a bite to eat, for it was time for them to be away
fishing.

All that morning the recollection of the night before hung over Tom
Chist like a great cloud of boding trouble. It filled the confined
area of the little boat and spread over the entire wide spaces of sky
and sea that surrounded them. Not for a moment was it lifted. Even
when he was hauling in his wet and dripping line with a struggling
fish at the end of it a recurrent memory of what he had seen would
suddenly come upon him, and he would groan in spirit at the
recollection. He looked at Matt Abrahamson's leathery face, at his
lantern jaws cavernously and stolidly chewing at a tobacco leaf, and
it seemed monstrous to him that the old man should be so unconscious
of the black cloud that wrapped them all about.

When the boat reached the shore again he leaped scrambling to the
beach, and as soon as his dinner was eaten he hurried away to find the
Dominie Jones.

He ran all the way from Abrahamson's hut to the parson's house, hardly
stopping once, and when he knocked at the door he was panting and
sobbing for breath.

The good man was sitting on the back-kitchen doorstep smoking his long
pipe of tobacco out into the sunlight, while his wife within was
rattling about among the pans and dishes in preparation of their
supper, of which a strong, porky smell already filled the air.

Then Tom Chist told his story, panting, hurrying, tumbling one word
over another in his haste, and Parson Jones listened, breaking every
now and then into an ejaculation of wonder. The light in his pipe went
out and the bowl turned cold.

"And I don't see why they should have killed the poor black man," said
Tom, as he finished his narrative.

"Why, that is very easy enough to understand," said the good reverend
man. "'Twas a treasure box they buried!"

In his agitation Mr. Jones had risen from his seat and was now
stumping up and down, puffing at his empty tobacco pipe as though it
were still alight.

"A treasure box!" cried out Tom.

"Aye, a treasure box! And that was why they killed the poor black man.
He was the only one, d'ye see, besides they two who knew the place
where 'twas hid, and now that they've killed him out of the way,
there's nobody but themselves knows. The villains--Tut, tut, look at
that now!" In his excitement the dominie had snapped the stem of his
tobacco pipe in two.

"Why, then," said Tom, "if that is so, 'tis indeed a wicked, bloody
treasure, and