ibly want.

[Illustration: 'THE HAVEN,' FOWEY[E]]

But even a treasure hunt is a poor affair unless you have two parties
vying for the booty, and a curse can hardly be worked effectively until
you introduce the fighting element, and make destiny strike her blows
through the passions--hate, greed, &c.--of her victims. I had shaped my
story to this point: the treasure was to be buried by a man who had
slain his comrade and only confidant in order to enjoy the booty alone,
and had afterwards become aware of the curse attached to its possession.
And the descendants of these two men were to be rivals in the search for
it, each side possessing half of the clue. It was at this point that,
like George IV., I invented a buckle. My buckle had two clasps, and on
these the secret of the treasure was so engraved as to become
intelligible only when they were united.

My plot had now taken something like a shape; but it had one serious
defect. It would not start to walk. Coax it as I might it would not
budge. Even the worst book must have a beginning--this reflection was no
less distressing than obvious, for mine had none. And there is no saying
it would ever have found one but for a lucky accident.

In the Long Vacation of 1885 I spent three weeks or a month at the
Lizard pollacking and reading Plato. Knowing at that time comparatively
little of this corner of the coast, I had brought one or two guide books
and local histories in the bottom of my portmanteau. One evening, after
a stiff walk along the cliffs, I put the 'Republic' aside for a certain
'History and Description of the Parish of Mullyon,' by its vicar, the
Rev. E. G. Harvey, and came upon a passage that immediately shook my
scraps of invention into their proper places.

The passage in question was a narrative of the wreck of the 'Jonkheer
Meester Van de Wall,' a Dutch barque, on the night of March 25, 1867. I
cannot quote at length the vicar's description of this wreck; but in
substance and in many of its details it is the story of the 'Belle
Fortune' in 'Dead Man's Rock.' The vessel broke up in the night and
drowned every soul on board except a Greek sailor, who was found early
next morning clambering about the rocks under cliff, between Polurrian
and Poljew. This man's behaviour was mysterious from the first, and his
evidence at the inquest held on the drowned bodies of his shipmates was,
to say the least, extraordinary. He said: 'My name is Georgio Buffani. I
was s