nding me somehow of
a dog asking for a stick to be thrown into the water, that he may show
how cleverly he can retrieve it. If Billy had possessed a tail I am
certain that at that moment it would have been wagging vigorously.

"Yes, Billy," I said. "I should like to see the ship's log-book.
Enderby tells me that you know where it is kept, and can find it for me.
And I should like another look at the chart that you showed me a little
while ago. Also, if you can put your hand upon that agreement between
your father and Mr Barber, I should like to look through it--with any
other papers there may be, bearing upon the matter. The story is a very
remarkable one, and I feel greatly interested in it."

"Yes, sir," said Billy. "I'll get you the log-book, and the chart,
_and_ the agreement. And I think you'd like to see Father's diary too,
sir. When he met Mr Barber, and they began to talk about goin' huntin'
for the treasure, he started to keep a diary, writin' down in it
everything that Mr Barber told him about it; and there's a drawin' in
it that Mr Barber made--a sort of picture of the place, showing how it
looked, so that they might know it when they saw it again."

"Ah!" said I. "I should certainly like to see that diary, if you care
to show it me. The perusal of it will be most interesting and will
probably tell me all that I want to know."

A few minutes later I was seated at the table, with the chart spread
open before me, the log-book open, and the diary at hand, ready for
immediate reference. The log-book, however, had nothing to do with the
story of the treasure; it simply recorded the daily happenings aboard
the brigantine and her position every noon, from the date of her
departure from London; and the only interest it had for me was that it
enabled me to approximate the position of the ship at the moment of the
tragedy. It had been written up to four o'clock in the afternoon of the
day on which the tragedy had occurred, while the log slate carried on
the story up to midnight. A few minutes sufficed to make me fully
acquainted with all that I required to learn from the log-book, and I
then laid it aside and turned to the diary.

This document was inscribed in a thick manuscript book, and appeared to
have been started about the time when the writer first began seriously
to entertain Barber's proposal to join him in a search for the treasure.
It opened with a record of the meeting between Barber and the