for a talk on a very
important matter.

"It turned out that he and a friend, who had considerable money, were
about to purchase either a good, strong sailing vessel, or a small
steamer, which was to go in quest of buried treasure which the chart had
indicated, this treasure being the freights of many of the Castilian
ships of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in certain places
the hoards of the buccaneers that infested the western seas.

"Here was an opportunity to recuperate, and it had plenty of action in
it to suit me, and I joined. We sailed from the port in the latter part
of December, about the time you were passing through the Straits of
Magellan.

"We had a fast sailer and a staunch boat, but my friend was unwise in
the choice of the sailing master, but this did not hamper us much during
the ordinary course of sailing, but in a short time he with several
others of the crew attacked us and attempted to capture the ship. In the
battle which followed my friend was killed, and his friend dangerously
wounded. This was the condition of affairs when the terrible monsoon
struck the vessel.

"That terrible sea and the danger to the ship settled all difficulties.
The master was too full of drink to take charge of the ship, and the
mate was not much better. I took command, and for four days we
maneuvered the ship to keep it from foundering; at the end of that time
the master recovered momentarily, and, securing possession of a
revolver, cleared the deck and prevented us from handling it.

"He resisted every effort to capture him, and as a last resort I was
compelled to shoot him. This was a signal, notwithstanding our perilous
condition, for the intimate associates of the master to range themselves
against us, for we now had only four men against the seven who were in
league.

"I did not want to take human life, and I refrained from this last step,
and as the ship was bare of sails and we were in position to control the
tiller we passed two days and a night, with only a few crackers for
food, and almost exhausted from the strain.

"Night was approaching, and with not a star in sight, and in no
condition to take any reckonings, we made up our minds that we must
somehow fight our way through one more night before giving up. The
mainmast was a wreck; the shrouds on the port side having been torn from
the gunwale the second day of the storm, and the entire deck was one
mass of debris and wreckage.

"It