However, now the great moment was at hand.  But before it comes, I will here set down the treasure-story of Leeward Island, as I gathered it later, a little here and there, and pieced it together into a coherent whole through many dreaming hours.

In 1820, the city of Lima, in Peru, being threatened by the revolutionaries under Bolivar and San Martin, cautious folk began to take thought for their possessions.  To send them out upon the high seas under a foreign flag seemed to offer the best hope of safety, and soon there was more gold afloat on the Pacific than at any time since the sailing of the great plate-galleons of the seventeenth century.  Captain Sampson, of the brig Bonny Lass, found himself with a passenger for nowhere in particular in the shape of a certain Spanish merchant of great wealth, reputed custodian of the private funds of the bishop of Lima.  This gentleman brought with him, besides some scanty personal baggage—­for he took ship in haste—­a great iron-bound chest.  Four stout sailors of the Bonny Lass staggered under the weight of it.

The Bonny Lass cruised north along the coast, the passenger desiring to put in at Panama in the hope that word might reach him there of quieter times at home.  But somewhere off Ecuador on a dark and starless night the merchant of Lima vanished overboard—­“and what could you expect,” asked Captain Sampson in effect, “when a lubber like him would stay on deck in a gale?” Strange to say, the merchant’s body-servant met the fate of the heedless also.

Shrugging his shoulders at the carelessness of passengers, Captain Sampson bore away to Leeward Island, perhaps from curiosity to see this old refuge of the buccaneers, where the spoils of the sack of Guayaquil were said to have been buried.  Who knows but that he, too, was bent on treasure-seeking?  Be that as it may, the little brig found her way into the bay on the northeast side of the island, where she anchored.  Water was needed, and there is refreshment in tropic fruits after a diet of salt horse and hardtack.  So all hands had a holiday ashore, where the captain did not disdain to join them.  Only he went apart, and had other occupation than swarming up the palms for cocoanuts.

One fancies, then, a moonless night, a crew sleeping off double grog, generously allowed them by the captain; a boat putting off from the Bonny Lass, in which were captain, mate, and one Bill Halliwell, able seaman, a man of mighty muscle; and as freight an object large, angular and ponderous, so that the boat lagged heavily beneath the rowers’ strokes.

Later, Bill, the simple seaman, grows presumptuous on the strength of this excursion with his betters.  It is a word and a blow with the captain of the Bonny Lass, and Bill is conveniently disposed of.  Dead, as well as living, he serves the purpose of the captain, but of that later.