One day, as Crusoe and I came down from the ridge, we met Captain
Magnus ascending.  I had in my hand a small metal-backed mirror,
which I had found, surprisingly, lying in a mossy cleft between the
rocks.  It was a thing such as a man might carry in his pocket,
though on the island it seemed unlikely that any one would do' so.
I at once attributed the mirror to Captain Magnus, for I knew that
no one else had been to the ridge for days.  I was wondering as I
walked along whether by some sublime law of compensation the
captain really thought himself beautiful, and sought this retired
spot to admire not the view but his own physiognomy.

When the captain saw me he stopped full in the path.  There was a
growth of fern on either side.  I approached slowly, and, as he did
not move, paused, and held out the mirror.

"I think you must have dropped this, Captain Magnus.  I found it on
the rocks."

For an instant his face changed.  His evasive eyes were turned to
me searchingly and sharply.  He took the glass from my hand and
slipped it into his pocket.  I made a movement to pass on, then
stopped, with a faint dawning of discomfort.  For the heavy figure
of the captain still blocked the path..

A dark flush had come into the man's face.  His yellow teeth showed
between his parted lips.  His eyes had a swimming brightness.

"What's your hurry?" he remarked, with a certain insinuating
emphasis.

I began to tremble.

"I am on my way back to camp, Captain Magnus.  Please let me pass."

"It won't do no harm if you're a little late.  There ain't no one
there keepin' tab.  Ain't you always a-strayin' off with the
Honorable?  I ain't so pretty, but--"

"You are impertinent.  Let me pass."

"Oh, I'm impert'nent, am I?  That means fresh, maybe.  I'm a plain
man and don't use frills on my langwidge.  Well, when I meets a
little skirt that takes my eyes there ain't no harm in lettin' her
know it, is there?  Maybe the Honorable could say it nicer--"

With a forward stride he laid a hand upon my arm.  I shook him off
and stepped back.  Fear clutched my throat.  I had left my revolver
in my quarters.   Oh, the dreadful denseness of these woods, the
certainty that no wildest cry of mine could pierce them!

And then Crusoe, who had been waiting quietly behind me in the
path, slipped in between us.  Every hair on his neck was bristling.
The lifted upper lip snarled unmistakably.  He gave me a swift
glance which said, _Shall I spring_?

Quite suddenly the gorilla blandishments of Captain Magnus came to
an end.

"Say," he said harshly, "hold back that dog, will you?  I don't
want to kill the cur."

"You had better not," I returned coldly.  "I should have to explain
how it happened, you know.  As it is I shall say nothing.  But I
shall not forget my revolver again when I go to walk."

And Crusoe and I went swiftly down the path which the captain no
longer disputed.




IX

"LASSIE, LASSIE. . ."

Two or three days later occurred a painful episode.  The small
unsuspected germ of it had lain ambushed in a discourse of Mr.
Shaw's, delivered shortly after our arrival on the island, on the
multifarious uses of the cocoa-palm.  He told how the juice from
the unexpanded flower-spathes is drawn off to form a potent toddy,
so that where every prospect pleases man may still be vile.
Cookie, experimentally disposed, set to work.  Mr. Vane, also
experimentally, sampled the results of Cookie's efforts.  The
liquor had merely been allowed to ferment, whereas a complicated
process is necessary for the manufacture of the true arrack, but
enough had been achieved to bring about dire consequences for
Cuthbert Vane, who had found the liquid cool and refreshing, and
was skeptical about its potency.

Aunt Jane took the matter very hard, and rebuked the ribald mirth
of Mr. Tubbs.  He had to shed tears over a devastating poem called
"The Drunkard's Home," before she would forgive him.  Cookie made
his peace by engaging to vote the prohibition ticket at the next
election.  My own excuses for the unfortunate were taken in very
ill part.  My aunt said she had always understood that life in the
tropics was very relaxing to the moral fiber, and mine was
certainly affected--and besides she wasn't certain that barons wore
coronets anyhow.

Mr. Shaw was disturbed over Cuthbert, who was not at all bad, only
queer and sleepy, and had to be led away to slumber in retirement.
Also, it was an exceptionally low tide and Mr. Shaw had counted on
taking advantage of it to work in the cave.  Now Cuthbert was laid
up--

"You and I will have to manage by ourselves, Magnus."

"Nothing doing--boat got to be patched up--go out there without it
and get caught!" growled the captain.

