The Last of the Blind Man

• Jim sneaks up to the riverbank next to the road that leads to the inn's door.
• He sees seven or eight guys running towards the inn.
• Three of them break down the door.
• The blind man seems to be the leader.
• One of them reports to the blind man that the captain is dead.
• The blind man orders them to search his body.
• They find the chest empty; whatever they were looking for isn't there.
• The blind man yells that it must have been Jim who took it.
• The men start to search the house.
• Another low whistle comes from the hillside, warning the men that someone is coming.
• The blind man refuses to let his men leave, since he thinks the whistler ("Dirk") is a coward.
• The men start to fight with the blind man: they've gotten some gold from the captain's chest and they don't want to hang around waiting for the police.
• The blind man is furious and starts hitting the men with his cane.
• The noise of their fighting distracts them from the sound of approaching horses.
• A pistol shot sounds as a final warning of danger, and all of the pirates manage to get away.
• The only one who can't escape is the blind man, who runs out onto the road calling after his comrades: "Johnny, Black Dog, Dirk" (5.29) and others.
• In the confusion, the blind man runs straight under the hooves of the riders. They try to stop, but they can't in time. The blind man is killed instantly.
• Jim's mother is fainting. The riders bring her into the house and she soon regains consciousness.
• It turns out the riders are revenue officers – also known as tax collectors – whom the guy who rode out to find Doctor Livesey brought back with him.
• The supervisor of these officers, Mr. Dance, rides on to try to find the rest of the pirates, but he can't.
• The inn is ruined: everything is smashed and broken, and Jim can see that he and his mother are out of business.
• Everyone is confused about what the pirates could have been looking for.
• Jim thinks he has it: the packet of papers he put in his breast pocket while he and his mother were searching the chest.
• Mr. Dance offers to take it.
• Jim wants to give it to Doctor Livesey.
• Mr. Dance immediately agrees (since Doctor Livesey is a local judge, after all), and offers to bring Jim with him when he reports the incident to Doctor Livesey and the squire, who is a local leader in the system of England's landed gentry. ("Gentry" means people of high birth and social class.)
• So Jim and Mr. Dance set out to Doctor Livesey's house.