ortuguese sailors to
do his digging for him. They were ashore several days, but found no
treasure, and vanished from the story after this brief fling with the
dice of fortune. Now, Knight was of different stuff from these other
explorers. He was a first-class amateur seaman who had sailed his
yacht _Falcon_ to South America in 1880, and was both experienced and
capable afloat and ashore. While bound from Montevideo to Bahia he had
touched at Trinidad, curious to see this remote islet so seldom
visited. This was before he heard the buried treasure story.
Therefore when he became acquainted, several years later, with the
chart and information left by the old pirate, he was able to verify the
details of his own knowledge, and he roundly affirmed:

"In the first place, his carefully prepared plan of the island, the
minute directions he gave as to the best landing, and his description
of the features of the bay on whose shores the treasure was concealed,
prove beyond doubt to myself and others who know Trinidad, that he, or
if not himself some informant of his, had landed on this so rarely
visited islet; and not only landed but passed some time on it, and
carefully surveyed the approaches to the bay, so as to be able to point
out the dangers and show the safest passage through the reefs. This
information could not have been obtained from any pilot-book. The
landing recommended by previous visitors is at the other side of the
island. This bay is described by them as inaccessible, and the
indications on the Admiralty chart are completely erroneous.

"And beyond this, the quartermaster must have been acquainted with what
was taking place in two other distant portions of the world during the
year of his professed landing on the desert island. He knew of the
escape of pirates with the cathedral plate of Lima. He was also aware
that, shortly afterwards, there were hanged in Cuba the crew of a
vessel that had committed acts of piracy on the Peruvian coast.

"It is scarcely credible that an ordinary seaman,--even allowing that
he was superior in education to the average of his fellows,--could have
pieced these facts together so ingeniously into this plausible story."

This argument has merit and it was persuasive enough to cause Knight to
buy the staunch cutter _Alerte_, muster a company of gentlemen
volunteers, ship a crew, and up anchor from Southampton for Trinidad.

There was never a better found treasure expeditio