ourself?"

"I did."

"But how?"

"I found the marks and the trees, and a well sunk in the sand with a barrel
in it; and I came to a place where the turf had settled, and a--and a--and,
from what I saw, I believe the money was there just as much as I believe
that I am talking with you now."

"You do!--then why the plague didn't you bring it home with you?"

"I'll tell you, squire. Fact is, we all agreed to go shears when the voyage
was made up. Greenleaf was to have a third, the Dutchman a third, and
Williams and M'Lellan a third, to be divided between Mr. C--Colonel Jones,
I should say--Captain Sawyer, and myself. But, the moment Greenleaf was out
of the way, the Dutchman grew sulky, and insisted on having his
part--making two-thirds; and finally swore he would have it, or _die_. This
we thought rather unreasonable; and, as I had the chart with me, and all
the marks, while the Dutchman had nothing to help him in the search, I
determined to lose myself on the island, feel round the shore a little, for
my own satisfaction, and then steal off quietly, and try another voyage,
with fewer partners. You understand, hey?"

"Well, my good friend, I don't ask you _how_ you satisfied yourself; but I
may as well acknowledge that I have understood from another owner--Colonel
Jones himself--that you carried probes and other mining tools with you,
such as you had been using on Jewell's Island for a long while; and that in
pricking, where you found the turf a little sunk, you touched something
about the size of a small tea-chest, and square, three feet below the
surface?"

To this Watts made no answer.

"And here ended the first voyage, hey?"

"Yes."

"How many were made in all?"

"I made three trips, and Captain M'Lellan two--and it runs in my head there
was another, but I am not sure. I returned from my third voyage on the 18th
day of July, 1842, in the Grampus, a little schooner of about seventy-five
tons."

"Perhaps you would have no objection to tell me something about the other
voyages?"

"Well, squire, to tell you the truth, we didn't land at all on the second
voyage. July 14th, we'd fell to leeward, and was beating up. I had been all
night on the look-out--I was master that trip--and we had got far enough to
bear up and run down under the lee of the island. We saw huts there, and
twenty or thirty people, and we didn't much like their behavior. When they
saw us, they ran down to the landing and took two boats an