d the ship save to go into the cabin and partake of what
meals Morris Jones, the steward, provided him with just when that lazy
beggar of a Welshman liked.

Here he remained for over a week, nursing his damaged eyes and general
injuries and, no doubt, brooding over the revenge which he contemplated
taking at some future period on his late successful antagonist; for, his
jealousy had been keenly aroused by the marked partiality Captain Snaggs
had shown in favour of Jan Steenbock, although previously he had always
chummed with him--and, indeed, even now, in spite of all that had
passed, the captain still occasionally invited him to a friendly orgy in
the cabin, when both, as usual, of course, got royally drunk together as
of yore!

But, since the finding of the golden Madonna and the development of the
treasure-hunting craze amongst us, Mr Flinders had begun to come out
from his temporary obscurity, while not at first actually pushing
himself forward, or taking any prominent part in our daily routine.

This modest diffidence was due to the fact that the men used to make
audible remarks in reference to his `lovely black eyes,' but as soon as
the tint of these gradually merged from green to yellow and then buck to
their normal tone, the first-mate grew bumptious and endeavoured to
resume his old position of chief officer in the absence of the skipper,
when the latter frequently went off alone, as it was his habit now, in
solitary search of the buccaneers' buried hoard like all the rest of
us--notwithstanding that in public he utterly pooh-poohed its
problematical existence and urged on the crew in digging out the dock
under the ship, so as to get her afloat again, the only good, as he
said, that we could expect from the island being the hope of leaving it
behind us as quickly as possible.

He was an artful hand, was Captain Snaggs!

He thought that if he dissuaded the men from looking for the treasure he
might have the greater chance of coming across it himself.

Such being the case, the skipper would sometimes sneak off in the middle
of the day when work used to grow rather slack at our excavating task,
in consequence of the greater heat at that time; for, the sea-breeze
which we used to have with us from the early morning then gradually died
away, while the light airs that blew off the land during the afternoon
and night-time did not usually spring up until nearly sunset.

Then it was that Mr Flinders saw his oppor