masquerade in some such splendour; though, as a rule, he still
prefers that shabby tatterdemalion costume which we have still to accept
as a vagary of his fantastic nature. He is still the same Eternal Child,
and his latest make-believe has been to fit up those caverns, through
which so miserably I wormed my way, with the grandiose luxury of the
Count of Monte Cristo; that, as he says, the prophecy might be fulfilled
which said: "Monte Cristo shall seem like a pauper and a penny gaff in
comparison with the fantasies of our fearful wealth."

Those caverns, we afterward discovered, did actually communicate with
Blackbeard's ruined mansion, and the "King," who has now rebuilt that
mansion and lives in it in semi-feudal state with Calypso and me, is
able to pass from one to the other by underground passages which are an
unfailing source of romantic satisfaction to his dear, absurd soul.

As to whether or not the mansion and the treasure were actually
Blackbeard's--that is, Edward Teach's--we are yet in doubt, though we
prefer to believe that they were. At all events, we never found any
evidence to connect them at all with Henry P. Tobias, whose second
treasure, we have every reason to think, still remains undiscovered.

As for the sinister and ill-fated Henry P. Tobias, Jr., we have since
learned--through Charlie Webster, who every now and again drops in with
sailors from his sloop and carries off the "King" for duck-shooting--that
his real name was quite different; he must have assumed, as a _nom de
guerre,_ the name we knew him by, to give colour to his claim. I am
afraid, therefore, that he was a plain scoundrel, after all, though it
seemed to me that I saw gleams in him of something better, and I shall
always feel a sort of kindness toward him for the saving grace of gallant
courtesy with which he invested his rascally abduction of Calypso.

Calypso.... She and I, just for fun, sometimes drop into Sweeney's
store, and, when she has made her purchases, she draws up from her bosom
a little bag, and, looking softly at me, lays down on the counter--a
golden doubloon; and Sweeney--who, doubtless, thinks us all a little
crazy--smiles indulgently on our make-believe.

Sometimes, on our way home, we come upon Tom in the plantations,
superintending a gang of the "King's" janissaries--among whom Erebus is
still the blackest--for Tom is now the Lord High Steward of our estate.
He beams on us in a fatherly way, and I lay my hand