboarded off that coast. God help the poor souls that manned her--corallong ago."

"Right!" said the doctor. "See what it is to be a traveler. Right! Andthe amounts increase, you see, as he rose in rank."

There was little else in the volume but a few bearings of places notedin the blank leaves toward the end, and a table for reducing French,English, and Spanish moneys to a common value.

"Thrifty man!" cried the doctor. "He wasn't the one to be cheated."

"And now," said the squire, "for the other."

The paper had been sealed in several places with a thimble by way ofseal; the very thimble, perhaps, that I had found in the captain'spocket. The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell outthe map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names ofhills and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed tobring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores. It was about ninemiles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragonstanding up, and had two fine landlocked harbors, and a hill in thecenter part marked "The Spy-glass." There were several additions of alater date; but, above all, three crosses of red ink--two on the northpart of the island, one in the southwest, and, beside this last, in thesame red ink, and in a small, neat hand, very different from thecaptain's tottery characters, these words: "Bulk of treasure here."

Over on the back the same hand had written this further information:

"Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to the N. of N.N.E.

"Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E.

"Ten feet.

"The bar silver is in the north cache; you can find it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms south of the black crag with the face on it.

"The arms are easy found, in the sandhill, N. point of north inlet cape, bearing E. and a quarter N.

"J. F."

That was all, but brief as it was, and, to me, incomprehensible, itfilled the squire and Doctor Livesey with delight.

"Livesey," said the squire, "you will give up this wretched practice atonce. To-morrow I start for Bristol. In three weeks' time--threeweeks!--two weeks--ten days--we'll have the best ship, sir, and thechoicest crew in England. Hawkins shall come as cabin-boy. You'll make afamous cabin-boy, Hawkins. You, Livesey, are ship's doctor; I amadmiral. We'll take Redruth, Joyce, and Hunter. We'll have favorablewinds, a quick passage, and not the least difficulty in finding thespot, and money to eat--to roll in--to play duck and drake with everafter."

"Trelawney," said the doctor, "I'll go with you; and I'll go bail forit, so will Jim, and be a credit to the undertaking. There's only oneman I'm afraid of."

"And who's that?" cried the squire. "Name the dog, sir!"

"You," replied the doctor, "for you cannot hold your tongue. We are notthe only men who know of this paper. These fellows who attacked the innto-night--bold, desperate blades, for sure--and the rest who stayedaboard that lugger, and more, I dare say, not far off, are, one and all,through thick and thin, bound that they'll get that money. We must noneof us go alone till we get to sea. Jim and I shall stick together in themeanwhile; you'll take Joyce and Hunter when you ride to Bristol, and,from first to last, not one of us must breathe a word of what we'vefound."

"Livesey," returned the squire, "you are always in the right of it. I'llbe as silent as the grave."