ery port you meet 'em, in taverns where sailors drink and brag--
the liquor being in them--and one man talks and the rest listen, not
troubling themselves to believe. It is good to find one's self
ashore, you understand? And a good, strong-flavoured yarn makes
the landlord and all the shore-keeping folk open their eyes--"

"Bless the man!" Miss Belcher rapped her knuckles on the table.
"This is not a 'longshore tavern."

"No, ma'am."

"Then why not come to the point?"

"The point, ma'am--well, the point is that every one--that is to say,
every seaman--has heard tell of treasure knocking about, as you might
put it, somewhere in the Gulf of Honduras."

"What sort of treasure?"

"Why, as to that, ma'am, it varies with the story. Sometimes 'tis
bar silver from the isthmus, and sometimes 'tis gold plate and
bullion that belonged to the old Kings of Mexico; but by the tale
I've heard offtenest, 'tis church treasure that was run away with by
a shipful of logwoodmen in Campeachy Bay. But there again you no
sooner fix it as church treasure, and ask where it came from, than
you have to choose between half a dozen different accounts. Some say
from the Spanish islands--Havana for choice; others from the Main,
and I've heard places mentioned as far apart us Vera Cruz and
Caracas. The dates, too--if you can call them dates at all--vary
just as surprisingly."

"The date on this chart is 1776," said Miss Belcher, who had been
peering at it while the Captain spoke.

"Then, supposing there's something in poor Coffin's secret, that
gives you the year to start from. We'll suppose this is the very
chart used by the man who hid the treasure. Then it follows the
treasure wasn't hidden before 1776, and that rules out all the yarns
about Hornigold, Teach, Bat Roberts, and suchlike pirates, the last
of whom must have been hanged a good fifty years before: though
here's evidence"--Captain Branscome laid a forefinger on the chart--
"that these gentry had dealings with the island in their day.
'Gow's Gulf,' 'Cape Fea'--Gow was a pirate and a hard nut at that;
and Fea, if I remember, his lieutenant or something of the sort; but
they had gone their ways before ever this was printed, and
consequently before ever these crosses came to be written on it.
You follow me, ma'am?"

Miss Belcher gave a contemptuous sniff which, I doubt not, would have
prefaced the remark that an unweaned child would arrive unaided at
the same conclusions;