time of Barber's visit he was destitute of all
means to make notes or records of any kind, for his story was set down
entirely from memory, and was singularly barren of all information but
that of the most general character; there were no little illuminating
details to tell us whether we were or were not nearing our goal. The
one solitary fact from which I could draw a useful deduction was that,
at the time of Barber's arrival in the estuary, he was very ill and
weak, yet despite his feeble condition he was able to reach certain
trees, the fruit of which restored him to health. Now, from that fact I
deduced the inference that the particular fruit-trees to which Barber
owed his restoration must of necessity be at no great distance from the
beach, otherwise the man would not have had strength to reach them;
hence, to find the spot at or near which Barber landed, we must look for
a part of the plain where trees were growing within, say, two or three
hundred yards of the water's edge. There was just one such clump
abreast the spot where we had anchored, apart from which I could see no
others anything like so near the beach for a distance of fully a mile to
the eastward.

I confess that I entered upon this treasure-hunt hampered by a very
strong feeling of doubt. Of course I had ocular evidence of the
existence of such a place as Barber had described as that where the
treasure was to be found, for there it was, visibly before me. I was
also prepared to lend credence to the story of the stranded hulk,
strange as that story might seem, for I actually had personal knowledge
of even stranger happenings than that; but it was the existence of the
treasure itself--those steel-bound chests packed with gold, silver, and
gems--that I doubted. According to Barber's own story he was crazy when
he drifted into the estuary, and, although he may not have known it, he
perhaps remained crazy all the time he was there; and if it was indeed
true that he had stumbled upon a stranded ancient hulk, that very fact
may have so excited his disordered brain as to cause him to imagine the
treasure. Looking back at the episode now, after the lapse of years,
that, it appears to me, was very much my mental attitude with regard to
it; yet, my doubts notwithstanding, I was determined to leave no stone
unturned to test Barber's story to the uttermost; consequently when,
late in the afternoon of the following day, we actually came upon the
hulk, my ch