I was caught in a trap, and knew beside that contraband-men had a
way of sealing prying eyes and stilling babbling tongues; and I
remembered poor Cracky Jones found dead in the churchyard, and how men
_said_ he had met Blackbeard in the night.
These were but the thoughts of a second, but the voices were nearer, and
I heard a dull thud far up the passage, and knew that a man had jumped
down from the churchyard into the hole. So I took a last stare round,
agonizing to see if there was any way of escape; but the stone walls and
roof were solid enough to crush me, and the stack of casks too closely
packed to hide more than a rat. There was a man speaking now from the
bottom of the hole to others in the churchyard, and then my eyes were led
as by a loadstone to a great wooden coffin that lay by itself on the top
shelf, a full six feet from the ground. When I saw the coffin I knew that
I was respited, for, as I judged, there was space between it and the wall
behind enough to contain my little carcass; and in a second I had put out
the candle, scrambled up the shelves, half-stunned my senses with dashing
my head against the roof, and squeezed my body betwixt wall and coffin.
There I lay on one side with a thin and rotten plank between the dead man
and me, dazed with the blow to my head, and breathing hard; while the
glow of torches as they came down the passage reddened and flickered on
the roof above.
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