ecause they bore their disappointment with so much pluck and
cheerfulness."

But, in truth, the expedition had not been in vain. The toilers had
been paid in richer stuff than gold. They had lived the true romance,
nor could a man of spirit and imagination wish for anything more to his
taste than to be encamped on a desert island, with the surf shouting in
his ears, the sea birds crying, all hands up with daybreak to dig for
buried treasure whose bearings were found on a tarpaulin chart that had
belonged to a pirate with a deep scar across his cheek. How it would
have delighted the heart of Robert Louis Stevenson to be one of this
company of the _Alerte_ at Trinidad! The gallant little vessel, only
sixty-four feet long she was, filled away for the West Indies, homeward
bound, while the men aboard amused themselves by wondering how many
nations might have laid claim to the treasure, had it been
found;--England which hoisted its flag on Trinidad in 1770; Portugal
because Portuguese from Brazil made a settlement there in 1750; Brazil,
because the island lay off her coast; Spain, to whom the treasure had
belonged, and Peru from whose cathedral it was taken, and lastly the
Roman Church.

In conclusion, Mr. Knight, to whose fascinating narrative, "The Cruise
of the _Alerte_," I am indebted for the foregoing information, sums it
up like a true soldier of fortune:

"Well, indeed, it was for us that we had not found the pirates' gold;
for we seemed happy enough as we were, and if possessed of this hoard,
our lives would of a certainty have become a burden to us. We should
be too precious to be comfortable. We should degenerate into
miserable, fearsome hypochondriacs, careful of our means of transit,
dreadfully anxious about what we ate or drank, miserably cautious about
everything. 'Better far, no doubt,' exclaimed these cheerful
philosophers, 'to remain the careless, happy paupers that we are.'

"'Do you still believe in the existence of the treasure?' is a question
that has been often put to me since my return. Knowing all I do, I
have very little doubt that the story of the Finn quartermaster is
substantially true,--that the treasures of Lima were hidden on
Trinidad; but whether they have been taken away, or whether they are
still there and we failed to find them because we were not in
possession of one link of the directions, I am unable to say."

In later years, E. F. Knight became a war correspondent, and lost