he Portuguese, by all means let them lie frozen."

"But, my friend," said he, calling me _mon ami_, which I translate,
"that's not it, either. Do you know the value of the booty in this
schooner?"

I answered, No; how was I to know it? I had met with nothing but wearing
apparel, and some pieces of money, and a few watches in the forecastle.
He knit his brows with a fierce suspicious gleam in his eyes.

"But you have searched the vessel?" he cried.

"I have searched, as you call it--that is, I have crawled through the
hold as far as the powder-room."

"And further aft?"

"No, not further aft."

His countenance cleared.

"You scared me!" said he, fetching a deep breath. "I was afraid that
some one had been beforehand with us. But it is not conceivable. No! we
shall look for it presently, and we shall find it."

"Find what, Mr. Tassard?" said I.

He held up the fingers of his right hand: "One, two, three, four,
five--five chests of plate and money; one, two, three--three cases of
virgin silver in ingots; one chest of gold ingots; one case of
jewellery. In all----" he paused to enter into a calculation, moving his
lips briskly as he whispered to himself--"between ninety and one hundred
thousand pounds of your English money."

I stifled the amazement his words excited, and said coldly, "You must
have met with some rich ships."

"We did well," he answered. "My memory is good"--he counted afresh on
his fingers--"ten cases in all. Fortune is a strange wench, Mr. Rodney.
Who would think of finding her lodged on an iceberg? Now bring those
others up there to life, and you make us five. What would follow, think
you? what but this?"

He raised his beard and stroked his throat with the sharp of his hand.
Then, swallowing a great draught of brandy, he rose and stopped to
listen.

"It is blowing hard," said he; "the harder the better. I want to see
this island knocked into bergs. Every sea is as good as a pickaxe. Hark!
there are those crackling noises I used to hear before I fell into a
stupor. Where do you sleep?"

I told him.

"My berth is the third," said he. "I wish to smoke, and will fetch my
pipe."

He took the lanthorn and went aft, acting as if he had left that berth
an hour ago, and I understood in the face of this ready recurrence of
his memory how impossible it would be ever to make him believe he had
been practically lifeless since the year 1753. When he returned he had
on a hairy cap, with large c