"But," said I, "I am not going directly to England. I am bound to the Pacific for a cargo of sandal-wood, and thence to China, before seeking a freight to England."

"Oh, well," said the fellow who had constituted himself the spokesman of the party, "that won't make any great difference. The voyage 'll be so much the longer, and we shall have the more money to take up at the end of it. The chief thing with us is to find a comfortable ship and a good skipper, and we're of opinion that if we ship with you, we shall have both. Ain't that so, mates?"

"Ay, ay, judge; that's so, my bully. Them's our sentiments. Right you are, as usual."

In these and similar terse sentences, the men confirmed the remarks of their companion.

The question of wages was then raised, in respect of which I found their demands far more moderate than I had dared to hope; namely, five pounds ten per month for the seamen and the man who undertook to perform the duties of steward, and six pounds ten per month for the cook; each man to receive an Advance of two months' wages upon signing articles. To this I agreed without demur, and then, anxious to strike while the iron appeared to be hot, I suggested that they should sign articles forthwith. A short consultation among themselves followed this proposal, at the end of which they declared themselves quite willing, but stipulated that they should have twenty-four hours clear after signing, in which to provide themselves with an outfit for the voyage. To this I also assented, and we then separated, they to make their way to the shipping-office, and I to hurry down to the barque for the necessary papers and cash prior to joining them there.

It was just noon when, the work of signing the articles and paying the advances having been completed, I jumped into a cab to drive to the hotel at which the Desmonds were staying, to acquaint those good people with my latest stroke of luck. They were out, however, as I felt morally certain they would be; so I left a note for Sir Edgar, and then set about the transaction of such small items of business as were necessary prior to going to sea. This, however, amounted to very little, as I had practically completed all my preparations long before; so by five o' clock in the evening I had cleared everything off my hands, and was once more alongside the ship. Here I found a note from Sir Edgar Desmond awaiting me, in which he acknowledged the receipt of my own epistle, and enjoined me to dine with them without fail that evening. This I did; and the upshot of it all was that they decided to complete the trip with me, despite the poor account I felt constrained to give them of my crew, and announced their intention of joining the ship immediately after lunch on the following day.

As I stretched myself out in my bunk that night, and reflected with a sigh of satisfaction that, if all went well, we should be once more at sea in less than twenty-four hours, the disagreeable suspicion for the first time obtruded itself upon my mind that possibly it might prove after all that I had been the victim of a clever swindle, and that I should never see anything more of any of the men to whom I had handed over two months' advance so confidingly. However, about eleven o'clock the next morning, the first of them—William Rogers, the man whom I had shipped as boatswain—put in an appearance alongside, neatly dressed in a new suit of blue cloth, with cap, shirt, and shoes to match; also a brand-new chest and bundle of bedding; and coming on board, quietly went below and proceeded to arrange his belongings for the voyage. I was agreeably surprised at this man's appearance; for whereas when I had shipped him on the previous day, he was ragged, dirty, and unkempt, he was now well-dressed, clean, and palpably fresh from the hands of the barber. Close upon his heels came Jacob Simpson, the cook, who had likewise undergone a renovating process that materially improved his appearance, although as I looked at the man there was a something about him that I did not quite like. For one thing, he seemed to remind me vaguely of somebody else—though who, I could not for the life of me say—who had left an unpleasant impression upon my mind; and, added to this, he was afflicted with an affection of the voice—the result of bush-fever, he informed me—which permitted him to speak only in a hoarse whisper. Next came Peter Gale, the man who had undertaken to perform the functions of steward, though he frankly admitted that he knew little or nothing about the duties of the post. But, since a steward we must have, and this man impressed me as being the most quiet and likely man for the berth, I had chosen him, since he had professed his readiness to try his hand and do his best. From this man I learned the pleasing intelligence that the remainder of the men were following him, and would be on board in about a quarter of an hour; so I introduced him to the lazarette, and directed him to obtain the cook's assistance to break out a fresh barrel of beef, and get a dinner under way for the crew forthwith. About the time named by the steward, the main body made their appearance and came quietly on board. There were eight of them, namely, Hiram Barr and James Mckinley, Americans; Michael O'Connor, an Irishman; Francois Bourdonnais, a Frenchman; Carl Strauss, a German; Christian Christianssen, a Swede; Pedro Villar, a Portuguese; and James Nicholson (nicknamed "San Domingo," from the island in which he was born), a full-blooded negro. They constituted a distinctly scratch crew, I was compelled to admit, as I watched them coming on board; but they all understood and spoke English; and although, with all their sprucing up, a few of them still wore a somewhat sinister appearance, every man of them was, for a wonder, perfectly sober, and they all bore themselves in a remarkably decent and orderly manner. Moreover, the eight last enumerated had all shipped as able seamen. In short, while perhaps they were not a crew that I would have selected from choice, I considered myself marvellously lucky in getting even them, and was more than content.

As soon as they were all aboard and had gone below, I sent word for'ard by the steward that they were to employ the interval until dinner-time in "shaking down," and that after dinner we should proceed to rig out the jib-boom and unmoor the ship preparatory to going to sea. Then, leaving Forbes in charge, I went ashore and cleared the ship for the Pacific, paid the harbour and other dues, wrote and posted a few letters, and took lunch. Then down on board again, overtaking the Desmond party on the way; when, having shipped them and their somewhat multitudinous belongings, the windlass was manned, the cable hove short, the topsails sheeted home and mast-headed, the anchor tripped, and we were off, reaching the open sea just in time to see the sun disappear behind the land as we squared away upon a north-easterly course for Dick Saint Leger's treasure island.

For a time all went merry as a marriage bell; the weather was simply perfect, with blue skies, brilliant sunshine, and gentle breezes, with charming glimpses of lovely tropical islands, day after day, when we reached the Fiji and Friendly Archipelagos and threaded our way through them. To add to the enjoyment of this time, the men were doing their duty in a manner that ought to have satisfied the most exacting of officers, and behaving with a quietness and steadiness of demeanour that was absolutely unexceptionable. They seemed always willing, and always content—a phenomenon that I had never hitherto met with on shipboard for longer than the first week after leaving a port.

I was consequently very much astonished when, one dark night, in the middle watch, when we had been at sea rather over a fortnight, Joe Martin, who was at the wheel, took advantage of a momentary pause I made beside him, to address me in the following terms:—

"Beg pardon, cap'n, but could you make it convenient to pitch into me, and give me a most tremenjious blowin' up, and call me a lot of hard names afore all hands, to-morrow, some time in the second dog-watch, if I was to give you an excuse for so doin'?"

"Blow you up? abuse you? before all hands?" I ejaculated, as soon as my astonishment would allow me to speak. "Why, what in the name of all that is extraordinary do you mean, Martin?"

"Just exactly what I says, sir," was the reply. "The fact is, there's something brewin' in the fo'c's'le, and I want to get to the bottom of it. But I can't, because the men have got the notion into their heads that I'm a bit of a favourite of yours, and they won't trust me. So I want you to pitch into me, hot and heavy, before all hands, to-morrow; and then I'll turn sulky, and start a good growl, and perhaps then they'll say something to me."

"But I don't understand you, Joe," I protested. "The men are the most quiet, willing, contented, well-behaved set of fellows it has ever been my pleasure to sail with; and do you mean to tell me that they are plotting mischief among themselves?"

"Well, sir, they're plottin' something, that's certain; and if it ain't mischief, why do they keep me out of it?" argued Joe.

"How do you know—or rather, what makes you suppose they are plotting?" I asked.

"Why, they're everlastin'ly whispering together," was the reply. "If you'll only take notice, sir, you'll see that there's never a minute, day nor night, but what two or three of 'em has got their heads together, palaverin'. And if ever I goes near and makes a show of chimin' in, the talk's stopped at once and changed to something else. And away along in the first dog-watch, for an hour or so, the steward 'll come for'ard, and then they'll all be as thick as thieves together, instead of turnin' in and gettin' their sleep, as honest men should. If it's our eight hours out, our chaps slinks off down into the fo'c's'le out o' my way; and if it's our eight hours in, the whole watch except me 'll be on deck until pretty nigh on to four bells. Pretends, they do, that the fo'c's'le's so hot they can't sleep. I don't find it too hot to sleep."

"And how do they behave to you?" I asked.

"Oh, as to that," conceded Joe, "I haven't got no fault to find. They're all civil and friendly enough, exceptin' cookie; he won't have a word to say to me, or come anigh me if he can help it; and, whatever it is, it's my belief that he's at the bottom of it. But the rest of 'em are all right, only they won't have me in with 'em durin' their confabs."

"Pshaw! my good fellow," I exclaimed, "you have found a mare's nest. Their 'confabs,' as you call them, relate to nothing worse than their past experiences at the mines, I'll be bound. And the reason why they will not speak about them to you is, most probably, because they think you would not be interested in them."

"Well, sir, maybe you're right," remarked Joe, "but I don't believe you are, all the same, if you'll excuse my sayin' so. There's too much secrecy for everything to be quite right. And, if you don't mind, I should like to try that little experiment I spoke about just now; if there's nothing wrong it won't matter, and if there is, perhaps they'll be inclined to have me in with 'em, if they think I've fallen out of your favour."

"Very well, Joe," said I; "have your own way, if you like. I'll not spare you if you do anything to vex me; only remember, my good fellow, that whatever I may say will only be said to humour you."

"That's all right, sir; and thank ye kindly. There's just one thing more I'd like to say, sir, and then we'd better stop talkin'. It's just this. Don't you try to have any talk with me on the quiet like. You leave everything to me, sir, and as soon as I've found out anything I'll make a chance to let you know, somehow."

