s ever I saw, Tom," said the parson, "and I'll
thank you to the last day of my life."

Tom scooped up a double handful of silver money. "Take it, sir," he
said, "and you may have as much more as you want of it."

He poured it into the dish that the good man made of his hands, and
the parson made a motion as though to empty it into his pocket. Then
he stopped, as though a sudden doubt had occurred to him. "I don't
know that 'tis fit for me to take this pirate money, after all," he
said.

"But you are welcome to it," said Tom.

Still the parson hesitated. "Nay," he burst out, "I'll not take it;
'tis blood money." And as he spoke he chucked the whole double handful
into the now empty chest, then arose and dusted the sand from his
breeches. Then, with a great deal of bustling energy, he helped to tie
the bags again and put them all back into the chest.

They reburied the chest in the place whence they had taken it, and
then the parson folded the precious paper of directions, placed it
carefully in his wallet, and his wallet in his pocket. "Tom," he said,
for the twentieth time, "your fortune has been made this day."

And Tom Chist, as he rattled in his breeches pocket the half dozen
doubloons he had kept out of his treasure, felt that what his friend
had said was true.

* * * * *

As the two went back homeward across the level space of sand Tom Chist
suddenly stopped stock-still and stood looking about him. "'Twas just
here," he said, digging his heel down into the sand, "that they killed
the poor black man."

[Illustration: "Pirates Used to Do That to Their Captains Now and
Then"

_Illustration from_
SEA ROBBERS OF NEW YORK

_by_ Thomas A. Janvier

_Originally published in_
HARPER'S MAGAZINE, _November, 1894_]

"And here he lies buried for all time," said Parson Jones; and as he
spoke he dug his cane down into the sand. Tom Chist shuddered. He
would not have been surprised if the ferrule of the cane had struck
something soft beneath that level surface. But it did not, nor was any
sign of that tragedy ever seen again. For, whether the pirates had
carried away what they had done and buried it elsewhere, or whether
the storm in blowing the sand had completely leveled off and hidden
all sign of that tragedy where it was enacted, certain it is that
it never came to sight again--at least so far as Tom Chist and the
Rev. Hilary Jones ever knew.

VII

This is the story of the