I. "He's a queer sort of man, and I
don't like him either."

The entrance of the Welshman thus stopped our further conversation; for,
although Morris Jones seemed anxious to talk, Hiram only spoke in
monosyllables, giving curt answers, so that the steward in, the end
became silent too, busying himself in cooking the skipper's dinner at
one, fireplace, while the American attended to the men's tea at the
other--filling the copper with the proper ingredients, as mentioned
before, and diligently stirring its contents till it boiled.

At `two bells,' later on, in the first dog-watch, work was abandoned for
the day, all hands coming aboard to have their tea, Tom Bullover amongst
them.

"May I tell him?" I said to Hiram, when I saw the carpenter coming
forward, after slinging himself over the bulwarks; "may I tell Tom where
we are going, and ask him to come too?"

"I don't mind, I guess," replied Hiram--"the more the merrier!"

Tom was perfectly willing; and so, half an hour later, the three of us
started on our expedition, getting over the side of the ship while the
rest of the crew were still busy with their pannikins and beef and
biscuit, so departing unobserved.

"Now we're off, I guess," said Hiram, when he had crossed over a plank
that served for a bridge over the trench alongside, which was getting
pretty deep by now. "Let us go straight fur thet buccaneers' tree-sor,
shepmates!"

"And here's for the black man's ghost as the second-mate spoke on,"
replied Tom Bullover, with a grin. "I specs we'll as soon find one as
t'other!"

"Durned ef I kear," said Hiram defiantly; "ghostess or no ghostess, I'm
bound fur thet pile, I am, if we ken sorter light on it!"

"I only hope we will, I'm sure," I chimed in, as the three of us made
our way across the beach and then traversed the sterile lava plain,
shaping a course for the cluster of trees between the hills, on the
right of the bay, which I had first investigated.

The doves we found as tame as ever, coo-coo-cooing away with great
unction on our approach, and beside the borders of the pool were a lot
of tortoises crawling about; but, there was no cave near, concealed in
the brushwood, although we searched through it all carefully--so we
resumed our way up the hills.

As we ascended, the scenery became wilder and wilder, the trees
increasing so greatly in size that some of the trunks of them, which
apparently belonged to the oak species, were over four feet in