And so this remarkable conversation ended. Could there possibly be anything in Joe's idea? The men seemed to be perfectly comfortable and contented; they appeared to desire nothing in the way of food or accommodation, beyond what they already possessed; they had not grumbled or made any complaint; what could they be plotting to obtain? I asked myself this question over and over again, and could find no answer to it; notwithstanding which, Joe's communication made me feel exceedingly uneasy and anxious; so much so that, when I turned in, I found it quite impossible to get to sleep.

It may be readily imagined that when next I had an opportunity to observe the men I watched them, individually and collectively, most closely; yet, beyond the trivial circumstance that conversation always ceased if I happened to approach, I could detect nothing in the men's demeanour to lend the slightest colour to Joe's supposition. True, two or three of them—the Frenchman, the Portuguese, and the German, for instance—now impressed me as being scarcely so civil in their behaviour as they had been when they first joined the ship; but that, after all, might be only my fancy; and, if it were not, one hardly looks for such good behaviour from foreigners as one is wont to receive from Englishmen.

As for Joe Martin, he began his operations bright and early on the morning following his conversation with me. He was now the ship's carpenter, and in that capacity he had received orders on the previous day to fit a new set of stern-sheets in the port quarter-boat. This job he began the first thing in the morning, swinging her inboard and lowering her to the deck for his greater convenience during the progress of the work. This simple matter he managed so clumsily that he contrived to bilge the boat, necessitating the renewal of three timbers and a plank. I was on deck at the time of the accident, and, forgetting for the moment his scheme to provoke a seeming quarrel with me, I cautioned him about the awkward, lubberly way in which he was proceeding, and recommended him to get more help. He replied, in an offhand, careless way, that he was quite man enough to do such a job as that without anybody's help; and, as he spoke, down came the boat with a crash, and the damage was done. The whole thing seemed such a piece of pig-headed stupidity that I was thoroughly exasperated with the fellow, and gave him a good sound rating; much, apparently, to the amusement of the other men. Joe said nothing by way of excuse—indeed, any attempt to excuse himself would have been so wholly out of place as only to have increased his offence—but he slouched away forward, muttering to himself, and I noticed him stop and say a word or two to a couple of men who were at work upon the forecastle. Then I remembered his proposal, and bethought me that this might be his way of carrying out his plan; if so, I could not help admiring his ingenuity, albeit still decidedly annoyed with him for the powerful realism with which he was playing his little comedy.

The boat lay as she had fallen for fully an hour; meanwhile Joe had vanished. This cool behaviour on his part nettled me still more; and at length I directed the boatswain to pass the word for Joe to come aft. Upon which Joe made his appearance, obviously from the forecastle, wearing that sulky, sullen look that always exasperated me more thoroughly than anything else, whenever I met with it in a man (I am afraid I am rather a short-tempered individual at times); and I gave him such a wigging as four hours earlier I would not have believed possible; ordering him not to waste any more time, but to set to work at once to repair the damage occasioned by his clumsiness. Whether or no Joe began to guess from my manner that he had gone a trifle too far, I know not; but he at once went to work as I had ordered him, and worked, moreover, with such a will that by eight bells in the afternoon watch the damage was repaired and the boat as good as ever she was, save for a lick of paint over the new work. This want Joe now proceeded, with a great show of zeal, to supply, procuring a pot of paint and a brush, with which he came bustling aft. Now, if there is one thing upon which I pride myself more than another, it is the scrupulous cleanliness of my decks; conceive, therefore, if you can, the extremity of my disgust and annoyance when I saw Joe catch the naked toes of his right foot in the corner of a hen-coop, and, in his agony, drop the pot of paint upon my beautifully clean poop, of course spilling the whole contents. It is true that, forgetting his pain the next moment, he dropped upon his knees and contrived, by scooping up the spilled paint in the palms of his hands, to replace a considerable proportion of it in the pot; but after he had done his best with canvas and turpentine a horrible unsightly blotch still remained to mar the hitherto immaculate purity of the planks, and it is therefore not to be wondered at if I again administered a sound and hearty rating to the culprit, this time in the presence and hearing of all hands. It was all the more vexatious to me that, instead of expressing any contrition for his carelessness, Joe persistently maintained the surly demeanour he had exhibited more or less throughout the day.

My anger, however, was short-lived, and by the time that I had had an hour or two for reflection I could not help feeling that I had been decidedly harsh and severe with the fellow for what was practically his first offence; moreover, he had always hitherto behaved so exceedingly well, and had proved himself such a splendid workman, that he had become a great favourite with me. When, therefore, during dinner, Sir Edgar made some half-jesting remark about Joe's misdeeds, I was far more disposed to make excuses for the man than to maintain a semblance of that annoyance I had so conspicuously exhibited during the day: nevertheless, I deemed it politic to do the latter, particularly while the steward was about; as I felt that, if the rest of the men were indeed traitors, the steward was probably the same, and would, in any case, be pretty certain to repeat in the forecastle whatever might be said in the cabin as to Joe's misdemeanours.

It was Joe's trick at the wheel that night for the first half of the first watch; but, as the passengers were about the deck during the whole time, I made no attempt to enter into confidential communication with him, and I had no other opportunity that night. On the following day his misdeeds were not quite so egregious, but he still contrived to behave like a man who considered himself aggrieved; and when his trick at the wheel came round again, during the first half of the afternoon watch, he steered so carelessly, and ran the ship off her course so abominably, that I had at last to send him away from the wheel, and summon another man in his place; taking the fullest advantage, at the same time, of the opportunity thus afforded to give him another good rating, hot and heavy, as I felt that he intended I should.

His turn to "grind water" came round again at the latter half of the middle watch, and when he came aft at four bells to relieve the wheel I took care to be at hand with a reminder of his shortcomings during the previous afternoon, and the stern expression of a hope that he would give me no further cause to complain of him. And, not content with that, I took up a position near him with an air that was intended to convey to the retiring helmsman my determination to keep a strict eye upon Master Joe's conduct during the remainder of the watch.

Joe waited a minute or two, to allow the other man to get fairly out of hearing forward, and then remarked—

"I'm afraid, sir, I rather overdone the thing yesterday, a-stavin' in the gig, and then capsizin' the paint. If I did, I hope you'll forgive me, sir, and remember as I done it for the best."

"Overdid it? Did it for the best?" I ejaculated. "Why, confound you, man, do you mean to tell me that you did those things intentionally?"

"Of course I did, sir," answered Joe, in much lower tones than my own, obviously with the intention of putting me on my guard. "You see, sir, them chaps for'ard are pretty cute; they're too old birds to be caught with chaff; and I knew that if I was to get on the blind side of 'em, it'd have to be by means of throwin' you into a genuine, downright passion with me. Besides, if you'll excuse me for sayin' of it, Captain Saint Leger, you ain't much of a hactor, sir; you're altogether too fair, and straightfor'ard, and aboveboard to be able to deceive, or fight on equal terms with a lot of sharp, sly, underhand, sneakin' beggars like them in the fo'c's'le. So says I to myself, 'Joe,' says I, 'if you wants that crowd to believe as you're out of the skipper's favour, and are ready to join 'em in any mischief they may be hatchin', you've got to do somethin' to make the cap'n real downright savage with yer.' And that's why I done it, sir. I'm boun' to allow that the capsizin' of that there paint was perhaps a-comin' of it a leetle too strong; but—"

"Oh, that's all right, Joe," I interrupted. "There is no doubt about the fact that you succeeded in making me genuinely angry with you; the important question now is, has it had the effect that you anticipated? Have the other men shown any disposition to take you into their confidence and make you a participator in the plot or whatever it is that you suppose them to be hatching?"

"Well, no, sir, not exactly," Joe admitted. "But I'm in hopes that they will afore long, if this here unpleasantness between me and you goes on. At present, you see, they don't know but what it may be a temp'ry thing as'll soon blow over; but if they finds that you've got a sort of spite again' me, and are always down upon me and drivin' me to desperation, as you may say, they'll be pretty certain to have a try to get me over on their side. You see, sir, I'm about as strong as e'er a man aboard here, and if them chaps are up to mischief they'll nat'rally prefer to have me with 'em instead of again' 'em."

"Undoubtedly they will," I agreed. "But, Joe, you have not yet told me exactly what it is that you suspect. If they were dissatisfied with their food, or their treatment, or their accommodation, would they not come aft and make a complaint, and endeavour to get the matter rectified in that way? But they never have done so; and indeed I cannot imagine what they have to be dissatisfied with: their food is all of the very best description it was possible to obtain; the forecastle is as roomy and comfortable a place as you will meet with in any ship of this size; and, as to work, I do not think they have much to complain of on that score."

"No, sir, no; it ain't nothing of that sort," asserted Joe. "It's my belief, sir, as they've somehow got wind of the treasure, and that it's that they're after."

"The treasure?" I exclaimed in blank astonishment. "What treasure?"

"Why, the treasure as you expects to find on this here island as we're bound for. Lor' bless you, sir," continued Joe, noting the consternation that his unexpected communication had occasioned me, "we all knowed about it in the fo'c's'le—the old hands, I mean—afore the ship arrived in Sydney Harbour. It was the steward as brought the news for'ard to us one night. He was a curious chap, he was, as inquisitive as a monkey; he always wanted to know the ins and outs of everything that was goin' on, and he'd noticed you porin' and puzzlin' over a paper with a lot of figures wrote on it, and a drorin' in the middle; and he used to come for'ard and tell us that you'd been havin' another try to find out what them figures meant. And one night—it was when we was gettin' well on toward Sydney—he comes for'ard in great excitement, and he says, says he, 'I'm blowed if the skipper haven't been and found out at last the meanin' of that paper that he's been puzzlin' over durin' the whole of this blessed voyage; and what do you suppose it is?' says he.

