ecaution to rub some material on the
clean place made by his knife, on the other chart, when he believed no eye
could detect what had just been done. Having marked the proper key, on his
own chart of the West Indies, he replaced the charts of Daggett in the
chest, and locked all up again. The verbal accounts of the sick mariner he
had already transferred to paper, and he now believed himself secure of
all the information that was necessary to render him the richest man in
Suffolk!

When they next met, Mary was surprised at the gaiety of her uncle, and
that so soon after a funeral. He had a lightened heart, however; for after
leading him on, step by step, until he had gone so far as to purchase and
fit out the schooner, Daggett had pertinaciously refused to enter into
those minute particulars which it is even now forbidden us to state, and a
want of which would have rendered his previous expenditures useless.
Death, however, had lifted the veil, and the deacon now believed himself
secure in his knowledge.

An hour or two later, Deacon Pratt and his niece were seated, in company
with two others, at the dinner-table. The fare was simple, but good. Fish
enters largely into the domestic consumption of all those who dwell near
the water, in that part of the country; and, on that particular occasion,
the uncle had, in the lightness of his heart, indulged in what, for him,
was a piece of extravagance. In all such regions there are broken-down,
elderly men, who live by taking fish. Liquor has usually been their great
enemy, and all have the same generic character of laziness, shiftless and
ill-regulated exertions, followed by much idleness, and fits of
intemperance, that in the end commonly cause their deaths. Such a man
fished between Oyster Pond and Shelter Island, being known to all who
dwelt within his beat, by the familiar appellation of Baiting Joe.

Shortly after the discovery of the latitudes and longitudes on the charts,
the deacon had gone to the wharf, in his impatience to see how Roswell
Gardiner got on with the Sea Lion. The young man, with his gang of hands,
was hard at work, and a very material difference was to be observed in the
state of the schooner, from that in which she was described in our opening
chapter. Her rigging had all been set up, every spar was in its place, and
altogether she had a look of preparation and completeness. Her water was
taking in, and from time to time a country wagon, or an ox-cart,