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my eye through the open door, caught sight of a face gazing through the ironwork of the outer office with a fixed and glittering expression, a face anything but prepossessing, the face of a half-breed, deeply pock-marked, with a coarse hook nose, and evil-looking eyes, unnaturally close together. He looked for all the world like a turkey buzzard, eagerly hanging over offal, and it was evident from his expression, that he had not missed a word of the reading.
"There is some one in the outer office," I said, and John rose and went out.
"Good morning, Mr. Saunders," said an unpleasantly soft and cringing voice.
"Good morning," said John, somewhat grumpily, "what is it you want?"
It was some detail of account, which, being despatched, the man shuffled off, with evident reluctance, casting a long inquisitive look at us seated at the desk, and John, taking up the manuscript once more resumed:
" ... a sum of one million and one half dollars—buried at a cay known as Dead Men's Shoes, near Nassau, in the Bahama Islands."
"'Dead Men's Shoes!' I don't know any such place, do you?" interrupted Charlie.
"No, I don't—but, never mind, let's read it through first and discuss it afterwards," and John went on:
"Buried at a cay known as Dead Men's Shoes, near Nassau, in the Bahama Islands; about fifty feet (50 ft.) south of this Dead Men's Shoes is a rock, on which we cut the form of a compass. And twenty feet (20 ft.) East from the cay is another rock on which we cut a cross (X). Under this rock it is buried four feet (4 ft.) deep.
"The other is a sum of one million dollars ($1,000,000). It is buried on what was known as Short Shrift Island; on the highest point of this Short Shrift Island is a large cabbage wood stump and twenty feet (20 ft.) south of that stump is the treasure, buried five feet (5 ft.) deep and can be found without difficulty. Short Shrift Island is a place where passing vessels stop to get fresh water. No great distance from Nassau, so it can be easily found.
"The first pod was taken from a Spanish merchant and it is in Spanish silver dollars.
"The other on Short Shrift Island is in different kinds of money, taken from different ships of different nations—it is all good money.
"Now friends, I have told you all that is necessary for you to know, to recover these treasures and I leave it in your hands and it is my request that when you read this, you will at once take steps to recover it, and when you get it, it is my wish that you use it in a way most good for yourself and others. This is all I ask.
"Now thanking you for your kindness and care and with my best wishes for your prosperity and happiness, I will close, as I am so weak I can hardly hold the pen.
"I am, truly your friend, Henry P. Tobias.
"Henry P. Tobias?" said Charlie Webster. "Never heard of him. Did you, John?"
"Never!"
And then there was a stir in the outer office. Some one was asking for the Secretary of the Treasury. So John rose.
"I must get to work now, boys. We can talk it over to-night." And then, handing me the manuscript: "Take it home with you, if you like, and look it over at your leisure."
As Charlie Webster and I passed out into the street, I noticed the fellow of the sinister pock-marked visage standing near the window of the inner office. The window was open, and any one standing outside, could easily have heard everything that passed inside. As the fellow caught my eye, he smiled unpleasantly, and slunk off down the street.
"Who is that fellow?" I asked Charlie. "He's a queer looking specimen."
"Yes! he's no good. Yet he's more half-witted than bad, perhaps. His face is against him, poor devil."
And we went our ways, till the evening, I to post home to the further study of the narrative. There seated on the pleasant veranda, I went over it carefully, sentence by sentence. While I was reading, some one called me indoors. I put down the manuscript on the little bamboo table at my side, and went in. When I returned, a few moments afterward, the manuscript was gone!
Chapter III
In Which I Charter the "Maggie Darling."
As luck would have it, the loss, or rather the theft, of Henry P. Tobias's narrative, was not so serious as it at first seemed, for it fortunately chanced that John Saunders had had it copied; but the theft remained none the less mysterious. What could be the motive of the thief with whom—quite unreasonably and doubtless unjustly—my fancy persisted in connecting that unprepossessing face so 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 treasure.
The character of the brush on the out-islands alone, they said, made the task of search well nigh hopeless. To cut one's way through twenty miles of such stubborn thickets, would cost almost as much in labour as the treasure was worth. And then the peculiar nature of the jagged coral rock, like endless wastes of clinker, almost denuded of earth, would make the task the more arduous. As well look for a particular fish in the sea. A needle in a haystack would be easy in comparison.
"All the same," said I, "the adventure calls me; the adventure and that million and a half dollars—and those 'Dead Men's Shoes'—and I intend to undertake it. I am not going to let your middle-aged scepticism discourage me. Treasure or no treasure, there will be the excitement of the quest, and all the fun of the sea."
"And some duck perhaps," added Charlie.
"And some shark-fishing for certain," said John.
The next thing was to set about chartering a boat, and engaging a crew. In this Charlie Webster's experience was invaluable, as his friendly zeal was untiring.
After looking over much likely and unlikely craft, we finally