"Well, in course we said we didn't know; and some of us said we didn't care either, seein' that it wasn't any business of ours.

"'Oh, ain't it?' says he. 'P'r'aps you won't say it ain't no business of yours when you know what it is,' he says.

"'Well,' says one of the men—it were Bill Longman—'if you thinks as it concerns us, why don't you up and tell us what it is, instead of hangin' in the wind like a ship in irons?' says he.

"So then the steward he tells us as how, that mornin' whilst you was all at breakfast in the saloon, he'd heard you tellin' about a dream you'd had the night before; and how you started up in the middle of the meal and rushed off to your state-room, and stayed there a goodish while, and then went up on deck and told Sir Edgar as you'd discovered the meanin' of the paper, which was all about how to find a treasure that was buried on a desert island somewhere; and that you intended to go on to Sydney and discharge your cargo, and then take in ballast and sail for the Pacific to find this here island and get the treasure.

"Of course when he'd finished tellin' us about it there was a great palaver about buried treasure, and pretty nigh every man in the fo'c's'le pretended to have heard of a similar case; and we all agreed as you was a lucky man, and we hoped as how you'd find the island, and the treasure too. And by-and-by, after there had been a good deal of talk of that sort, Bill Longman up and says, 'But, George,' he says to the steward, 'you haven't told us yet how this here affair concarns us?'

"'Oh, well,' says George, with a curious kind of a laugh, 'if you don't see as how it concarns us, why of course there ain't no more to be said.' And that was all we could get out of the steward that night.

"But a night or two afterwards, Master George brings up the subject again by sayin' that he don't suppose it's likely as you'll offer to share this here treasure with all hands, supposin' that you find it. And then he goes on to say that, for his part, he don't see as the treasure is yours any more than it's anybody else's, and that, in his opinion, if it's ever found, all hands ought to share and share alike. And some of the chaps seemed to think he was right, and others they didn't, and Bill up and says—

"'Look here, George,' he says, 'supposin' when we gets ashore at Sydney you was to find a bag of sovereigns in the street, would you share 'em with us?'

"George said that 'd be a different thing altogether from findin' a treasure on a desert island; and we all had a long argyment about it, and couldn't agree; and, after that, the steward talked a good deal more about all sharin' alike in the treasure, and that if we was all of one mind it could be done, and a lot more stuff of the same kind. But we all laughed at him; and then came the arrival of the ship in Sydney, and George bein' paid off, and after that I heard nothin' more about the treasure."

"And what makes you imagine that the new men have got hold of the story?" I asked.

"Well, sir," said Joe, "it's just one or two little things I've overheard said. The first thing as ever made me suspect that there was somethin' up was the mention of the word 'treasure.' Cookie is the man as seems to know most about it—he's everlastin'ly talkin' about it—and I fancy he must have fallen in with the steward somewheres ashore and heard the whole story from him."

"And what has the cook to say about it?" I inquired.

"Ah, that's just what I wants to find out," answered Joe. "They won't say anything to me about it, but just sits whisperin' with their heads together away for'ard in the far end of the fo'c's'le, and I notices as it's always the cook as has most to say. He and Rogers seems to be the leadin' spirits in the job, whatever it is."

"So your little scheme of yesterday has borne no fruit, thus far?" I suggested.

"Well, not much," said Joe. "But then, I don't expect 'em to take me into their secrets right off the reel, the first time that I misbehave myself. But I believe they'll have a try to get me in with 'em before they tries to carry out their plans. Last night, when I was sittin' on my chest, grumblin' and growlin' at the way I'd been treated durin' the day,"—here Joe laughed softly as the peculiar humour of the situation seemed to present itself to him—"the cook wanted to know whether I wouldn't rather be a rich man than have to go to sea for the rest of my days; but Rogers stopped him with a look, and said, 'Now, doctor, you leave Joe alone, and don't go puttin' no nonsensical notions into his head. You leave him to me; perhaps I may have somethin' to say to him myself by-and-by, and I don't want nobody to interfere at all in this here matter.' And that's how the thing stands at present."

"Very well," said I. "You have told me enough to satisfy me that your conjectures are by no means as groundless as I supposed them to be, and you must do your best, Joe, to find out what you can. But you will have to be very careful what you are about: it is clear enough that, if they meditate treachery of any kind, they are not yet at all disposed to trust you; and if they at all contemplate the possibility of winning you over to join them, they will set all manner of traps for you, and test you in every conceivable way before making up their minds to trust you."

"Yes," assented Joe, "I expects they will. But I'm all ready for 'em, whenever they likes; I've got my course all marked out, clear and straight; and, if Rogers or any of the others comes soundin' me, they'll be surprised to find what a downright bad character I am, and how ready I am to take a hand in any mischief that's brewin'."



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT.

This secret conversation between Joe and myself—secret by reason of the intense darkness of the night, and by the precautions I had deemed it expedient to take, at an early stage of the conversation, to conceal my precise whereabouts from any prying eyes among the starboard watch—at first produced within me a feeling of the keenest uneasiness and anxiety. For Joe's revelation as to the discovery by the late steward of my secret relating to the concealed treasure furnished me with what had previously been lacking, namely, a motive for that secret plotting of the existence of which Joe was so firmly convinced. The story to which I had that night listened left no room for doubt in my mind that my own want of caution and the late steward's inquisitive propensities had placed within the knowledge of the latter the two important facts that I possessed the secret of a concealed treasure, and that it was my intention, on leaving Sydney, to proceed in search of it. Moreover, it was clear enough that the fellow had no sooner acquired this knowledge than he concocted a plan for the eventual acquisition of the treasure, and made some effort to secure the assistance of the crew in the carrying out of this plan, whatever it might happen to have been. Failing in this, might he not, out of sheer malice, have communicated the secret to some one else—our present cook, for instance—and instigated the man to take some such steps as himself had contemplated? Such a proceeding would at once account satisfactorily for the curious fact that I had succeeded in obtaining a crew when no other shipmaster within the port could do so. The only weak element of such a supposition consisted in my inability to reconcile myself to the belief that such a man as our late steward would ever, under any provocation, be weak enough to part with a secret that might, even under the most unlikely combination of circumstances and in the most distant future, possibly be of some advantage to himself. Yet this man, Martin, whose life I had saved, and who had impressed me as being a thoroughly honest, straightforward, trustworthy fellow, roundly asserted that something of a secret and mysterious character was going on among the newly shipped men—something from which he, on account of his assumed integrity, had been quietly yet consistently excluded; and he had heard the word "treasure" mentioned by these presumable conspirators. Then I argued with myself that, after all, when one came to reflect upon it, the exclusive ways of these ex-gold-miners and the mere mention of the word "treasure" seemed rather slender threads from which to weave so portentous a suspicion as that which Joe's communication had suggested. For aught that I knew, the late steward's discourses upon the subject of the treasure might have been of such a character as to suggest to the minds of his hearers an absurdly exaggerated idea of its value, leaving upon honest Joe's mind the impression that it must be fabulously rich, and altogether the kind of thing to obtain possession of which men would hesitate at no crime, however monstrous. And, having had experience of one attempt to gain possession of it by means of treachery, was it not natural that the simple fellow, discovering, or believing that he had discovered, something in the nature of a secret understanding among his shipmates, should at once leap to the conclusion that it was nothing less than a second attempt upon the treasure that was being planned? As to the cook's inquiry whether Joe would not rather be a rich man than be obliged to follow the sea for the remainder of his life, I thought nothing of that; sailors—like everybody else—are possessed of a rooted conviction that wealth is the panacea of all evils. By the time that I had reached this point in my mental argument it was eight bells, and, Forbes coming on deck to relieve me, I went to my cabin more than half convinced that Joe had, after all, discovered a mare's nest; and having thus argued myself into a more comfortable frame of mind, I lay down and slept soundly until I was called by the steward at my usual hour of rising.

I will do Joe the justice to say that, having settled in his mind the part that he would play in the drama that he believed was evolving itself on board the barque, he thenceforth played it to the life, and with a skill so consummate as to deceive the most suspicious. He assumed the role of a man who, if let alone, would be willing enough to do his duty honestly, and to the best of his ability, but who could not and would not tolerate the smallest measure of injustice. And he gave himself all the airs of an aggrieved person—of one who has been harshly treated for a trivial fault; his whole manner was the very impersonation of sullen resentment, and the careless, slovenly way in which he performed his duties was a constant source of provocation to me, even though I knew—or thought I knew—that it was all assumed. So exasperating was he that sometimes I even doubted whether his behaviour really was assumption—whether, after all, I had not been deceived in the man; whether it was not rather his former good behaviour that was assumed, while his present delinquencies were the result of an outbreak of irrepressible evil in him. There were even times when I asked myself whether he might not be a ringleader in the very plot he professed to be so anxious to discover, and whether his anxiety to enlighten me might not be assumed for the purpose of blinding and misleading me the more effectually. Never in all my life had I witnessed so thorough and radical a change in any one as seemed to have come over Joe Martin. But a quiet word or two with him, or a glance into his honest eyes when no one was near enough at hand to read their expression, always sufficed to reassure me as to his absolute fidelity. Since it was possible for him to make me doubt him, despite the many evidences he had afforded me of his honesty, it is not to be wondered at that Sir Edgar and Lady Emily were completely deceived by him; and often did they, in the comparative privacy of the saloon, deplore Joe's lamentable fall from his original virtuous condition. On such occasions I always assumed a tone of righteous indignation and severity, giving as free vent as possible to the very real annoyance that the fellow's pranks frequently occasioned me; inwardly resolving at the same time that, if he emerged with unblemished reputation from the perplexingly contradictory role he was then enacting, I would do him the most lavish justice when the proper time arrived.