"Well, lend a hand, then.  We can be ready with the boat inside an
hour."

The captain hesitated queerly.  His wandering eyes seemed to be
searching in every quarter for something they did not find.  At
last he mumbled that he thought he felt a touch of the sun, and had
decided to lay off for the afternoon and make his way across the
island.  He said he wanted to shoot water-fowl and that they had
all been frightened away from the cove, but that with the glass he
had seen them from Lookout thickly about the other bay.

"Very well," said the Scotchman coldly.  "I suppose you must suit
yourself.  I can get the boat in shape without help, I dare say."
I saw him presently looking in an annoyed and puzzled fashion after
the vanishing figure of the sailor.

Mr. Tubbs and the umbrellas soon disappeared into the woods.  I
believe the search for Bill Halliwell's tombstone was no longer
very actively pursued, and that the trio spent their time ensconced
in a snug little nook with hammocks and cushions, where Mr. Tubbs
beguiled the time with reading aloud--Aunt Jane and Violet both
being provided with literature--and relating anecdotes of his rise
to greatness in the financial centers of the country.  I more than
suspected Mr. Tubbs of feeling that such a bird in the hand as Aunt
Jane was worth many doubloons in the bush.  But in spite of
uneasiness about the future, for the present I rested secure in the
certainty that they could not elope from the island, and that there
was no one on it with authority to metamorphose Aunt Jane into Mrs.
Hamilton H. Tubbs.

The waters of the cove had receded until a fringe of rocks under
the high land of the point, usually covered, had been left bare.  I
had watched the emergence of their black jagged surfaces for some
time before it occurred to me that they offered a means of access
to the cave.  The cave--place of fascination and mystery!  Here was
the opportunity of all others to explore it, unhampered by any one,
just Crusoe and I alone, in the fashion that left me freest to
indulge my dreams.

I waited until the Scotchman's back was safely turned, because if
he saw me setting forth on this excursion he was quite certain to
command me to return, and I had no intention of submitting to his
dictatorial ways and yet was not sure how I was successfully to
defy him.  I believed him capable of haling me lack by force, while
tears or even swoons left him unmoved.  Of course he would take the
absurd ground that the cave was dangerous, in the face of the
glaring fact that a girl who had come to this island solely to
protect Aunt Jane ought certainly to be able to protect herself.
Besides, what right had he to care if I was drowned, anyhow?

But of course I was not going to be.

The retreating tide had left deep pools behind, each a little
cosmos of fairy seaweeds and tiny scuttling crabs and rich and
wonderful forms of life which were strange to me.  Crusoe and I
were very much interested, and lingered a good deal on the way.
But at last we reached the great archway, and passed with a
suddenness which was like a plunge into cool water from the hot
glare of the tropic sunshine into the green shadow of the cavern.

At the lower end, between the two arches, a black, water-worn rock
paving rang under one's feet.  Further in under the point the floor
of the cave was covered with white sand.  All the great shadowy
place was murmuring like a vast sea-shell.  Beyond the southern
archway spread the limitless heaving plain of the Pacific.  Near at
hand bare black rocks rose from the surges, like skeletons of the
land that the sea had devoured.  And after a while these walls that
supported the cavern roof would be nibbled away, and the roof would
fall, and the waves roar victorious over the ruins.

I wished I could visit the place in darkness.  It would be thrice
as mysterious, filled with its hollow whispering echoes, as in the
day.  I dreamed of it as it might have been when a boat from the
_Bonny Lass_ crept in, and the faint winking eye of a lantern
struck a gleam from the dark waters and showed nothing all around
but blackness, and more blackness.

From the ledge far above my head led off those narrow, teasing
crevices in which the three explorers did their unrewarded
burrowing.  I could see the strands of a rope ladder lying coiled
at the edge of the shelf, where it was secured by spikes.  The men
dragged down the ladder with a boat-hook when they wanted to
ascend.  I looked about with a hope that perhaps they had left the
boat-hook somewhere.

I found no boat-hook but instead a spade, which had been driven
deep into the sand and left, too firmly imbedded for the tide to
bear away.  At once a burning hope that I, alone and unassisted,
might bring to light the treasure of the Bonny Lass seethed in my
veins.  I jerked the spade loose and fell to.

