imply blood-curdling."

"True enough. I remember hearing about it. Well, one of the Jasons--the
one whose cunning conceived of the whole wickedness to start XXXX
with--killed the other, disposed of his body, and then through some
unknown series of events, concealed the treasure.

"He went away awhile, the old wives say--taking a small portion
of the treasure with him. At this point the name of Jason is lost,
irremediably, in the mist of the past. But it is true that some two
years later a seafaring man, one who had worn earrings and who cursed
wickedly as he talked, came back and bought a great colonial home where
the treasure was supposed to have been concealed.

"This part of the story can not be doubted. The county books contain
records of the sale, and it's written, plain as day, on the abstract.
The man gave his name as Hendrickson.

"Legend has it that this Hendrickson was no one but Godfrey Jason,
that he had sold and turned into cash a small part of the treasure,
temporarily evaded his pursuers, and had bought the big manor house with
the idea of living in luxury the rest of his life. Incidentally, he was
accompanied by a Cuban wife.

"It seemed, however, that like most evil-doers, he got little good out
of his treasure. He paid only a small amount down on the estate, and
after a year or two let it go back to the original owners. He went away,
but it doesn't seem likely he took the treasure with him. At least he
died wretchedly in poverty some months later, and had spent no large
amount of money in between. The report of his death can be found in the
records of the city of Tampa, in this state.

"Now all this is unquestionably a mixture of truth and fact.
Unquestionably there is a vein of truth in it; and I don't see but that
most of it is fairly credible. But the rest of the yarn is simply
laughable.

"I tell it only because it goes with the rest--not that I believe one
word of it myself. After you hear what it is you'll wonder I ever took
the trouble to tell you that I disbelieved it. It's just the sort of
thing imaginative old niggers make up to tell their children. And of
course--the niggers on the place believe every word of it.

"They say that this Jason--or Hendrickson--put a guard over his
treasure. He was a deep-sea fisherman at one time, when he wasn't a
seaman, with considerable acquaintance with the various man-eating
monsters of the deep. It is known that Hendrickson did some queer
explori