“That’s something you’ve never come across, I suppose, Captain Bowers?” he remarked at last.

“No,” said the other.

Mr. Chalk, with a vain attempt to conceal his disappointment, smoked on for some time in silence.  The blue seas disappeared, and he saw instead the brass knocker of the house opposite.

“Nor any other kind of craft with treasure aboard, I suppose?” he suggested, at last.

The captain put his hands on his knees and stared at the floor.  “No,” he said, slowly, “I can’t call to mind any craft; but it’s odd that you should have got on this subject with me.”

Mr. Chalk laid his pipe carefully on the table.

“Why?” he inquired.

“Well,” said the captain, with a short laugh, “it is odd, that’s all.”

Mr. Chalk fidgeted with the stem of his pipe.  “You know of sunken treasure somewhere?” he said, eagerly.

The captain smiled and shook his head; the other watched him narrowly.

“You know of some treasure?” he said, with conviction.

“Not what you could call sunken,” said the captain, driven to bay.

Mr. Chalk’s pale-blue eyes opened to their fullest extent.  “Ingots?” he queried.

The other shook his head.  “It’s a secret,” he remarked; “we won’t talk about it.”

“Yes, of course, naturally, I don’t expect you to tell me where it is,” said Mr. Chalk, “but I thought it might be interesting to hear about, that’s all.”

“It’s buried,” said the captain, after a long pause.  “I don’t know that there’s any harm in telling you that; buried in a small island in the South Pacific.”

“Have you seen it?” inquired Mr. Chalk.

“I buried it,” rejoined the other.

Mr. Chalk sank back in his chair and regarded him with awestruck attention; Captain Bowers, slowly ramming home a charge of tobacco with his thumb, smiled quietly.

“Buried it,” he repeated, musingly, “with the blade of an oar for a spade.  It was a long job, but it’s six foot down and the dead man it belonged to atop of it.”

The pipe fell from the listener’s fingers and smashed unheeded on the floor.

“You ought to make a book of it,” he said at last.

The captain shook his head.  “I haven’t got the gift of story-telling,” he said, simply.  “Besides, you can understand I don’t want it noised about.  People might bother me.”

He leaned back in his chair and bunched his beard in his hand; the other, watching him closely, saw that his thoughts were busy with some scene in his stirring past.

“Not a friend of yours, I hope?” said Mr. Chalk, at last.

“Who?” inquired the captain, starting from his reverie.

“The dead man atop of the treasure,” replied the other.

“No,” said the captain, briefly.

“Is it worth much?” asked Mr. Chalk.

“Roughly speaking, about half a million,” responded the captain, calmly.