y on the floor of the
cave by the entrance, opening his eyes and trying to get up, which, of
course, he was unable to do, from our having tied his legs together.

"Hillo!" he called out. "Whaar am I?"

His voice now seemed quite rational, and on Tom going up to him, he
found that the delirium had left him, and that he was quite sober and in
his senses again, so he unloosed him, helping him on to his feet.

Strange to say, Captain Snaggs did not utter a word about finding
himself tied, nor did he seem in any way surprised at being there
amongst us. He was not angry either a bit now!

He simply walked up to where we stood and, looking down at the hole with
the chests piled up in it, as if following out a concentrated train of
thought which had been simmering in his brain before his fit,
exclaimed--

"Thaar it air, jest ez I told ye, an' ez the buccaneer cap'n told me.
Thaar it air all right, I reckon; an' now we must see about gettin' it
down to the shep."

This staggered us somewhat; but Tom Bullover thought it best to humour
him.

"How would you like it took down to the shore, cap'en?" he asked,
deferentially. "Shall I go and fetch some of the hands, sir?"

"Yes, I guess thet'll be the best plan," replied Captain Snaggs, as easy
as you please, and as if only talking about some ordinary thing, and he
were giving his usual orders. "Wait a minnit, though. I guess I'll
come with ye ez soon as I've toted up the hull lot, fur thaar ain't no
fear of any coon walkin' off with the plunder while we're away, an' I
want to see how the shep's gettin' on. I reckon she ought to be pretty
near afloat by now."

There seemed a method in his madness, even if he were yet mad, for he
carefully jotted down the number of chests in his pocket-book; and then,
turning away as composedly as possible, he made his way down to the
beach by our old path, just as if he had been in the habit of going that
way every day of his life and it was quite familiar to him.

"Come on, men!" cried he. "Follow me!"

So, down we all tramped after him in single file to the shore, where we
found a stranger thing had happened since our long absence, which, long
as it seemed from the series of occurrences that had happened, the one
succeeding the other in rapid succession, was not long in reality.

However, it appeared months since we had left the ship; for, in the
short space of time, comparatively speaking, that we had been away, all
around her