I now discovered the great truth that digging for treasure is the
most thrilling and absorbing occupation known to man.  Time ceased
to be, and the weight of the damp and close-packed sand seemed,
that of feathers.  This temporary state of exaltation passed, to be
sure, and the sand got very heavy, and my back ached, but still I
dug.  Crusoe watched proceedings interestedly at first, then
wandered off on business of his own.  Presently he returned and
began to fuss about and bark.  He was a restless little beast,
wanting to be always on the move.  He came and tugged at my skirt,
uttering an uneasy whine.

"Be quiet, Crusoe!" I commanded, threatening him with my spade.
The madness of the treasure-lust possessed me.  I was panting now,
and my hands began to feel like baseball mitts, but still I dug.
Crusoe had ceased to importune me; vaguely I was aware that he had
got tired and run off.  I toiled on, pausing now and then for
breath.  I was leaning on my spade, rather dejectedly considering
the modest excavation I had achieved, when I felt a little cool
splash at my feet.  Dropping my spade I whirled around--and a
shriek echoed through the cave as I saw pouring into it the dark
insidious torrent of the returning tide.

How had I forgotten it, that deadly thing, muttering to itself out
there, ready to spring back like an unleashed beast?  Crusoe had
warned me--and then he had forsaken me, and I was alone.

And yet at first, wild as my terror was, I had no thought but that
somehow I could escape.  That these waters were for me the very
face of death, sure and relentless, terrible and slow, did not at
once seize hold upon my heart.

Frantically I sprang for the entrance on the cove.  The floor of
the cave was sloping, and the water deepened swiftly as I advanced.
Soon I was floundering to my knees, and on the instant a great wave
rushed in, drenching me to the waist, dazing me with its spray and
uproar, and driving me back to the far end of the cave.

With a dreadful hollow sucking sound the surge retreated.  I
staggered again toward the archway that was my only door to life.
The water was deeper now, and swiftly came another fierce inrush of
the sea that drove me back.  Between the two archways a terrible
current was setting.  It poured along with the rush of a mountain
river, wild, dark, tumultuous.

I had fled to the far end of the cave, but the sea pursued me.
Swiftly the water climbed--it flung me against the wall, then
dragged me back.  I clutched at the naked rock with bleeding
fingers.

Again, after a paroxysm during which I had seemed to stand a great
way off and listen to my own shrieks, there came to me a moment of
calm.  I knew that my one tenuous thread of hope lay in launching
myself into that wild flood that was tearing through into the cove.
I was not a strong swimmer, but a buoyant one.  I might find refuge
on some half-submerged rock on the shores of the cove--at least I
should perish in the open, in the sunlight, not trapped like a
desperate rat.  And I began to fight my way toward the opening.

And then a dreadful vision flashed across my mind, weighed down my
feet like lead, choked back even the cry from my frozen lips.
Sharks!  The black cutting fin, the livid belly, the dreadful jaws
opening--no, no, better to die here, better the clean embrace of
the waters--_if indeed the sharks did not come into the cave_.

And then I think I went quite mad.  I remember trying to climb up
to the ledge which hung beetling fifteen feet above.   Afterward my
poor hands showed how desperately.  And I remember that once I
slipped and went clear under, and how I choked and strangled in the
salt water.  For my mouth was always open, screaming, screaming
continually.

And when I saw the boat fighting its way inch by inch into the cave
I was sure that it was a vision, and that only my own wild
beseeching of him to save me had made the face of Dugald Shaw arise
before my dying eyes.  Dugald Shaw was still mending the boat on
the shore of the cove, and this was a mocking phantom.

Only the warm human clasp of the arms that drew me into the boat
made me believe in him.

The boat bobbed quietly in the eddy at the far end of the cave,
while a wet, sobbing, choking heap clung to Dugald Shaw.  I clasped
him about the neck and would not let him go, for fear that I should
find myself alone again, perishing in the dark water.  My head was
on his breast, and he was pressing back my wet hair with strong and
tender hands.

What was this he was saying?  "My lassie, my little, little lassie!"

And no less incredible than this it was to feel his cheek pressed,
very gently, against my hair--

After a little my self-control came back to me.  I stopped my
senseless childish crying, lifted my head and tried to speak.  I
could only whisper, "You came, you came!"

"Of course I came!" he said huskily.  "There, don't tremble so--you
are safe--safe in my arms!"

