dily as any others. The only flag they owed any allegiance to
was the skull and crossbones."

"But how comes it that this confession was made before a notary?" asked
Drew. "I should think it would have been made verbally to a priest."

"Well," said the captain thoughtfully, "there are various ways of
accounting for that. Alvarez may have been taken sick suddenly, and
the notary may have been nearest at hand. Even if the priest had been
summoned, the sick man might have feared that he would die before the
priest got there and wanted to get it off his mind. He didn't seem to
have much hope of heaven, from the way the paper reads."

"I don't wonder," put in Tyke, dryly.

"But whatever chance there was, he wanted to take it," finished the
captain.

"I wonder how the paper ever got into Manuel's hands," pondered Tyke.

"The churches and convents seemed to suffer most in those wild days,"
said the captain. "They were sacked and plundered again and again. It
might very well be that this paper was stolen by ignorant adventurers,
and in some way got into the hands of one of Manuel's ancestors and so
came down to him. Probably most of them couldn't read and had no idea
of what the paper contained. Could Manuel read?" he asked, turning to
Grimshaw.

"Why, yes; but rather poorly," answered Tyke.

"I've seen him sometimes in port looking over a Spanish newspaper,
moving his finger slowly along each line."

"That explains it then," said the captain. "He was able to make out
just enough to guess that the paper and map referred to hidden
treasure, but he wasn't able to make good sense of it."

"I s'pose that was the reason he was always trying to git me interested
in his pirate stories," put in Tyke. "He was kind o' feeling me out,
an' if I'd showed any interest or belief in it, he'd have probably
tried to git me to take a ship and go after it with him."

"Not a doubt in the world," agreed Captain Hamilton.

"Well, now we've looked at the matter of the paper from most every
side," remarked Tyke; "an' I guess we're all agreed that it looks like
a _bona fide_ confession. We've seen, too, how it was possible for it
to git into the hands of Manuel. Now let's see if we can make head or
tail of the map."

He brought out the paper from his safe and the three men crowded around
it. Here, after all, was the crux of the whole matter. By this they
were to stand or fall. It booted little to know merely that the
doub