The number of men we now had on board the barque, and the constitution of the watches, were such that one of Joe's "tricks" at the wheel always occurred from two to four o'clock on every alternate morning; and these were the only opportunities when it was possible for us to exchange confidences with any degree of safety from the possibility of discovery. Consequently, after having had a chat with Joe, I always had to wait forty-eight hours before I could learn what discoveries—if any—he had made in the interim. After the last-recorded long chat that we had had together, two such opportunities had passed without the occurrence of anything in the forecastle of a sufficiently definite character to furnish Joe with matter for a report; though he insisted that the frequent brief, hurried consultations, and the increased caution of the conspirators, convinced him that something very momentous must be impending. Such a statement naturally reawakened all my anxiety; which was not lessened by the fact that we now had a moon, in her second quarter, affording a sufficient amount of light to render our confidential communications at night almost impossible without detection; while, to add to my embarrassment, I expected to sight the island within the next forty hours.

I thought the time had now arrived when I ought to take the mate into my confidence, and I did so during the progress of the following afternoon watch; taking care that our conversation should be as brief as possible, and that it should be conducted out of earshot of all eavesdroppers. As I had anticipated, Forbes seemed very much disposed to make light of the matter, and to regard it as a hallucination of Joe's; protesting that, so far from having observed any symptoms of revolt or insubordination, he had been simply astonished at such orderly behaviour on the part of men who had lived the comparatively lawless life of diggers on a new gold-field. In short, we were both thoroughly puzzled. But we eventually agreed that, under the circumstances, it would be prudent to keep our eyes open, and to adopt precisely such precautionary measures as we should resort to if we were expecting the men to break into open mutiny. I also undertook to find or make an opportunity to instruct Joe that, in the event of his making any fresh discoveries, he was at once to acquaint the mate with them, if he experienced any difficulty in communicating with me.

On that same evening, during the first watch, when—the ladies having retired as usual about four bells—Sir Edgar joined me, according to custom, to smoke a final cigar and indulge in a desultory chat before retiring to his own cabin for the night, I availed myself of the opportunity to explain the situation to him also; first cautioning him not to exhibit any astonishment or other emotion that might excite the suspicions of the helmsman, who would doubtless have his eyes upon us. He was, of course, and naturally enough, very much discomposed at such startling intelligence; the more so that I was unable to give him any definite information as to the character of the danger with which we were threatened; but he maintained the same enviable coolness and composure of manner that I had so greatly admired on the memorable night of our adventure in the Straits of Sunda, and assured me that I might rely upon him to be ready for action in any emergency, however sudden.

It was my middle watch below that night, and I had been in my berth about an hour, tossing restlessly from side to side, and striving to devise plans to meet every contingency I could possibly think of, when I heard a sound of muffled footsteps outside my state-room door, followed by a very gentle cautious tap upon the panelling.

"Yes," I answered, in a low cautious tone; "who is there?"

"It's Joe, sir," was the reply, in an equally subdued tone of voice. "I've got some news for you at last, with a vengeance!"

I opened the door; and, sure enough, there stood Joe, glancing anxiously over his shoulder, as though he every moment expected to be followed and dragged on deck before he could make his communication.

Signing to him to enter the cabin, I noiselessly closed the door behind him, and, pointing toward the locker, said—

"Now, Joe, heave ahead, my man, and tell me your story in your own way. But, first of all, how did you manage to get here without being seen by any of the men?"

"Well, sir," said Joe, "it wasn't very easy, and that's a fact. I wanted to have a word with you durin' the first watch, but you was talking with Sir Edgar; and, if you hadn't been, it'd ha' been all the same, because I couldn't ha' left the forecastle without bein' missed. So I had to wait until our watch was relieved and had gone below; and then I had to wait again until they was all asleep, when I slips out of my bunk, careless-like, leavin' the blankets all heaped-up so that they'd look, in the dim light, as if I was still there. Then I creeps up on deck, very quiet, but ready primed with a hexcuse in case any o' the watch wanted to know what I was doin' on deck in my watch below. But the lookout was comfortably perched between the knight-heads, smokin', with his back to the deck, so he didn't see me; and, as for the other two, I expects they was in the galley, takin' a snooze, for I didn't see anything of 'em. So I slips aft, in the shadder of the long-boat, and dodges round abaft the mainmast until I got the companion between me and the man at the wheel, when I climbs up on the poop, and crawls along the deck on all-fours to the companion-way; then down I comes, without even Mr Forbes seein' me."

"All right, Joe," said I. "But I shall have to go on deck and let the mate know, when you are ready to go for'ard again, or he might catch sight of you and pounce upon you without knowing who you are; which would simply ruin everything. However, we can arrange that presently. Now, let me know what it is that you have to tell me."

"Well, sir, it's just this," returned Joe. "These here carryin's on of mine, and the way that you've been down upon me of late, has done the trick; and, to-night, durin' the second dog-watch, the bosun tackled me, and, after a good deal of box-haulin' about, told me what their little game is, and asked me if I'd jine 'em."

"Go on, Joe," said I; "tell me everything that passed, as nearly as you can."

"Well," continued Joe—who, it may be well to explain, had, as usual, been behaving most outrageously all day—"I'm boun' to confess that I laid it on pretty thick to-day; and so did you, sir,"—with a quiet chuckle—"but not no thicker than what I deserved. So, along in the second dog-watch, Rogers comes up to me where I was smokin', sulky-like, under the lee of the long-boat, away from everybody else, but where anybody could see me that wanted to, and he says—

"'Hullo, Joe, old shipmate,' says he, 'what's the matter? You looks as if the hazin' that the skipper's been givin' of you to-day has give you a fit of the blues!'

"'Blues?' says I. 'Blues ain't no name for it! I'm sick and tired of the ship, and everybody in her. I haven't been given no peace nor rest,' says I, 'since the day when I was clumsy enough to smash the gig. Of course I was sorry I done it,' I says, 'and I'd ha' said so if the skipper had only treated me properly; but I ain't sorry now, and I means to take it out of him for the rest of the v'yage by doin' every blessed thing I can think of to vex him. He's made it pretty hot for me lately, and I means to make it hot for him,' I says; 'and you may go aft and tell him so if you like,' says I.

"'No, Joey,' says he, 'I'm not the man to tell tales upon a shipmate; nor there ain't nobody else in the fo'c's'le as'll do such a dirty trick. But what's come over ye, man? You're that changed as your own mother wouldn't know ye. I'm surprised at you,' he says—'a man that used to be such a tremenjous favourite with the skipper and the rest of 'em aft. What's the meanin' of it all?'

"'Look here, Bill Rogers,' says I, turnin' upon him as savage as you please, 'just you drop that—d'ye hear? I gets hectorin' and hazin' enough from the quarter-deck; I won't have none of it from you, nor from any other man what's in this ship's fo'c's'le; so now I hopes you understand,' I says.

"'All right, mate,' he says; 'you needn't lose your temper with me; there's no occasion for it. Besides, I'm a short-tempered man myself, and if it comes to—but that's neither here nor there. I don't want to quarrel with you, Joe; I'd a deal rather we was all fast friends in the fo'c's'le. We foremast men ought to stick to one another, and back one another up; don't you think so?'

"'Yes, I do,' says I; 'but how much have any of you chaps stuck to me, or backed me up? You've been as thick as thieves together,' I says; 'but—because, I s'pose, I haven't been to the gold-fields—you've made me feel like a houtsider, from the very commencement of the v'yage,' I says.

"'Well, if we did,' says he, 'it was because we didn't know you so well as we do now.'

"After that he stood pullin' away at his pipe, and cogitatin' like, for a minute or two; and then he looks up in my face, and says—

"'Look here, Joe Martin, you've been on the growl for more'n a week now; but I s'pose if I was to give you the chance to get back into the skipper's favour by tellin' him somethin' he'd very much like to know, you wouldn't be above doin' it, would you?'

"'I don't want no chance to get back into the skipper's favour,' I says. 'If you knows anything that he'd like to know, go and tell him yourself,' says I.

"'Why, Joe,' he says, laughin', 'you've regular got your knife into the old man,'—beggin' your pardon, Cap'n Saint Leger, but them was his words, sir."

"All right, Joe," I whispered, anxiously; "what happened next?"

"I says, 'I haven't got my knife into him any more'n he's got his into me, I suppose. But if a man does me a hinjury, I ain't goin' to rest until I've got even with him.'

"Then says Bill, 'Now, I wonder what you'd say if anybody was to offer you a chance to get even with the skipper, and do a good thing for yourself at the same time?'

"'You wouldn't have to wonder very long,' says I, 'if so be as anybody aboard this ship had such a chance to offer me. But them sort of chances don't come to a man away out here in mid-ocean.'

"'Oh, don't they?' he says. 'Well, I believes they do—sometimes. Just you stop here a minute, Joe,' he says; 'I'll be back in a brace of shakes.'

"So off he goes, and presently I hears him talkin' to the cook in the galley, very earnest. By-and-by he comes out again, and he says—

"'Joe,' says he, 'do you know what the skipper's pokin' the ship away up here into this outlandish part of the Pacific for?'