After a while he lifted me into the stern and began to maneuver the
boat out of the cave.  I suppose at another time I should have
realized the peril of it.  The fierce flow through the archway all
but swamped us, the current threatened to hurl us against the
rocks, but I felt no fear.  He had come to save me, and he would.
All at once the dreadful shadow of the cavern was left behind, and
the sunshine immersed my chilled body like a draught of wine.  I
lay huddled in the stern, my cheek upon my hand, as he rowed
swiftly across the cove and drove the boat upon the beach.

Everybody but Captain Magnus was assembled there, including Crusoe.
Crusoe it was who had given warning of my danger.  Like a wise
little dog, when I ignored his admonitions he had run home.  At
first his uneasiness and troubled barking had got no notice.  Once
or twice the Scotchman, worried by his fretfulness, had ordered him
away.  Then across his preoccupied mind there flashed a doubt.  He
laid down his tools and spoke to the animal.  Instantly Crusoe
dashed for the rocks, barking and crying with eagerness.  But the
path was closed, the tide was hurrying in, and Crusoe whined
pitiably as he crept back and crouched against the man who of
course knew better than a little dog what must be done.

Then Mr. Shaw understood.  He snatched the painter of the boat and
dragged it down the beach.  He was shoving off as Cookie, roused by
Crusoe's barking, appeared from the seclusion of his afternoon
siesta.  To him were borne the Scotchman's parting words:

"Virginia Harding--in the cave--hot blankets--may be drowning--"

"And at dat," said Cookie, relating his part in the near-tragedy
with unction, "I jes' natchully plumped right down on mah ma'ah
bones and wrestled with de Lawd in prayah."

This unique proceeding on Cookie's part necessarily awoke the
interest both of the recovered Cuthbert Vane, just emerging after
his prolonged slumbers, and of the trio who had that moment
returned from the woods.  Importuned for an explanation, Cookie
arose from his devotional posture and put the portentous query:

"Mistah Vane, sah, be dey any propah coffin-wood on dis yere
island?"

Instantly connecting my absence with this terrible question, Aunt
Jane shrieked and fell into the arms of Mr. Tubbs.  I got the story
from Cuthbert Vane, and I must say I was unpleasantly struck by the
facility with which my aunt seemed to have fallen into Mr. Tubbs's
embrace--as if with the ease of habit.  Mr. Tubbs, it appeared, had
staggered a little under his fair burden, which was not to be
wondered at, for Aunt Jane is of an overflowing style of figure and
Mr. Tubbs more remarkable for brain than brawn.  Violet, however,
had remained admirably calm, and exhorted Aunt Jane to remember
that whatever happened it was all for the best.

"Poor Violet," I commented.  "To think that after all it didn't
happen!"

A slow flush rose to the cheeks of the beautiful youth.  He
was sitting beside the hammock, where I was supposed to be
recuperating.  Of course it was to please Aunt Jane that I had to
be an invalid, and she had insisted on mounting guard and reading
aloud from one of Miss Browne's books about Psycho-evolution or
something until Cuthbert Vane came along and relieved her--and me.

"It would have happened, though," said the Honorable Cuthbert
solemnly, "if it hadn't been for old Shaw.  I can't get over it,
Vir--Miss Virginia, that I wasn't on deck myself, you know.  Here's
old Dugald been doing the heroic all his life, and now he gets his
chance again while I'm sleeping off those bally cocoanuts.  It's
hard on a chap.  I--I wish it had been me."

However dubious his grammar, there was no mistaking the look that
brightened like the dawn in the depths of his clear eyes.  My
breath went from me suddenly.

"Oh," I cried excitedly, "isn't that---yes, I _thought_ it was the
dinner gong!"

For as if in response to my dire need, the clang of Cookie's gong
echoed through the island silences.




X

WHAT CRUSOE AND I FOUND

When after those poignant moments in the boat I met Dugald Shaw in
commonplace fashion at the table, a sudden, queer, altogether
unprecedented shyness seized me.  I sat looking down at my plate
with the gaucherie of a silly child.

The episode of the afternoon provided Mr. Tubbs with ammunition for
a perfect fusillade of wit.  He warned Mr. Shaw that hereafter he
might expect Neptune to have a grudge against him for having robbed
the sea-god of his beauteous prey.  I said I thought most likely it
was not Neptune that was robbed but sharks, but sharks not being
classic, Mr. Tubbs would have none of them.  He said he believed
that if Mr. Shaw had not inopportunely arrived, Neptune with his
tripod would soon have up-reared upon the wave.

"Oh--_tripod_, Mr. Tubbs?" I said inquiringly.

