l in his story.

"He was an honest man; but a man in this world must save or be a slave,
and young William's mind went sailing far away from the New England
coast, and a-sailing went he. What did he find? Wonders! Listen, and I
will tell you.

"William Phips, or Phipps, went to the Spanish Main, and he began to
hear a very marvelous story there. The sailors loitering in the ports
loved to tell the legend of a certain Spanish treasure ship that had
gone down in a storm, and they imagined themselves finding it and
becoming rich. The legend seized upon the fancy of William the sailor
and entered his dreams. It was only a vague fancy at first, but in the
twilight of one burning day a cool island of palms appeared, and as it
faded away a sailor who stood watching it said to him:

"'There is a sunken reef off this coast somewhere; we are steering for
it, and I have been told that it was on that reef that the Spanish
treasure ship went down. They say that ship had millions of gold on
board. I wonder if anybody will ever find her?'

"William, the sailor, started. Why might not he find her?--William was
an honest man.

"It was early evening at sea. The shadows of night fell on the Bahama
Islands. The sea and the heavens seemed to mingle. The stars were in
the water; the heavens were there. A stranger on the planet could not
have told which was the sea and which was the sky.

"The sails were limp. There was a silence around. The ship seemed to
move through some region of space. William Phipps sat by himself on the
deck and dreamed. Many people dream, but it is of no use to dream unless
you _do_.

"He seemed to see her again who had been the good angel of his life; he
saw the gabled house in the bowery lane, and two faces looking out of
the same window over Boston town.--William was honest.

"He dreamed that he himself was the captain of a ship. He saw himself in
England, in the presence of the king. He is master of an expedition now,
in his sea dream. He finds the sunken treasure ship. He is made rich by
it, and he returns to Boston and buys the gabled house in the cool green
lane by the sea. An honest man was Sir William. He was not _Sir_ William
then.

"He returned to Boston with his dream. William stayed in port for a
time, and then prepared for a long voyage; but before he went away he
obtained a promise from the widow that if she ever married any one it
should be himself. There was nothing wrong in that.

"The s