ese years she'll be as
clean forgotten as if she had never had existence."

"Look ye here, Mr. Rodney," cried he in a passion, "let's have no more
of this snivelling nonsense about _years_. You may be as mad as you
please on that point, but it shan't hang _me_. It needs more than a few
months to make men forget a craft that has carried on such traffic as
our hold represents. You'll not find me venturing myself nor the
schooner into any of your ports for men. No, no, my friend. I am in no
stupor now, you know; and I've slept the punch off also, d'ye see. What,
betray our treasure and be hanged for our generosity?"

He made me an ironical bow, grinning with wrath.

"Let's get the schooner afloat first," said I.

"Ay, that's all very well," he cried; "but better stop here than dangle
in chains. No, my friend; our plan must be a very different one from
your proposal. I suppose you want your share of the booty?" said he,
snapping his fingers.

"I deserve it," said I, smiling, that I might soften his passion.

"And yet you would convey the most noted pirate of the age, with plunder
in her to the value of thousands of doubloons, to a port in which we
should doubtless find ships of war, a garrison, magistrates, governors,
prisons, and the whole of the machinery it is our business to give our
stern to! _Ma foi_, Mr. Rodney! sure you are out in something more than
your reckoning of time?"

"What do you propose?" said I.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, whilst his little eyes twinkled with cunning, "now
you speak sensibly. What do I propose? This, my friend. We must navigate
the schooner to an island and bury the treasure; then head for the
shipping highways, and obtain help from any friendly merchantmen we may
fall in with. _Home_ with us means the Tortugas. There we shall find the
company we need to recover for us what we shall have hidden. We shall
come by our own then. But to sail with this treasure on board--without a
crew to defend the vessel--by this hand! the first cruiser that sighted
us would make a clean sweep, and then, ho, for the hangman, Mr. Rodney!"

How much I relished this scheme you will imagine; but to reason with him
would have been mere madness. I knitted my brows and seemed to reflect,
and then said, "Well, there is a great deal of plain, good sense in what
you say. I certainly see the wisdom of your advice in recommending that
we should bury the treasure. Nor must we leave anything on board to
convict the shi