"Yes, sure," he returned undaunted.  "Them camera supports is named
for it, you know.  But of course this gay gink of a Sandy had to
come buttin' in.  Too bad the Honorable Bertie had partook so free.
He'd have looked the part all right when it come to rescuin' beauty
in distress.  But Fortune bein' a lady and naturally capricious,
she hands the stunt over to old Sobersides here."

Just then old Sobersides cut across the flow of Mr. Tubbs's
sprightly conversation and with a certain harshness of tone asked
Captain Magnus if he had had good sport on the other side of the
island.  Captain Magnus, as usual, had seemed to feel that time
consecrated to eating was wasted in conversation.  At this
point-blank question he started confusedly, stuttered, and finally
explained that though he had taken a rifle he had carried along
pistol cartridges, so had come home with an empty bag.

At this moment I happened to be looking at Cookie, who was setting
down a dish before Mr. Tubbs.  The negro started visibly, and
rolled his eyes at Captain Magnus with astonishment depicted in
every dusky feature.  He said nothing, although wont to take part
in our conversation as it suited him, but I saw him shake his great
grizzled head in a disturbed and puzzled fashion as he turned away.

After this a chill settled on the table.  You felt a disturbance in
the air, as though wireless currents were crossing and recrossing
in general confusion.  Mr. Tubbs began again on the topic of my
rescue, and said it was too bad Mr. Shaw's name wasn't Paul,
because then we'd be Paul and Virginia, he, he!  My aunt said
encouragingly, how true! because they had lived on an island,
hadn't they?  She had read the book many years ago, and had mostly
forgotten it, not having Mr. Tubbs's marvelous memory, but she
believed there was something quite sad about the end, though very
sweet.  She agreed with Mr. Tubbs that Mr. Vane would have looked
most picturesque going to the rescue on account of his sash, and it
was too bad he had not been able, but never mind, it was most kind
of Mr. Shaw, and she was sure her niece appreciated it though she
was afraid she hadn't thanked Mr. Shaw properly.

By this time it was perfectly clear that Mr. Shaw had been most
inconsiderate in dashing out after me in that thoughtless manner.
He should have waked Cuthbert Vane and helped him to array himself
becomingly in the sash and then sent for a moving-picture man to go
out in another boat and immortalize the touching scene.  All this
came seething to my lips, but I managed to suppress it.  It was
only on Cuthbert Vane's account.  As for my aunt and Mr. Tubbs, I
could have bumped their heads together as remorselessly as two
cocoanuts.  I understood Aunt Jane, of course.  In spite of the
Honorable Cuthbert's recent lapse, her imagination still played
about certain little cards which should announce to an envious
world my engagement to the Honorable Cuthbert Patrick Ruthmore
Vane, of High Staunton Manor, Kent.  So such a _faux pas_ as my
rescue from drowning by a penniless Scotch seaman couldn't but
figure in her mind as a grievance.

I stole a glance at the recipient of these sorry thanks.  His face
was set and--once I should have called it grim, but I knew better
now.  There was nothing I could say or do.  Any words of mine would
have sounded forced and puerile.  What he had done was so far
beyond thanks that spoken gratitude belittled it.  And yet, suppose
he thought that like the rest I had wished another in his place?
Did he think that--could he, with the memory of my arms about his
neck?

I only knew that because of the foolish hateful words that had been
said, the gulf between us was wider than before.

I sat dumb, consumed with misery and hoping that perhaps I might
meet his glance and so tell him silently all that words would only
mar.  But he never looked at me.  And then the first bitterness,
which had made even Cuthbert seem disloyal in wishing himself in
his friend's place, passed, and gave way to dreary doubt.  Cuthbert
knew, of course, that he himself would have prized--what to Dugald
Shaw was a matter of indifference.  Yes, that was it, and the worst
that Dugald Shaw was suffering now was boredom at hearing the
affair so everlastingly discussed.

So I began talking very fast to Mr. Vane and we were very gay and
he tied his own necktie on Crusoe on consideration that he be held
hereafter jointly.  And--because I saw that Dugald Shaw was looking
now--I smiled lingeringly into the eyes of the beautiful youth and
said all right, perhaps we needn't quarrel over our mutual dog, and
then skipped off lightsomely, feeling exactly like a scorpion that
has been wounding itself with its own sting.

As I passed Cookie at his dishpan a sudden thought struck me.

