There is the inventory, not entirely complete, of the treasure which we found hidden under the false bottom of the chest, a treasure whose existence none of those who had striven and slain and perished for the sake of the Spanish doubloons can have suspected.  The secret of it died with the first guardian of the chest, the merchant of Lima who went overboard from the Bonny Lass on that stormy night ninety years ago.  Now sea and sun and sand had done their work and warped the wood of the chest enough to make us masters of its mystery.  And we sat in the sand-heaped cock-pit of the wrecked sloop, playing like children with our sparkling toys.

Ours?  Yes, for whether or not there were an infection of piracy in the very air of the island, so that to seize with the high hand, to hold with the iron grasp, seemed the law of life, we decided without a qualm against the surrender of our treasure-trove to its technical owners.  Technical only; for one felt that, in essence, all talk of ownership by this man or that had long ago become idle.  Fate had held the treasure in fee to give or to withhold.  Senor Gonzales had had his chance at the chest, and he had missed the secret of the hidden hoard, had left it to lie forgotten under the sand until in some tropic storm it should be engulfed by the waters of the cove.  More than this, had he not most specifically made over to me the Island Queen and all that it contained?  This was a title clear enough to satisfy the most exacting formalist.  And we were not formalists, nor inclined in any quibbling spirit to question the decrees of Fortune.  As treasure-hunters, we had been her devotees too long.

So after all it was not my scornful skepticism but the high faith of Miss Higglesby-Browne which was justified by the event, and the Harding-Browne expedition left the island well repaid for its toils and perils.  Plus the two bags of doubloons, which were added to the spoils, the treasure brought us a sum so goodly that I dare not name it, for fear of the apparition of Senor Gonzales and the Santa Marinan navy looming up to demand restitution.  Like true comrades, we divided share and share alike, and be sure that no one grudged Cookie the percentage Which each was taxed for his benefit.

Certain of the rarest; jewels were not sold, but found their way to me as gifts of the Expedition severally and collectively.  The brightest of the diamonds now shines in my engagement ring.  Cuthbert, by the way, showed up so splendidly when I explained to him about the engagement—­that the responsibility was entirely mine, not Dugald’s—­that I earnestly wished I were twins so that one of me could have married the beautiful youth—­which indeed I had wished a little all the time.

And now I come to the purpose of this story—­for though well concealed it has had one from the beginning.  It is to let Helen, whoever and wherever she may be, if still of this world, know of the fate of Peter, and to tell her that when she asks for them she is to have my most cherished relics of the island, Peter’s journal and the silver shoe-buckle which he found in the sand of the treasure-cave and was taking home to her.