"'Well,' I says, 'I've been told as he wants to get a cargo of sandal-wood for the China market.'

"'Nothin' else?' says he.

"'He never told me as he was after anythin' else,' I says, lookin' very knowin'.

"'No,' he says, 'I don't suppose he ever did; but somebody else might, mightn't they?'

"Says I, 'What's the use of all this backin' and fillin'? I see you knows somethin' as I thought nobody in the fo'c's'le knowed anything about but myself. Now, if you've got anything to say about it, out with it; and if you haven't, let's talk about somethin' else.'

"Says he, 'Did you ever know anybody by the name of George Moore?'

"'Yes,' says I, 'I did.' And I had it on the tip of my tongue to say, 'And a more worthless scamp I never wishes to meet with.' But I didn't, because it come to me to remember, just in time, that if these here chaps knowed anything about the treasure, 'twas most likely through George that they'd come to know it. So I says, 'He was steward aboard here until the skipper sacked him in Sydney.'

"'I s'pose you'd know him again if you was to see him?' he says; and he looked at me in a curious sort of way that makes me think, 'Now, what the mischief are you a-drivin' at? It's my belief, Joe,' thinks I, 'that this chap's layin' a trap for you; and if you don't keep your weather eye liftin', you'll fall into it, my lad,' thinks I. So I just says, careless-like—

"'Oh yes, in course I should.'

"'When did you see him last?' says Rogers.

"'The last time I seen him,' says I, 'was the day we arrived in Sydney, when the skipper paid him off and he left the ship.'

"'Quite sure?' says Bill.

"'Certain,' says I.

"Then he laughed, and he says, 'Well, Joe, you're a more simple sort of a feller than I give you credit for bein'. Come into the galley,' he says, 'and let me introjuce you to an old friend.'

"So we went into the galley together, and there was cookie busy amongst his pots and pans. When he sees us come in, he looks hard at Bill, and he says—

"'Well?'

"I tell you, Cap'n Saint Leger, you might ha' knocked me down with a rope-yarn, I was that astonished—for the voice was the voice of George Moore, and no other.

"Hows'ever, all this backin' and fillin' of Bill's had put me on my guard. I began to understand that, after all my play-actin', they didn't even then feel altogether sure of me—they was tryin' me still; and that made me brace up and pull myself together; for I says to myself, 'Now, if I makes a single mistake it's all up with everybody abaft the mainmast, and me, too.' So I looks cookie hard in the face, and I says—

"'Now I knows you, George, spite of your black hair and all your beard and mustachers. What's the meanin' of this here maskeradin'? Tip us your flipper, old shipmate,' I says, hearty like, and as if I was downright glad to see him.

"Well, sir, I can tell you George looked considerable nonplussed; while Bill, he just laughed; and he says to George, 'Jacob, my son, you've been and let the cat out of the bag!' Then he turns to me and says—

"'Now, Joe, there you are! Now's your chance to get back the skipper's favour by goin' aft and tellin' him as his old steward, George Moore, is aboard here, sailin' under false colours.'

"'If he does,' says George, 'he'd better look out for hisself!'

"'All right, George, old man,' I says; 'don't you worry. Did I tell the skipper anything about the way you used to talk to us about the treasure—and, by the livin' Jingo,' I says, 'that's what you're after now, ain't it, mate?'

"'Supposin' we was,' says he, 'would you take a hand in the game? You didn't seem noways eager about it when 'twas last mentioned.'

"'What was the use?' says I. 'None of the others 'd have nothin' to do with it, and we couldn't manage the thing by our two selves. But if that's your game,' says I, 'I'm in with you—if it's share and share alike; not otherwise,' I says.

"'Well, it amounts pretty much to that,' George says, 'only I'm to have two shares instead of one, seein' that I was the man that found out all about it. That's the arrangement, ain't it, Bill?'

"'That's the arrangement,' says Bill, 'and a fair one it is, too, I think. What's your opinion, Joe?'

"'Yes,' I says, reluctant like, 'I s'pose it's fair. But how will it work out? will there be enough to make it worth the risk?'

"'Oh yes,' says George. 'I don't know how much there is of it, but there's sure to be a goodish pile, or the skipper wouldn't take the trouble to come all this way to get it.'

"'Well, but,' I says, 'how's the thing goin' to be worked? I hope there ain't goin' to be no murder!'

"'Murder be hanged!' says Bill. 'What should there be any murder for? No; the whole thing's very simple. We're all goin' to be perfectly quiet and do exactly as we're told until the treasure's found and put aboard the ship; and then, when the order's give to up anchor and make sail from the island, we're just goin' to seize the skipper, the mate, and the passengers, unawares; clap the mate in irons; put the rest ashore; and off we goes.'

"'Well,' I says, 'and afterwards?'

"'Afterwards,' says Bill, 'we shall divide the treasure fairly amongst us; make the mate navigate the ship to some place where she can be comfortably cast away; and we poor shipwrecked mariners will land, with our swag snugly stowed away amongst our dunnage, and every man will then look after hisself.'

"'Well,' I says, 'that seems to be all plain sailin' enough.' It wasn't my business to point out to 'em that they'd prob'ly find Mr Forbes a hard nut to crack, you see, sir; so I makes out to be quite satisfied with their plans, and to be quite ready to join in with 'em; and then I was took into the fo'c's'le and introjuced to the rest as havin' joined 'em, and everybody said how glad they was to have me, and that now there'd be no bother or trouble at all about the job. And—and—well, I think that's about all, sir."

"Thank you, Joe," said I, grasping the honest fellow's hand. "It is a long story, but you have managed to make everything perfectly clear to me; and I fancy I shall not have much difficulty in circumventing the rascals. Now, if the men should make any alterations in their plans, you must let me know, if you possibly can; but be careful, above all things, that the men shall have no cause whatever to suspect your fidelity to them. And, remember, whatever orders I may give you, execute them to the letter, and promptly. Now, I will go on deck and have a word or two with Mr Forbes, during which you must get away for'ard again, as best you can."

I accordingly left Joe in my cabin, and sauntered up on deck, as was often my habit, even in my watch below, ostensibly to take a look at the weather, but in reality to caution Forbes against taking any notice of Joe, should he catch sight of that individual moving about the deck.

It was by this time nearly seven bells in the middle watch; the moon hung low in the western sky over our port quarter, and a mottling of fine-weather cloud had gradually gathered in the heavens, which, while it allowed a few of the larger stars to gleam dimly through it here and there, intercepted a large proportion of the starlight, and rendered the night dark enough to make Joe's escape forward a comparatively easy matter.

The mate was pacing the poop slowly, fore and aft, as I emerged from the companion; but, catching sight of me, he came to my side and remarked—

"The night continues fine, sir, but the wind seems inclined to drop. We were only going four and half when I hove the log at four bells, and now we seem to be scarcely going four."

"Yes," said I, "it has dropped perceptibly since I went below; but if it will only last at this we shall be at anchor by sunset to-morrow." Then, in a lower tone, I added, "If you see Joe Martin creeping away for'ard from the saloon, don't take any notice of him, or make any sign that you are aware of his presence. I have much to tell you; but we must wait for a more favourable opportunity."

At this moment Joe's head emerged from the darkness of the companion; so I walked aft, glanced into the binnacle, and then abstractedly placed myself before the helmsman in such a position as to obstruct his view of that part of the maindeck which Joe would have to traverse before reaching the concealing shadow of the long-boat. I stood thus, apparently sunk in reflection, until I observed Joe glide across the exposed space and disappear; when I went back to my cabin and fully dressed myself, in readiness to go on deck again at eight bells.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

WE ARRIVE AT THE TREASURE ISLAND.

During the succeeding watch, I had leisure to take a careful mental review of Joe's story, and the conclusion at which I arrived was that the man Moore, having failed in his endeavour to seduce the original crew of the Esmeralda from their duty, had, on his arrival at Sydney, no sooner recognised the probability of their desertion—which, for aught I knew to the contrary, he might very possibly have contributed to bring about—than he must have devoted himself to the task of collecting the party of men whose wiles I had now to circumvent. What a patient, crafty fellow the man had proved himself to be! It really appeared as though he must have had, almost from the outset of the voyage, some suspicion as to the character of the cryptogram over which he had seen me puzzling so often—or might he not have gathered its nature from a chance word or two overheard while I had been discussing the subject with Sir Edgar?—for he no sooner became aware in a general way of its contents than he was ready with a plan by which to turn the adventure to his own advantage. He was persevering, too; for that plan had no sooner failed than he must have gone to work to formulate another, so skilfully devised, and so carefully carried through that, but for Joe's devoted fidelity, it must have infallibly succeeded. Indeed, I felt by no means satisfied that they would not succeed, even now. True, their designs, as revealed to Joe, might be very easily frustrated; but there was an unpleasant doubt in my mind as to the bona fides of that revelation. I could scarcely believe that men who had already exhibited such indisputable proof of extreme caution and steadfast self-control could be so easily imposed upon as they appeared to have been by Joe! What if they had seen through his devices, and had suspected his intentions? Would they not, in that case, have realised that our suspicions were aroused? and might they not have merely feigned to have fallen into Joe's trap, and have confided to him a purely fictitious statement of their plans, concocted for the express purpose of throwing us off our guard and leading us astray? Taking into account the deep guile that had prompted them to adopt and consistently maintain a course of the most orderly and irreproachable behaviour as the most likely means of blinding me to and averting the faintest suspicion of their nefarious designs, I could not help feeling that such a line of action on their part was only too probable; and, in casting about in my mind for some effectual method of subverting their plans, I fully realised that I should have to take this contingency into consideration, while preparing also a counterplot to that revealed by the man Rogers to Joe. Of one thing, and one thing only, could I be certain, which was that nobody— not even myself—knew the amount of the treasure; and it appeared to me that upon this fact must I base my plans. These reflections, given above in a very condensed form, fully occupied my mind during the first hour and a half of my watch, and were only interrupted by the appearance in the eastern quarter of that first faint paling of the darkness which heralded the dawn of a new day. This temporarily diverted my thoughts into a new channel; for, upon solving the enigma of the cryptogram, my first act had been to consult a chart of the Pacific, with the resulting discovery that no such island as that referred to in the Saint Leger document was to be found upon it. Now, the ship's position on the previous noon, and her run since then, were such that if the morning happened to break clear, the island ought to be just visible, right ahead, at daybreak, provided, of course, that the man who secreted the treasure had made no mistake in his calculations. On the one hand, I thought it probable that, considering the important issues at stake, the utmost care would be taken to verify the position of the island beyond all possibility of error; while, on the other, was the curious fact that no such island—not even a rock, or indeed shoal water—appeared on the chart in the position indicated. This circumstance, coupled with my knowledge of the imperfect character of the instruments in use by navigators of the period at which the cryptogram had been written, caused me now to experience no little curiosity and anxiety as to what the approaching daylight might reveal.

