keenly attentive in John
Saunders's outer office, and again so plainly eavesdropping at his open
window.

However, leaving that mystery for later solution, John Saunders, Charlie
Webster, and I spent the next evening in a general and particular
criticism of the narrative itself. There were several obvious objections
to be made against its authenticity. To start with, Tobias, at the time
of his deposition, was an old man--seventy-five years old--and it was
more than probable that his experiences as a pirate would date from his
early manhood; they were hardly likely to have taken place as late as
his fortieth year. The narrative, indeed, suggested their taking place
much earlier, and there would thus be a space of at least forty years
between the burial of the treasure and his deathbed revelation. It was
natural to ask: Why during all those years, did he not return and
retrieve the treasure for himself? Various circumstances may have
prevented him, the inability from lack of means to make the journey, or
what not; but certainly one would need to imagine circumstances of
peculiar power that should be strong enough to keep a man with so
valuable a secret in his possession so many years from taking advantage
of it.

For a long while too the names given to the purported sites of the
treasure _caches_ puzzled us. Modern maps give no such places as "Dead
Men's Shoes" and "Short Shrift Island," but John--who is said to be
writing a learned history of the Bahamas--has been for a long time
collecting old maps, prints, and documents relating to them; and at
last, in a map dating back to 1763, we came upon one of the two names.
So far the veracity of Tobias was supported. "Dead Men's Shoes" proved
to be the old name for a certain cay some twenty miles long, about a day
and a half's sail from Nassau, one of the long string of coral islands
now known as the "Exuma Cays." But of "Short Shrift Island" we sought in
vain for a trace.

Then the details for identification of the sites left something to be
desired in particularity. But that, I reasoned, rather made for Tobias's
veracity than otherwise. Were the document merely a hoax, as John
continued to suspect, its author would have indulged his imagination in
greater elaboration. The very simplicity of the directions argued their
authenticity. Charlie Webster was inclined to back me in this view, but
neither of my friends showed any optimism in regard to the possible
discovery of the