de a bolt to escape, and the
tale is he was getting clear off when one of the Spanish seamen let
fly with his musket into the bushes and bowled him over like a
rabbit. It was a chance shot, and of course it put an end to all
hope of finding the treasure. They ransacked the island for a week
or more, but found never a dollar; and before giving it up some
inclined to believe what one of the prisoners had said, that the
treasure had never been buried in Mortallone at all, but in the
island of Roatan, some leagues to the eastward. But, if you ask my
opinion, the stranger that took lodgings with Melhuish was the mate
Griffiths, and no other. There has always been rumours that he got
away with the secret. Know about it?" said old Klootz. "Why, there
was even a song made up about it--

"'O, we threw the bodies over, and forth we did stand
Till the tenth day we sighted what seemed a pleasant land,
And alongst the Kays of Mortallone!'"

From the first the old man had no doubt but we had struck the secret.
All the way home he was scheming, and the very night we reached
Whydah again he came out with a plan.

"Have you ever read your Bible?" said he.

"A little," I said, "between whiles; but latterly not much."

"The more shame to you," said he, "for it is a good book. But you
ought to have heard of Noah, if you ever read the Book at all, for he
comes almost at the beginning. Well, I've a notion almost as good as
Noah's and not so very different. We will take the _Mary Pynsent_
and put all the family on board, for we must take A. G. (naming the
Englishman, his other son-in-law), and I don't like to leave the
women alone, here in this wicked place. We will pack her up with
slaves and sail her across to Barbadoes. 'Tis an undertaking for a
man of my years, but a man is not old until he feels old; and I have
been wanting for a long time to see if trade in the Barbadoes is so
bad as the skippers pretend, cutting down my profits. At Barbadoes
we can hire a pinnace. Daniel Coffin, you and me will go into this
business in partnership," says he.

The old fellow, once set going, had the pluck of a boy. The very
next night he called in A. G., and took him into the secret, in his
bluff way overriding me, that was for keeping it close between us
two. That the map was mine did not trouble him. He agreed that I
should be guardian of it, but took charge of all the outfit, ordering
me about sometimes like a