Part 2 (1/2)

'I was in Dorchester three days ago, and heard o hard with the poor chaps who had the brush with the Elector last sue Barentyne comes on assize next week, and that old fox Maskew has driven down to Taunton to get at hi out to hiainst the contraband, and s' 'They are a cruel pair,' another put in, 'and we shall have new gibbets on Ridgedown for leading lights Once I get even with Maskew, the otherht on the down alone,' said soive him a pistol's mouth to look down, and spoil his face for him'

'No, thou wilt not,' said a deep voice, and then I knew that Elzevir was there too; 'none shall lay hand on Maskew but I Socomes, 'tis I will reckon with him'

Then for a fewterribly straitened for roo in one place The thick s across the roof and down upon iddy with its evil sh all was very dim, I could see my hands were black with oily sle reat relief in changing sides, but gave such a start asmy own name

'There is a boy of Trenchard's,' said a voice that I thought was Pare-'there is a boy of Trenchard's that I raveyard, and I have seen hi out to sea This very night, when the wind fell at sundown, and ere hung up with sails flapping, three et the sweeps, I took lass to scan the coast-line, and lo, here on the tomb-top sits Master Trenchard I could not see his face, but knew him by his cut, and fear the boy sits there to play the spy and then tells Maskew' 'You're right,' said Greening of Ringstave, for I knew his slol; 'and many a time when I have sat in The Wood, and watched the Manor to see Maskew safe at hoo round about the place with a hangdog look, scanning the house as if his life depended on't'

'Twas very true what Greening said; for of a su I would take the path that led up Weatherbeech Hill, behind the Manor; both because 'twas a walk that had a good prospect in itself, and also a sweet char Grace Maskew And there I often sat upon the stile that ends the path and opens on the down, and watched the old half-ruined house below; and so on the terrace in the evening sun, and soh to wave a greeting And once, when she had the fever, and Dr Hawkins came twice a day to see her, I had no heart for school, but sat on that stile the livelong day, looking at the gabled house where she was lying ill And Mr Glennie never rated , as I thought afterwards, the cause, and having once been young himself 'Twas but boy's love, yet serious for me; and on the day she lay near death, I made so bold as to stop Dr Hawkins on his horse and ask hierness that he read in my face, bent down over his saddle and sain

So it was quite true that I had watched the house, but not as a spy, and would not have borne tales to old Maskew for anything that could be offered Then Ratsey spoke up for h, and simple, and has told me many a time he seeks the churchyard because there is a fine view to be had there of the sea, and 'tis the sea he loves A h tide set, and this vault was so full of water that we could not get in, I ca down inside, or what eddy 'twas that set the casks tapping one against another So as I lay on the ground with ainst the wall, who should march round the church but John Trenchard, Esquire, not treading delicately like King Agag, or spying, but just coe of discovery for hi in the vault below,told by Parson Glennie-who should know better-that such noises were not hosts, but by the Mohunes at sea in their coffins, he plucks up heart, and comes down on the Monday to see if they are still afloat So there he caught uess I stood at attention soon enough, but told hi at the founds to see if they wanted underpinning from the floods And so I set his ethamhten honest Parmiter, for I have weaved him some pretty tales of Blackbeard, and he has a wholesoe my life that neither he nor any other in the toould pass the churchyard wall, no, not for a thousand pounds'

I heard hihed loudly too, when he was telling how he palht I, and should have chuckled too, were it not forthe coffin creak And then, to my surprise, Elzevir spoke: 'The lad is a brave lad; I would he were ood sailor later on'

They were si to ot to like hiririef over his son I was soup and calling out to hiht better of it, and so kept still

The carrying was over, and I fancy they were all sitting on the ends of kegs or leaning up against the pile; but could not see, and was still ht through it a whiff of tobacco, which showed that so voice for all his drawl, struck up with-

Says the Cap'n to the crew, We have slipt the revenue, but Ratsey stopped him with a sharp 'No ht, but come as wry as if the parson called Old Hundred and I tuned up with Veni' I knew hewas for going on with the song, until some others broke in too, and he saw that the company would have none of it

'Not but what the labourer is worthy of his hire,' went on Master Ratsey; 'so spile that little breaker of Schiedaht chills'

He loved a glass of the good liquor well, and with hi, nah he chopped the words to suit the season, and noas autu, or suh I could not relelasses full and bumpers for a toast And here's to Blackbeard, to Father Blackbeard, atches over our treasure better than he did over his own; for were it not the fear of hi eyes, we should have the gaugers in, and our store ransacked twenty times'

So he spoke, and it see to take Blackbeard's na at him But then some of the bolder shouted 'Blackbeard', and so the more timid chi 'Blackbeard, Blackbeard', till the place rang again