I was not to be left long in suspense. We were in the tropics, where the light comes and goes with a rush, a few minutes only intervening between broad day and deepest night. The first faint streak of scarcely perceptible pallor along the verge of the eastern horizon on our starboard bow lengthened and widened, and grew more pronounced, even as I gazed upon it, until it became a broad segment of cold, colourless light, insensibly melting out of the circumscribing darkness. Then a faint, delicate tone of softest primrose began to steal through it, quickly strengthening and brightening as the light spread upward and right and left, paling the stars one by one, until they dwindled away and vanished in the soft, rich blue that was swiftly chasing the darkness across the sky. Anon, a warm, rich, rosy flush began to pervade the primrose tones of the eastern horizon, against which the level line of the ocean's marge cut sharply in tones of deepest indigo; while, overhead, the brightening blue was delicately mottled with a whole archipelago of thin, fleecy cloudlets, pink tinged, and bordered along their lower edges with purest gold, that were mysteriously floating into view, apparently from illimitable space. Then from that point on the horizon where the deepening rose colour glowed most brilliantly, up shot a single white ray perpendicularly toward the zenith, narrow and well defined where it sprang from the horizon, and broadening as it soared aloft until it became lost among the lowest tier of clouds, now deeply tinged with dyes of richest crimson. This single ray had scarcely made itself apparent ere it was followed by others radiating fan-wise from the same spot; and in another instant a spark of golden flame flashed across the sea from the horizon, at the point of junction of the rays, tingeing the small wave-crests in its wake with ruddy gold that deepened first into a line and then into a broad path of shimmering golden radiance, as the burning rim of the sun soared slowly out of the purple sea.

At the same instant, the man who had the lookout, and who had stationed himself on the topgallant forecastle, right in the eyes of the ship, turned sharply round, facing the poop, and reported—

"Land ho! right ahead."

I had been so completely absorbed in contemplation of the magnificent spectacle of the sunrise that, for the moment, I had entirely forgotten the island, and everything connected with it; but the cry of the lookout brought it back to my mind with a flash, and, moving to the mizzen-rigging, and springing upon a hen-coop, I directed my gaze straight ahead, with my hand over my eyes to shield them from the dazzle of the sun.

Yes, there it was, undoubtedly; a faint, pinkish-grey shape, right over the starboard cat-head, as I then stood; a low hummock on the left, with a hill next it, the outline of which, even at that distance, bore a striking resemblance to a man's nose, the upper lip on the right of it showing just clear of the horizon. Yes; there was the treasure island, beyond all question! The next point to be determined was, whether the treasure still lay buried there; and if so, how was I to obtain and retain possession of it?

Of one thing I felt morally certain, which was that, as soon as the men felt assured that the whole of the treasure was on board, they would take the ship from me, either by force or guile, if they could. It was of course open to me to make a fight for it, if I chose; but, even assuming that I could reckon upon Sir Edgar's assistance—as I felt sure I could—that would make only four of us to oppose eleven men, who, I had no manner of doubt, would prove as resolute and determined in a stand-up fight as they had already shown themselves to be in the pursuit of their organised plans. The odds were nearly three to one against us. Opposed to these, with, for our antagonists, resolute men, whose knowledge of the consequences that must inevitably follow upon an unsuccessful attempt at piracy would nerve them to desperation—men who were unquestionably full of brute courage, and who, moreover, were doubtless as well armed as ourselves—was I justified in entertaining the slightest hope of success in the event of my submitting the matter to the arbitrament of battle? The answer to this question was an unqualified "No!"

If, then, it was hopeless to expect that a resort to force would enable me to retain my property, my freedom, and the freedom and property, ay, perhaps even the lives of those who, in such a crisis as this, would naturally look to me for the preservation of both, I must resort to guile. I mortally hate anything that in the slightest degree savours of deception, either in words or conduct, and have made it an invariable rule never to engage in any transaction needing the one or the other for its successful accomplishment; but here was a case in which I had no choice but to meet guile with guile. How was it to be done? Possibly, if the treasure happened to be in a compact form, and easily accessible, Forbes, Joe, and myself might be able to secure it and convey it on board the ship, unknown to the men, while they were busily engaged in digging for it elsewhere—for, now that they were aware of its existence, it seemed to me that my best chance of success lay in employing them in the search, while taking care that none of them should find it. This would naturally lead them to the conclusion that, if my document were not an ingenious hoax, the treasure had already been discovered and secured by somebody else.

This plan rather took my fancy. It was simple, feasible, and demanded no elaborate system of deception; the men would simply be set to dig upon a certain spot, and, failing, after a sufficiently exhaustive search, to find anything, the digging would be abandoned, and they would be sent to various more or less distant parts of the island to cut sandal-wood. The more I thought of it, the better I liked it; and when, later on, during the forenoon, I found an opportunity to talk it over with Sir Edgar and Forbes—having previously related to them the substance of Joe's communication made to me during the middle watch— they agreed with me that, failing a better scheme, they saw no reason why it should not be successful. Sir Edgar, as I had anticipated, declared himself ready to act in any way that I might suggest, at a moment's notice; and, now that he had had time to think over my former communication to him, and to grow accustomed to the idea of a coming contest, either of strength or wits, with the men, was as eager for the fray as a schoolboy is for the great cricket-match of the year.

Meanwhile, the wind had slightly freshened with the rising of the sun, and the ship was gliding along upon a taut bowline, under all plain sail, at a speed of about six knots, heading up about a point and a half to windward of the northern extremity of the island. We were approaching it from the south-west—the direction mentioned in my ancestor's cryptogram—and as we gradually rose it above the horizon it was curious to note how exact a resemblance its outline bore to the profile of an upturned human face lying prone along the water. It was so striking that even the children remarked upon it; while, as for the men, they could scarcely remove their eyes from it, though their interest in the place was doubtless founded more upon the wealth they hoped to find upon it than upon its very singular appearance. I noted this morning, without appearing to do so, that there was a great deal of animated conversation going on upon the forecastle, accompanied by many stealthy glances toward the poop; while the late steward—now sweltering in the heat of the galley, and of his hirsute disguise—was being continually appealed to. Now that I knew this man's secret I was filled with astonishment that I had not immediately penetrated it; for, disguise his features as he might, he could not divest himself of the sly, stealthy way in which he used his eyes, nor of the noiseless, treacherous way in which he moved. I had noted these characteristics in him as far back as the day on which he had signed articles at Sydney; yet, strange to say, familiar as they were to me, I had never for a moment suspected his identity, probably because, when I happened to think of him at all, I assumed as a matter of course that he would naturally make the best of his way to the gold-fields. Of course, since we had been at sea, his avocation as cook had confined him so closely to the galley that I had rarely seen him; and upon the rare occasions when he had been obliged to present himself in full view my thoughts had usually been so busy upon other matters that I had taken little or no notice of him. Indeed, I shrewdly suspected that it was the comparative privacy of the galley that had led him to choose the disagreeable functions of ship's cook.

All that day, until three o'clock in the afternoon, we glided gently along over a smooth, sparkling sea, toward the island, noting with keen interest its various features as they imperceptibly resolved themselves out of the hazy blue tint that it had worn in the distance. The first marked change that occurred in its appearance was the breaking-up of the flat silhouette into a series of softly shadowed markings which indicated the shapes of the hills and valleys, the slopes and ravines into which its surface was broken. Then, as the sun swept over it and round toward its western side, the light fell more strongly upon its hillsides; its shadows grew deeper, and an all-pervading tone of green gave evidence of its exceeding fertility. Later still, the green became broken up into an infinite variety of shades; while the swelling rounded outlines that stood out from and yet indicated these multitudinous tints, revealed the fact that the island was densely wooded to its very summit. By six bells in the afternoon we had neared it to within three miles, and were enabled to see that its northern extremity was bold and precipitous, with naked, rocky cliffs, against the base of which the white surf chafed and roared with a ceaseless thunder that reached our ears even at that distance. The south-western extremity, while as bold as the northern, and almost as precipitous, was wooded right down to the water's edge; while from the lofty hill, that in the distance had borne the appearance of a gigantic human nose, there was an irregular but general slope toward the south-western shore; the entrance to the river mentioned in the cryptogram being clearly indicated by a low projecting point stretching southward from the bold cliffs marking the northern boundary of the island.

