my leave.

"He opened the subject himself about a week later, during which I
had become very thick with him. He said that, in his belief, there
was money in it, and I was a fool not to take it up. I answered,
What could I do? He said there was ways and means that a lad of
spirit ought to be able to discover. With that he talked no more of
it that day, but it cropped up again, and by little and little he so
worked me up that I took to dreaming of the cursed thing.

"This went on for another fortnight, during which time he told me a
deal about himself, very frank--as that he was the son of an English
sea-captain and a Spanish woman, and was born in Havana; that he had
been educated by the Jesuits, who had meant to make a priest of him;
that, not being able to abide the Spaniards, he had chased over to
Port Royal and studied chemistry in the college there. It was there,
he said, he had discovered a preparation for curing the hides of
animals so that the hair never dropped off, but remained as firm and
fresh as life. He told me that for this secret Davis and Atchison
paid him better than any of their clerks.

"At the end of a fortnight he sailed for Carbonear. He returned as I
was making ready for the summer trip, and laid a scheme before me
that took my breath away. He had spoken to Mr. Atchison, the junior
partner, and engaged a schooner, the _Willing Mind_; likewise a crew.
I was to command her, being the only one of the lot that understood
navigation. For the crew he had picked up a mixed lot at Carbonear
and St. John's--good seamen, but mostly unknown to one another.
They were the less likely, he said, to smell out our purpose until we
reached the island, and for the rest I might trust to him. He had
laid our plans before Mr. Atchison, who approved. If I listened to
him without arguing, he would make my fortune and my sister's as
well.

"I had never met a man of his quality before. I was a young fool,
yet not altogether such a fool but I had persuaded my sister to hand
the map over to me, and wore it always about me. She told me that
she had shown it twice to Martin, but never for more than two minutes
at a time, and had never let it go out of her hands. I wonder now
that he didn't murder her for it; and the only reason must be that he
reckoned to use me for navigating the ship, and then to get rid of
me.

"A fool I was even to the extent of letting him talk me over when I
found he had engaged tw