"Mine too," said I.

So harmony was restored, and the stubbornly held secret had merely
amounted to this: Our lad was acquainted with my conchologist, and had
paid him a visit the very afternoon I did, had in fact seen me leaving
the house. Answering to the boy's romantic talk of buried treasure and
so forth, the shell enthusiast had thought no harm to tell him of our
projected trip; and that was the whole of the mysterious matter.

Yet the day was not to end without a little incident which, slight
though indeed it was, was momentarily to arouse Charlie's suspicions of
our charming young companion once more.

By this we had shaken off the unwelcome convoy of the coast-line, and,
having had a thrilling minute or two running the gauntlet of the great
combers of the southwest bar, we were at last really out to sea, making
our dash under a good sailing breeze, with the engine going, too, across
the Tongue of Ocean.

This Tongue of Ocean is but a narrow strip of sea--so narrow indeed that
you scarcely lose sight of one coast before you sight the other--yet the
oldest sailors cross it with fear, for its appalling depth within its
narrow boundaries make it subject to sudden "rages" in certain winds.
Even Charlie, who must have made the trip half a hundred times, scanned
the western horizon with an anxious eye.

Presently, in the far southwest, tiny points like a row of pins began
very faintly to range themselves along the sky-line. They were palm
trees, though you could not make them out to be such, or anything in
particular, till long after. One darker point seemed closer than the
rest.

"There's High Cay!" rang out the rich young voice of our passenger, whom
we'd half forgotten in our tense scanning of the horizon. Charlie and I
both turned to him together in surprise--and his face certainly betrayed
the confusion of one who has let something slip involuntarily.

"Ho! ho! young man," cried Charlie, his face darkening again, "what do
you know about High Cay? I thought this was your first trip."

"So it is," answered the boy, with a flush of evident annoyance, "on the
sea."

"What do you mean by 'on the sea'?"

"I mean that I've done it many a time--on the chart. I know every bluff
and reef and shoal and cay around Andros from Morgan's Bluff to
Washerwoman's Cut--"

"You do, eh?"

"On the chart. Why, I've studied charts since I was a kid, and gone
every kind of voyage you can think of--playing at buccaneering or