Having satisfactorily made out the mouth of the river, I caused the helm to be shifted, and we bore away for our anchorage, which was reached about an hour later, in a small estuary situate at the southern extremity of the island, affording perfect shelter from all winds from south-west round by north and east to south-east.

By the time that the hands had got the canvas stowed, yards squared, running gear hauled taut and coiled down, and decks cleared up generally, it was five o'clock in the evening; and the shadows were already beginning to deepen on the western side of the ravine along which the river flowed, while its eastern slopes were glowing brilliantly in the warm orange tones of the evening sunlight. It chanced that we had dropped our anchor at the precise spot which afforded us a clear view up the gently winding river for a distance of something like a quarter of a mile, and never in all my life had I looked upon a more lovely scene than the one that then delighted our eyes. The so-called "river" was really a small arm of the sea formed by a beautiful ravine—the bottom of which lay below the sea level— dividing the southern portion of the island into two unequal parts; and as the western side of this ravine was high and steep, while the eastern side sloped gently but unevenly up from the water until it merged in the high ground beyond, the whole surface of the island being finely broken and densely wooded, the contrasting effects of brilliant sunshine and soft purple shadow, with the multitudinous tints and endless varieties of foliage, vividly marked in the foreground and insensibly merging into a delicious, soft, misty grey over the distant heights, combined to form a picture the charming, fairy-like beauty of which it is as impossible to describe as it was entrancing to look upon.

So lovely indeed was it that I found it hard to resist the entreaties of Lady Emily and her sister that I would lower a boat and take them for a short pull up the river before sunset. It was necessary, however, that our first visit to this lovely island paradise should be made with all due circumspection; for although no sign or trace of inhabitants had as yet been discovered, the place might for all that be peopled, and peopled, too, with cruel, bloodthirsty savages, for aught we could tell to the contrary. While, therefore, I was exceedingly anxious, for reasons of my own, to get a nearer peep at the place without a moment's unnecessary delay, I felt bound to point out to the ladies the absolute necessity for determining the question whether or not there were any inhabitants on the island before exposing them to the possible risk of a landing.

The objections to an immediate landing on the part of the ladies did not, however, apply with equal force in the case of us of the sterner sex; I therefore ordered the gig to be lowered, and, arming myself and each of the crew with a brace of loaded revolvers, prepared to make a preliminary trip as far as the creek referred to in the cryptogram. Upon hearing me give the order to get the boat ready, Sir Edgar asked permission to accompany me; and a few minutes later we shoved off, and headed up the river.

The waterway, as far up as we could see, maintained a tolerably even width of some two hundred yards, the deepest water being close alongside the western shore, which was very steep, and wooded clear down to the water's edge. Here, with the assistance of the hand-lead, I found a minimum depth of two fathoms; but the bottom was very uneven, and in a few places I found as much as five fathoms of water. From these depths the bottom seemed to slope pretty uniformly upward towards the opposite or eastern bank, the slope of which was much more gentle, a narrow margin of very fine white sand intervening between the water and the deep, rich, chocolate-coloured soil. The varieties of trees and shrubs were countless, ranging all the way from the smallest and most delicate flowering plants to magnificent forest giants, some of which must have towered at least a hundred and fifty feet above the surface of the ground. Cocoa-nut palms formed a continuous fringe along the inner margin of the sandy beach; and beyond them were to be seen every imaginable species of tropical plant and tree, with foliage ranging in tint from the palest, most delicate green to deepest olive or purple black. The waving fronds of the delicate feathery bamboo were everywhere visible, while creepers in endless variety trailed their long cordlike stems and gaudy blossoms in all directions. The still, evening air vibrated with the continuous hissing buzz of countless millions of insects, and a few birds flitted noiselessly hither and thither among the gathering shadows; but no sign of a human form, not even the imprint of a footstep on the soft white sand, anywhere met my searching gaze.

At a distance of about half a mile, or perhaps a little less, from the mouth of the river, the shore on our starboard hand merged into a low wooded point, round which we swept, out of the main channel, into a charming basin, some two miles wide, surrounded on every side by high land, sloping gently backward from the water's edge, and magnificently broken by deep, precipitous ravines, some of which could be traced from the heart of the surrounding hills clear down to the water's edge. The centre of the basin was occupied by an islet, roughly circular in shape, and about half a mile in diameter, as we discovered by pulling round it. This islet was the hiding-place of the treasure, if the cryptogram was to be believed; and I accordingly inspected it as narrowly as the swiftly gathering darkness would permit, so that I might carry a tolerably distinct impression of it in my mind's eye, as an aid to the plan that I must now definitely form and arrange before the next sunrise. As may be supposed, I had by this time got the words of the cryptogram off by heart—and, indeed, had destroyed the translation, lest it should fall into other hands—I therefore knew exactly what I had to look for as a mark to guide me to the hiding-place of the treasure, and accordingly kept a very sharp lookout for "the obelisk rock." There was only one rock to be seen on the islet that at all answered to this description, and that, so far as I could distinguish in the gloom, was a pointed, needle-like mass, forming the summit of a steep cliff that rose precipitously from the water's edge and constituted the northern extremity of the islet. But on getting round to the other side I was vexed and chagrined to find that the whole surface of the islet on the southern side of this curious cliff was densely overgrown with trees and scrub, which would certainly have to be cut deeply into in order to arrive at the spot where the treasure was said to be buried. This condition of affairs, natural enough though it was, had somehow never occurred to me; I had fully expected to find the hiding-place located in an open space that might be conveniently traversed in any and every direction, enabling the situation of the treasure to be determined by the simple process of measuring off a thousand feet in a direction due south from the base of the obelisk rock. Possibly that might have been the condition of the islet at the period when the treasure was buried—indeed, it very probably was—but there had been ample time for the ground to have become overgrown since then; and now it was so densely covered with vegetation that it would be hopeless to think of getting at the hiding-place without the assistance of the men. And that meant the absolute overthrow of my plan to keep the recovery of the treasure a secret from them!

What was to be done? I racked my brains during the whole of the long, hot, breathless night in a fruitless endeavour to devise some satisfactory way out of the difficulty, and arose from my sleepless bunk next morning with a splitting headache, and nothing in the shape of a settled plan beyond the determination to find a good long job for the men, the execution of which should afford me further time for reflection, and perhaps allow events to develop themselves.

Acting, then, upon this resolution, I caused the gig to be brought alongside immediately after breakfast; and ordered the axes and shovels to be passed into her, at the same time issuing instructions for all hands except the cook and steward to get into her and go on shore with me. The men bustled about, nothing loth—for were they not going to get a change from the monotony of sea life, and, at the same time, provide themselves with the means of unlimited indulgence in more or less vicious enjoyment for the remainder of their lives?—and I noticed, with impotent anger, that, having at length arrived, as they supposed, at the goal of their villainous schemes, with the wealth which was to be the reward of their treachery all but within their grasp, as they believed, the restraint which they had hitherto so rigorously imposed upon themselves was in a measure laid aside, and they began to reveal themselves, both in speech and in action, as the unscrupulous scoundrels that they were.

I paid no attention, however, to anything I saw or heard, leaving them to believe, if they pleased, that I regarded their behaviour as a simple ebullition of high spirits at the prospect of a little recreation ashore; and passing my sextant and other paraphernalia carefully down into the boat, quickly followed them and gave the order to shove off.

There were twelve of us, all told, in the boat; she was therefore pretty deep in the water. Notwithstanding which, so eager were the men to get at the treasure, that in less than ten minutes from the time of leaving the ship we were once more in the creek, and pulling toward its head or north-eastern corner, at which point I had noticed on the preceding evening that the timber appeared to be growing more thickly and heavily than elsewhere, and where, consequently, the task of penetrating it for any distance would involve the greatest labour and consume the most time.

As we drew near the shore at this point I observed—what had escaped my notice on the preceding evening—that a small stream of beautifully clear, crystal water came brawling down through a steep, narrow ravine, and discharged itself into the creek exactly at the spot for which we were heading, and I at once resolved to avail myself of its presence as a means of deluding the men into the belief that they were working at the right spot.

Accordingly, when the boat grounded upon the beach, I ordered everybody out of her, with the picks and shovels, and set all hands to work cutting pegs and long slender rods, under the direction of the boatswain, retaining Forbes and San Domingo, the negro, as assistants in my own especial part of the work. Within ten minutes, the fellows had cut all the pegs and rods I could possibly require; and then, looking carefully and anxiously about me, I at length fixed a stout peg, with the nicest accuracy, in the sand at its junction with the grass, and exactly at the edge of the stream. Then I sent men here and there with long wands, which I made them hold exactly perpendicular on the ground, adjusting their positions with the most finicking precision, until I had wrought them all firmly into the belief that the whole of this labour was gone through for the purpose of finding the exact spot where the treasure lay buried. Finally, I set out by compass, and indicated, by means of two long slender rods stuck upright into the sand, a line that would take them straight into the bush where it was thickest and most impenetrable, and told them to cut a straight line in that direction, exactly two thousand yards in length from a peg which I had driven at the margin of the bush.

This task I entrusted to Rogers and the six other men, who struck me as being the blackest sheep of the flock; while, with Forbes, Joe Martin, Barr, Mckinley, Christianssen, and San Domingo, I took the boat, with a sufficient supply of axes and shovels, and made the best of my way to the southern side of the small islet upon which the treasure was said to be hidden.

