‘When he says the “well north",’ continued Elzevir, ’’tis clear he means to take a compass and mark north by needle, and at eighty feet in the well-side below that point will lie the treasure.  I fixed yesterday with the Bonaventure’s men that they should lie underneath this ledge tomorrow sennight, if the sea be smooth, and take us off on the spring-tide.  At midnight is their hour, and I said eight days on, to give thy leg a week wherewith to strengthen.  I thought to make for St. Malo, and leave thee at the Eperon d’Or with old Chauvelais, where thou couldst learn to patter French until these evil times have blown by.  But now, if thou art set to hunt this treasure up, and hast a mind to run thy head into a noose; why, I am not so old but that I too can play the fool, and we will let St. Malo be, and make for Carisbrooke.  I know the castle; it is not two miles distant from Newport, and at Newport we can lie at the Bugle, which is an inn addicted to the contraband.  The king’s writ runs but lamely in the Channel Isles and Wight, and if we wear some other kit than this, maybe we shall find Newport as safe as St. Malo.’

This was just what I wanted, and so we settled there and then that we would get the Bonaventure to land us in the Isle of Wight instead of at St. Malo.  Since man first walked upon this earth, a tale of buried treasure must have had a master-power to stir his blood, and mine was hotly stirred.  Even Elzevir, though he did not show it, was moved, I thought, at heart; and we chafed in our cave prison, and those eight days went wearily enough.  Yet ’twas not time lost, for every day my leg grew stronger; and like a wolf which I saw once in a cage at Dorchester Fair, I spent hours in marching round the cave to kill the time and put more vigour in my steps.  Ratsey did not visit us again, but in spite of what he said, met Elzevir more than once, and got money for him from Dorchester and many other things he needed.  It was after meeting Ratsey that Elzevir came back one night, bringing a long whip in one hand, and in the other a bundle which held clothes to mask us in the next scene.  There was a carter’s smock for him, white and quilted over with needlework, such as carters wear on the Down farms, and for me a smaller one, and hats and leather leggings all to match.  We tried them on, and were for all the world carter and carter’s boy; and I laughed long to see Elzevir stand there and practise how to crack his whip and cry ‘Who-ho’ as carters do to horses.  And for all he was so grave, there was a smile on his face too, and he showed me how to twist a wisp of straw out of the bed to bind above my ankles at the bottom of the leggings.  He had cut off his beard, and yet lost nothing of his looks; for his jaw and deep chin showed firm and powerful.  And as for me, we made a broth of young walnut leaves and twigs, and tanned my hands and face with it a ruddy brown, so that I looked a different lad.