"Cookie," I remarked, "you had a frightfully queer look just now
when Captain Magnus told about having taken the wrong cartridges.
What was the matter?"

Cookie took his hands out of the water and wiped off the suds,
casting about stealthy and mysterious glances.  Then he rolled a
dubious eye at me.

"What was it, Cookie?" I urged.

"War am Cap'n now?"

"Down on the beach; he can't possibly hear you."

"You won't say nothin' to git Cookie in a rumpus?"

"Cross my heart to die, Cookie."

"Well, den"--Cookie spoke in a hoarse whisper--"Cap'n say he forgit
to take his gun ca'tridges.  Miss Jinny, when he come back, I see
him empty his gun ca'tridges out'n his belt and put back his pistol
cartridges.  So dere now!"

I turned from Cookie, too surprised to speak.  Why had Captain
Magnus been at pains to invent a lie about so trivial a matter?  I
recalled, too, that Mr. Shaw's question had confused him, that he
had hesitated and stammered before answering it.  Why?  Was he a
bad shot and ashamed of it?  Had he preferred to say that he had
taken the wrong ammunition rather than admit that he could get no
bag?  That must be the explanation, because there was no other.
Certainly no imaginable errand but the one assigned could have
taken the captain to the other side of the island.

Several days went by, and still the treasure was unfound.  Of
course, as the unexplored space in the cave contracted, so daily
the probability grew stronger that Fortune would shed her golden
smile upon us before night.  Nevertheless, it seemed to me that the
optimistic spirits of most were beginning to flag a little.  Only
Mr. Shaw, though banned as a confirmed doubter and pessimist,
now by the exercise of will kept the others to their task.  It
took all Cuthbert Vane's loyalty, plus an indisposition to be
called a slacker, to strive against the temptation to renounce
treasure-hunting in favor of roaming with Crusoe and me.  As for
Captain Magnus, his restlessness was manifest.  Several times he
had suggested blowing the lid off the island with dynamite, as the
shortest method of getting at the gold.  He was always vanishing on
solitary excursions inland.

Mr. Tubbs remarked, scornfully, that a man with a nose for money
ought to have smelted out the chest before this, but if his own
nasal powers were of that character he did not offer to employ them
in the service of the expedition.  Miss Higglesby-Browne, however,
had taken to retiring to the hut for long private sessions with
herself.  My aunt reverentially explained their purpose.  The
hiding-place of the chest being of course known to the Universal
Wisdom, all Violet had to do was to put herself in harmony and the
knowledge would be hers.  The difficulty was that you had first to
overcome your Mundane Consciousness.  To accomplish this Violet was
struggling in the solitude of the hut.

Meanwhile Mr. Tubbs sat at the feet of Aunt Jane, reading aloud
from a volume entitled _Paeans of Passion_, by a celebrated lady
lyric poet of our own land.

After my meeting with Captain Magnus in the forest, Lookout Ridge
was barred to me.  Crusoe and I must do our rambling in other
directions.  This being so, I bethought me again of the wrecked
sloop lying under the cliffs on the north shore of the cove.  I
remembered that there had seemed to be a way down the cliffs.  I
resolved to visit the sloop again.  The terrible practicality of
the beautiful youth made it difficult to indulge in romantic
musings in his presence.  And to me a derelict brings a keener tang
of romance than any other relic of man's multitudinous and futile
strivings.

The descent of the gully proved an easy matter, and soon I was on
the sand beside the derelict.  Sand had heaped up around her hull,
and filled her cockpit level with the rail, and drifted down the
companion, stuffing the little cabin nearly to the roof, Only the
bow rose free from the white smother of sand.  Whatever wounds
there were in her buried sides were hidden.  You felt that some
wild caprice of the storm had lifted her and set her down here, not
too roughly, then whirled away and left her to the sand.

Crusoe slipped into the narrow space under the roof of the cabin,
and I leaned idly down to watch him through a warped seam between
the planks.  Then I found that I was looking, not at Crusoe, but
into a little dim enclosure like a locker, in which some small
object faintly caught the light.  With a revived hope of finding
relics I got out my knife--a present from Cuthbert Vane--and set
briskly to work widening the seam.

