. "But what do all these figures
mean?" And Tom observed how the paper shook and rustled in the tremor
of excitement that shook his hand. He raised the paper to the focus of
his spectacles and began to read again. "'Mark 40, 72, 91--'"

"Mark?" cried out Tom, almost screaming. "Why, that must mean the stake
yonder; that must be the mark." And he pointed to the oaken stick with
its red tip blazing against the white shimmer of sand behind it.

"And the 40 and 72 and 91," cried the old gentleman, in a voice equally
shrill--"why, that must mean the number of steps the pirate was
counting when you heard him."

"To be sure that's what they mean!" cried Tom Chist. "That is it, and
it can be nothing else. Oh, come, sir--come, sir; let us make haste and
find it!"

"Stay! stay!" said the good gentleman, holding up his hand; and again
Tom Chist noticed how it trembled and shook. His voice was steady
enough, though very hoarse, but his hand shook and trembled as though
with a palsy. "Stay! stay! First of all, we must follow these
measurements. And 'tis a marvellous thing," he croaked, after a little
pause, "how this paper ever came to be here."

"Maybe it was blown here by the storm," suggested Tom Chist.

"Like enough; like enough," said Parson Jones. "Like enough, after the
wretches had buried the chest and killed the poor black man, they were
so buffeted and bowsed about by the storm that it was shook out of the
man's pocket, and thus blew away from him without his knowing aught of
it."

"But let us find the box!" cried out Tom Chist, flaming with his
excitement.

"Aye, aye," said the good man; "only stay a little, my boy, until we
make sure what we're about. I've got my pocket-compass here, but we
must have something to measure off the feet when we have found the peg.
You run across to Tom Brooke's house and fetch that measuring-rod he
used to lay out his new byre. While you're gone I'll pace off the
distance marked on the paper with my pocket-compass here."

VI

Tom Chist was gone for almost an hour, though he ran nearly all the way
and back, upborne as on the wings of the wind. When he returned,
panting, Parson Jones was nowhere to be seen, but Tom saw his footsteps
leading away inland, and he followed the scuffling marks in the smooth
surface across the sand-humps and down into the hollows, and by-and-by
found the good gentleman in a spot he at once knew as soon as he laid
his eyes upon it.

It was the open sp