Upon our arrival at the desired spot, my impression of the preceding evening that it was entirely overgrown was fully confirmed, it proving to be literally impossible to find a place where a landing could be effected without first clearing away the scrub. There was this difference, however, between the growth on the islet and that at the spot where I had left the boatswain and his party at work, that whereas the latter consisted almost exclusively of huge trees, the former was composed largely of scrub, with only a few trees here and there, so that it would not be nearly so difficult to penetrate as the other. It was evident indeed to me at a glance, now that I had the full light of day to aid me in my inspection, that the growth upon the islet was of much more recent date than that upon any part of the main island in sight from that spot; a fact which tended to confirm my previous suspicion that at the time of the burial of the treasure the soil of the islet had been bare, or nearly so, of arboreal growth.

The growth, however, was there now, and it constituted a very formidable difficulty, for how was I to identify a point exactly one thousand feet south of the obelisk rock, unless I could move freely over the ground for the purpose of obtaining my precise bearing and distance?

Suddenly a brilliant idea struck me. Immediately opposite the point on the islet at which I wished to land, there was a broad strip of sandy beach, constituting indeed part of the margin of the basin, of which the islet formed the centre. Would it be possible to make my measurements from that point? There could be no harm in trying, at all events, and we accordingly pulled across the water, landing at a part of the beach that looked eminently promising. The first thing was to determine the direction of a line running due south from the topmost pinnacle of the obelisk rock, and after a few trials with the compass, I got this. My next act was to erect a line perpendicular to this along the sandy margin of the basin, which I accomplished with the aid of my sextant, taking care to make this second line as long as the nature of the ground would allow. Then, driving a peg into the sand at the intersection of these two lines, and another at the farther extremity of my second line, I had a right-angled triangle, whereof the two pegs and the obelisk rock marked the angles. I had now only to measure very carefully my second line, which I did by means of a surveyor's tape measure, bought at Sydney for the purpose, and to take the angle between the perpendicular and the hypothenuse of my triangle, when I had the means of calculating all or any of the elements of the triangle that I desired. In this way, then, I ascertained that the pinnacle of the obelisk rock was exactly six thousand four hundred and seventy-seven feet due north of the peg I had driven into the sand to mark the intersection of my two lines. Then, returning to this same peg, I sent Forbes away to the islet in the boat, with instructions to set up one of the oars, with a white pocket-handkerchief attached to it, on the shore of the islet at the precise spot I should indicate to him by signal. This spot I arranged to be exactly in line with the peg and the obelisk rock; all three points, therefore, were in one straight line, the bearing of which was due north and south, while its northern extremity was the obelisk rock. My next task was to take an angle to the oar from the peg at which I had taken the angle to the obelisk rock, which enabled me to determine that the oar was three thousand eight hundred and two feet from the intersecting peg, and consequently two thousand six hundred and seventy-five feet from the obelisk rock. This completed all the data I required; for I had now only to drive a bold, conspicuous staff into the sand in place of my intersecting peg, and another into the ground on the islet where the oar now stood, and by cutting back into the scrub for a distance of one thousand six hundred and seventy-five feet toward the obelisk rock, using these two staves as guides to keep their line straight, the workers would reach a spot exactly a thousand feet south from the obelisk rock; or, in other words, the hiding-place of the treasure. The two guiding-staves were soon fixed, and then, leaving Forbes to superintend the operations of Joe, Barr, and Mckinley, I replaced my instruments in the boat and, with Christianssen and San Domingo at the oars, paddled on board the barque for the purpose of bringing Sir Edgar and the whole of his party on shore, in order that they might indulge in a run on the beautiful sandy strand of the basin, and enjoy a nearer view of the entrancing loveliness of this exquisite gem of the Pacific.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE FINDING OF THE TREASURE: AND WHAT FOLLOWED.

Knowing that there was work enough to occupy the party on the islet for probably the next two days, I did not consider it necessary to keep a watch upon their labours, but left them with Forbes in charge, and joined the Desmond party in a ramble over the island. This, by following the ravines, the bottoms of which were comparatively free from undergrowth, we found less difficult of accomplishment than we had anticipated; and although the toil of clambering up the steep acclivities, and over the smooth boulders that in many places encumbered the way, proved rather trying to our unaccustomed limbs, we nevertheless managed to make our way to the summit of "the Nose," as we called it, from whence we obtained a superb panoramic view of the entire island. That the place was uninhabited we could now no longer doubt; for although from our lofty standpoint we had the whole surface of the island spread out like a map beneath us, there was nowhere any break whatever in the dense vegetation which flourished so luxuriantly on the rich soil; nothing whatever to indicate the existence of cleared and cultivated patches, as there certainly would have been, had the island been inhabited. Nor did we observe any sign or trace whatever of animals of any sort; birds seemed to be the only living creatures inhabiting this lovely spot, and they appeared to swarm in thousands wherever we happened to come upon a comparatively open space. Fruits of several kinds abounded on the island, among the most abundant being bananas, mangoes, breadfruit, and cocoa-nuts. We were also fortunate enough to come upon several granadilla vines, the product of which was just ripe, and we accordingly loaded ourselves with as many of these delicious fruits as we could carry.

Our return journey was effected by a somewhat shorter route than that which we had followed on our outward way, and eventually we hit upon a ravine down which brawled a small stream of deliciously sweet crystal-clear water, following which we came out upon the margin of the basin at the point where Rogers and his party were working. Despite the intense heat and a perfect plague of mosquitoes the fellows were toiling as if for life, and had already succeeded in clearing a line of fully a hundred feet in length. I critically examined their work, pronounced it all right, and we then went on to the islet, Sir Edgar and I discussing by the way the distracting question of how the crew were to be dealt with in the event of our finding the treasure. The question seemed to resolve itself into this—that the men must either be taken away in the ship, or left on the island; and if the former, they would certainly have to be taken as prisoners, since, if free, they would assuredly seize the ship, even if they had to murder me in order to accomplish their purpose. As prisoners, however, they would be worse than useless; they would be a continual menace and source of anxiety. Sir Edgar consequently agreed with me that I should be fully justified in leaving them—or, at all events, the worst of them—behind; and this I at length determined to do; watching my opportunity to divide them up into small parties, upon some pretext, and making prisoners of them in detail; thus minimising the risk of a fight and its too probable accompaniment, loss of life. There would be no likelihood whatever of the rascals starving in such a land of plenty as the island had proved to be; they could not possibly suffer any very serious discomfort in so genial a climate; and, the treasure once secured, it would be no difficult matter to arrange for their speedy rescue. This matter settled, I felt somewhat easier in my mind, and now only required an opportunity to discuss and arrange the details with Forbes and Joe.

On reaching the islet we found that here, too, wonderful progress had been made, the party under Forbes having already cleared a line through the scrub of very nearly four hundred feet in length. This was due to the fact that they had hitherto encountered no trees in the actual line of their work, though several had been very narrowly missed. It was apparent, however, that on the morrow they would be less fortunate; for which I was by no means sorry, as it would lengthen the duration of the work, and afford me a better opportunity for completing my plans. That same evening, after dinner, Forbes, Sir Edgar, and I discussed the matter in detail, and finally completed certain arrangements that appeared to us to promise a fairly satisfactory solution of the whole difficulty. On the following day I found an opportunity to communicate to Joe the pith of these arrangements—which were to be put into operation as soon as ever the treasure, if found, should be safely placed on board the barque—and he cheerfully undertook to maintain a constant watch for my signals, and to be ready for action whenever I should make them.

The next three days passed uneventfully away, the men working perhaps not quite so hard as they had at the outset, but still making fairly good progress. The party on the islet had reached to within eighty feet of their goal when they knocked off that night; and now, for the first time, I think, I began to fully realise the momentous character of the issues that were probably to be decided within the next twenty-four hours. Would the treasure be found? Hitherto it had never occurred to me to seriously reflect that there might possibly be an unfavourable reply to this question; but now that only a few short hours lay between me and certainty, I suddenly began to comprehend how much depended upon whether that reply should prove to be Yea or Nay; and an almost uncontrollable impatience to have the matter definitely decided took possession of me, rendering sleep that night an impossibility. But, even with the impatient, though time may lag upon leaden wings, he passes at last; and the morning at length dawned upon me with my nerves quieted and steadied by exhaustion and the reaction from the night's intolerable excitement.

As it was confidently expected that, if the treasure really existed, and still reposed in its alleged hiding-place, it would that day be found, the ladies determined to go on shore to witness its disinterment, taking the nursemaids and children with them in order that the latter might enjoy what would probably prove to be their last opportunity for a ramble on the lovely island. Accordingly, the party being a large one, both gigs were manned, and all hands of us, even to the cook and steward, went ashore, leaving the ship to take care of herself; the wind being a gentle breeze from the eastward, or somewhat off the land, with a fine, settled look about the weather. Rogers and his party resumed their usual work at the head of the basin; and Forbes, with his gang, vigorously attacked the narrow belt of scrub that still interposed between them and their goal.

It happened, however, that this bit of scrub was more thickly dotted with trees than any other portion that they had yet met with, so that it was four o'clock in the afternoon before a very careful final measurement assured us that the most laborious part of our task had come to an end. The ground, however, was still covered with debris, which had to be cleared away before the actual digging operations could be commenced, and this occupied fully another hour. By this time the evening shadows had begun to climb up the hillsides; nevertheless the men seized their picks and shovels, and, with renewed energy, began to turn up the ground.