I penetrated finally into a small locker or cubby-hole, set in the
angle under the roof of the cabin, and, as subsequent investigation
showed, so placed as to attract no notice from the casual eye.  I
ascertained this by lying down and wriggling my head and shoulders
into the cabin.  In other words, I had happened on a little private
depository, in which the owner of the sloop might stow away certain
small matters that concerned him intimately.  Yet the contents of
the locker at first seemed trifling.  They were an old-fashioned
chased silver shoe-buckle, and a brown-covered manuscript book.

The book had suffered much from dampness, whether of rains or the
wash of the sea.  The imitation leather cover was flaking off, and
the leaves were stuck together.  I seated myself on the cabin roof,
extracted a hairpin, and began carefully separating the
close-written pages.  The first three or four were quite illegible,
the ink having run.  Then the writing became clearer.  I made out a
word here and there:

. . . . directions vague . . . . my grandfather . . . .
man a ruffian but . . . . no motive . . . . police of
Havana . . . . frightful den . . . . grandfather made
sure . . . . registry . . . . _Bonny Lass_ . . . .

And at that I gave a small excited shriek which brought Crusoe to
me in a hurry.  What had he to do, the writer of this journal, what
had he to do with the _Bonny Lass_?

Breathlessly I read on:

. . . . thought captain still living but not
sure . . . . lost . . . . Benito Bon . . . .

I closed the book.  Now, while the coast was clear, I must get back
to camp.  It would take hours, perhaps days, to decipher the
journal which had suddenly become of such supreme importance.  I
must smuggle it unobserved into my own quarters, where I could read
at my leisure.  As I set out I dropped the silver shoe-buckle into
my pocket, smiling to think that it was I who had discovered the
first bit of precious metal on the island.  Yet the book in my
hand, I felt instinctively, was of more value than many
shoe-buckles.

Safely in my hammock, with a pillow under which I could slip the
book in case of interruption, I resumed the reading.  From this
point on, although the writing was somewhat faded, it was all, with
a little effort, legible.


THE DIARY

If Sampson did live to tell his secret, then any day there may be a
sail in the offing.  And still I can not find it!  Oh, if my
grandfather had been more worldly wise!  If he hadn't been too
intent on the eternal welfare of the man he rescued from the Havana
tavern brawl to question him about his story.  A cave on Leeward
Island--near by a stone marked with the letters B. H. and a
cross-bones--_I told the captain_, said the poor dying wretch, _we
wouldn't have no luck after playing it that low down on Bill_!  So
I presume Bill lies under the stone.

Well, all I have is in this venture.  The old farm paid for the
_Island Queen_--or will, if I don't get back in time to prevent
foreclosure.  All my staid New England relatives think me mad.  A
copra gatherer!  A fine career for a minister's son!  Think how
your father scrimped to send you to college--Aunt Sarah reproached
me.  Well, when I get home with my Spanish doubloons there will be
another story to tell.  I won't be poor crazy Peter then.  And
Helen--oh, how often I wish I had told her everything!  It was too
much to ask her to trust me blindly as I did.  But from the moment
I came across the story in grandfather's old, half-forgotten
diary--by the way, the diary habit seems to run in the family--a
very passion of secrecy has possessed me.  If I had told Helen, I
should have had to dread that even in her sweet sleep she might
whisper something to put that ferret, her stepmother, on the scent.
Oh, Helen, trust me, trust me!

December 25.  I have a calendar with me, so I am not reduced to
notching a stick to keep track of the days.  I mark each off
carefully in the calendar.  If I were to forget to do this, even
for a day or two, I believe I should quite lose track.  The days
are so terribly alike!

My predecessor here in the copra-gathering business, old Heintz,
really left me a very snug establishment.  It was odd that I should
have run across him at Panama that way.  I sounded him on the
question of treasure.  He said placidly that of course the island
had been the resort of Edward Davis and Benito Bonito and others of
the black flag gentry, and he thought it very likely they had left
some of their spoils behind them, but though he had done a little
investigating as he had time he had come on nothing but a ship's
lantern, a large iron kettle, and the golden setting of a bracelet
from which the jewels had been removed.  He had already disposed of
the bracelet.  The kettle I found here, and sank in the spring to
keep the water clear.  (Where it still is.  V. H.)  Evidently old
Heintz knew nothing of the _Bonny Lass_.  This was an immense
satisfaction, as it proves that the story can not have been noised
about.

Christmas Day!  I wonder what they are all doing at home?  December
28.  Of course the cave under the point is the logical place.  I
have been unable to find any stone marked B. H. on the ground above
it, but I fear that a search after Bill's tombstone would be