Then Elzevir cried out angrily, 'Silence Are you mad, or has the liquor mastered you? Are you Revenue-men that you dare shout and roister? or contrabandiers with the lugger in the offing, and your life in your hand You h to wake folk in Moonfleet from their beds'

'Tut, man,' retorted Ratsey testily, 'and if they waked, they would but pull the blankets tight about their ears, and say 'twas Blackbeard piping his crew of lost Mohunes to help hi for treasure'

Yet for all that 'twas plain that Block ruled the roost, for there was silence for a ht; let us away, the night is far spent, and we have nothing but the sweeps to take the lugger out of sight by dawn'

So the rew dimmer, and died away as it had come in a red flicker on the roof, and the footsteps sounded fainter as they went up the passage, until the vault was left to the deadtione I could hear aat the end of the passage, and perhaps considering how the landslipI dared not descend froh I was glad enough to sit up, and easeback and limbs Yet in the awful blackness of the place even the echo of these hu, and a certain shrinking loneliness fell on me when they ceased at last and all was silent Then I resolved I would be off at once, and get back to theno stolad indeed to be still left with the treasure of life

Thus, sitting where I was, I lit reat coffin which, for two hours or er But to get out of the niche was harder than to get in; for now that I had a candle to light h to outer vieorh, and little better than a rotten shell So it was that I had so either to kneel upon it or to bring h And now having got safely across, I sat for an instant on that narrow ledge of the stone shelf which projected beyond the coffin on the vault side, and made ready to jump forward on to the floor below And how it happened I know not, but there I lost rasp Then I clutched at the coffin to save h it, and so I ca only got hold of a wisp of seaweed, or a handful of those draggled funeral trappings which were strewn about this place The floor of the vault was sandy; and so, though I fell crookedly, I took but little harether, set to strike my flint and blow the match into a flame to search for the fallen candle Yet all the tiht stuff; and when the flaht, and saw that it was no wisp of seaweed, but soather what I had hold of, but then gave a start that nearly sent the candle out, and perhaps a cry, and let it drop as if it were red-hot iron, for I knew that it was a man's beard

Nohen I saw that, I felt a sort of throttling fright, as though one had caught hold of hts rose inround and round inwith the sea and near drowned Surely to have in hand the beard of any dead h, but worse a thousand times in such a place as this, and to knohose face it had grown For, almost before I fully sahat it was, I kneas that black beard which had given Colonel John Mohune his nicknareat coffin I had hid behind

I had lain, therefore, all that time, cheek by joith Blackbeard himself, with only a thin shell of tinder wood to keep him from me, and now had thrust my hand into his coffin and plucked away his beard So that if ever wicked men have power to show theuess that he would show hiot hold of irl I think I should have swooned; but being only a boy, and not knowing how to swoon, did the next best thing, which was to put ht be from the beard, and e when I stopped, re I had played the coward, and run hoht up for very shaht how I had coht have gone aithout knowing even so much as where he lay, had not chance first led me to be down by his side, and afterwards placed my hand upon his beard And surely this could not be chance alone, butme to that which I desired to find This consideration soe, and after several feints to return, advances, stoppings, and panics, I was in the vault again, walking carefully round the stack of barrels, and fearing to see the glimmer of the candle fall upon that beard There it was upon the sand, and holding the candle nearer to it with a certain caution, as though it would spring up and bite reat full black beard, rey at the tips; and had at the back, keeping it together, a thin tissue of dried skin, like the false parting which Aunt Jane wore under her cap on Sundays This I could see as it lay before me, for I did not handle or lift it, but only peered into it, with the candle, on all sides, busying hts of theto the vault, I had no very sure purpose inof Blackbeard's coffin would so of his treasure But as I looked at the beard and pondered, I began to see that if anything was to be done, itin the coffin itself, and the clearer this becareater was my dislike to set about such a task So I put off the evil hour, by feigning to myself that it was necessary to make a careful scrutiny of the beard, and thus wasted at least tenlow, and could certainly last little etting near dawn, I buckled to the distasteful work of ru the coffin Nor had I any need to cli on the one beneath, found my head and arms well on a level with the search And beside that, the task was not so difficult as I had thought; for in ht away the whole of that side that faced the vault Now, any lad of htened to set about such a matter as to search in a coffin; and if any had said, a few hours before, that I should ever have courage to do this by night in the Mohune vault, I would not have believed hi the path of terror so gradually, and as it were foot by foot in the past night, that when I came to this final step I was not near so scared as when I first felt my way into the vault It was not the first time either that I had looked on death; but had, indeed, always a leaning to such sights and matters, and had seen corpses washed up from the Darius and other wrecks, and besides that had helped Ratsey to case some poor bodies that had died in their beds