e
never agreed with the poor fellows, and just now he had over four
hundred slaves in barracks, and only one son-in-law, an Englishman,
to look after them.

The old man made me welcome. A father couldn't have shown himself
kinder, and when I told him about the _Mary Pynsent_ he could scarce
contain himself.

"If there's one thing more than another I enjoy at my age," said he,
"'tis a salvage job."

And he actually left the agent--A. G.--in charge of the slaves for
three days, while he and I and three of the women took boat and went
after the vessel. We found her still at her moorings, and brought
her round to Whydah, he and me working her with the youngest of the
three (Sarah by name), while the two others cleaned ship. I cannot
say why exactly, but this woman appeared superior to her sisters,
besides being the best looking. The old man--he had an eye lifting
for everything--took notice of this almost before I knew it myself,
and put it to me that I couldn't do better than to marry her.
The woman, being asked, was willing. She had lost two husbands
already, she told me, but the third time was luck. Her father read
the service over us, out of a Testament he always carried in his
pocket. As for me, since my poor wife's death I had thoroughly given
myself over to the devil, and did not care. Old Klootz was
first-rate company, too; though living in that forsaken place he
seemed to be a dictionary about every ship that had sailed the seas
for forty years past, and to know every scandal about her.
He listened, too, though he seemed to be talking in his full-hearted
way all the time. And the end was that I told him about Melhuish,
and showed him the map.

He had heard about Melhuish, as about everything else; but the map
did truly--I think--surprise him. We studied it together, and he
wound up by saying--

"There's a clever fellow somewhere at the bottom of this, and I
should like to make his acquaintance."

Said I: "Then you believe there is such a treasure hidden?"

"Lord love you," said he, "I know all about that! It happened in the
year '86 at Puerto Bello. A Spaniard, Bartholomew Diaz, that had
been flogged for some trouble in the mines, stirred up a revolt among
the niggers and half-breeds, and came marching down upon the coast
at the head of fourteen thousand or fifteen thousand men, sacking the
convents and looting the mines on his way. He gave himself out to be
some sort of religious prophet, a