I could not tell whether or not Darrow heard me.  He left soon after.  The mention of the chest had focussed the men’s interest.

“Well,” Pulz began, “we’ve been here on this spot o’ hell for a long time.”

“A year and five months,” reckoned Thrackles.

“A man can do a lot in that time.”

“If he’s busy.”

“They’ve been busy.”

“Yes.”

“Wonder what they’ve done?”

There was no answer to this, and the sea lawyer took a new tack.

“I suppose we’re all getting double wages.”

“That’s so.”

“And that’s say four hunder’ for us and Mr. Eagen here.  I suppose the Old Man don’t let the schooner go for nothing.”

“Two hundred and fifty a month,” said I, and then would have had the words back.

They cried out in prolonged astonishment.

“Seventeen months,” pursued the logician after a few moments.  He scratched with a stub of lead.  “That makes over eleven thousand dollars since we’ve been out.  How much do you suppose his outfit stands him?” he appealed to me.

“I’m sure I can’t tell you,” I replied shortly.

“Well, it’s a pile of money, anyway.”

Nobody said anything for some time.

“Wonder what they’ve done?” Pulz asked again.

“Something that pays big.”  Thrackles supplied the desired answer.

“Dat chis’——­” suggested Perdosa.

“Voodoo——­” muttered the Nigger.

“That’s to scare us out,” said Handy Solomon, with vast contempt. 
“That’s what makes me sure it is the chest.”

Pulz muttered some of the jargon of alchemy.

“That’s it,” approved Handy Solomon.  “If we could get——­”

“We wouldn’t know how to use it,” interrupted Pulz.

“The book——­” said Thrackles.

“Well, the book——­” asserted Pulz pugnaciously.

“How do you know what it will be?  It may be the Philosopher’s Stone and it may be one of these other damn things.  And then where’d we be?”

It was astounding to hear this nonsense bandied about so seriously.  And yet they more than half believed, for they were deep-sea men of the old school, and this was in print.  Thrackles voiced approximately the general attitude.

“Philosopher’s stone or not, something’s up.  The old boy took too good care of that box, and he’s spending too much money, and he’s got hold of too much hell afloat to be doing it for his health.”

“You know w’at I t’ink?” smiled Perdosa.  “He mak’ di’mon’s.  He say dat.”

The Nigger had entered one of his black, brooding moods from which these men expected oracles.

“Get him ches’,” he muttered.  “I see him full—­full of di’mon’s!”

They listened to him with vast respect, and were visibly impressed.  So deep was the sense of awe that Handy Solomon unbent enough to whisper to me: 

“I don’t take any stock in the Nigger’s talk ordinarily.  He’s a hell of a fool nigger.  But when his eye looks like that, then you want to listen close.  He sees things then.  Lots of times he’s seen things.  Even last year—­the Oyama—­he told about her three days ahead.  That’s why we were so ready for her,” he chuckled.