was kneeling by the dislodged roots of our old tree,
and, as he caught my eye, began an uncouth pantomime of surprise and
wonder; then stooped, grasped a handful of something, and held it aloft
with extravagant gestures. He bawled again, and, having got closer by
this time, I heard the words:

"Doubloons, Mr. Nick! Pieces-of-eight! Spanish dollars! Doubloons!"

"Heaven help us all!" went through me, "Here's another gone mad."

The spectacle put our search momentarily from my mind. I knew Crump's
head to be none of the strongest, and I should never have guessed what
had actually happened--for surely this was a strange place and way in
which to stumble upon old Admiral Pendarves' treasure!

Yet that was what the carrier had done; he was never saner in his life.
It lay before us, a considerable heap of gold and silver coins,
tarnished but recognizable, in a rotting wooden keg sunk into the ground
at the foot of the tree and partly meshed in its roots. Crump plowed
among the coins with his hand.

"There's a mort of money here, Mr. Nicol," he said, "and there's been
more. Look, here's some of it scattered out in the grass; it couldn't
have got away out there of itself. And here's a footprint in the mud."
He looked up thoughtfully. "Likely some of it's on its way to Sidmouth
now," said he. "I thought his pockets bulged."

"Well, I wish him joy of it!" said I.

"Lord, you could have the law on him for that, Mr. Nicol. Ain't you
going to?"

"Not I!" said I, holding Mary's hand.

Something in this attitude must have moved Crump to his next remark. He
looked us both over with an impartial and dispassionate air, cast a
calculating eye on the treasure; then, "Enough left to get married and
set up on, anyway," he said weightily. "There's worse things in the
world than being married--though you'd hardly believe it. That's what I
often says to Sarah!"

At that Mary Smith snatched her hand suddenly from mine and moved toward
the edge of the cliff, crying out that we must continue our search. I
climbed the orchard wall and looked along the shore. Here the cliff
dropped away almost sheer, and the narrow strip of shingle at its base
was lost in the surf. Farther to the north it widened a little with the
curve of the shore, and through a swaying curtain of rain I could follow
it to a point we called the Notch, near the entrance of the Cat's Mouth;
of late years they have dredged the channel and moored a bell-buoy off
this headl