With a choky little gurgle in her throat Aunt Jane fell limply against me.  It was too much.  All day long she had been tossed back and forth like a shuttlecock by the battledore of emotion.  She had borne the shock of Mr. Tubbs’s sordid greed for gold, his disloyalty to the expedition, his coldness to herself; she had been shaken by the tender stress of the reconciliation, had been captured by pirates, and now suffered the supreme blow of this final revelation of the treachery of Tubbs.  To hear her romance described as the sparking of an old maid—­and by the sparker!  From Miss Higglesby-Browne had come a snort of fury, but she said nothing, having apparently no confidence in the effect of oratory on pirates.  She did not even exhort Aunt Jane, but left it to me to sustain my drooping aunt as best I could.

As Mr. Tubbs made his whole-hearted and magnanimous proposal Captain Tony opened his small black eyes and contemplated him with attention.  At the conclusion he appeared to meditate.  Then he glanced round upon his fellows.

“What say, boys?  Shall we ship old Washtubs on the schooner and let him have his fling along with us?  Eh?” And as Captain Tony uttered these words the lid of his left eye eclipsed for an instant that intelligent optic.

From the pirates came a scattering volley of assents.  “All right—­hooray for old Washtubs—­sure, close the deal.”

“All right, Washtubs, the boys are willing.  So I guess, though this island is the very lid of the hot place, and when I come again it’s going to be with an iceberg in tow to keep the air cooled off, I guess we better be moving toward that chest of doubloons.”

It was arranged that Slinker and a cross-eyed man named Horny should remain at the camp on guard.  As a measure of precaution Cookie, too, was bound, and Aunt Jane, Miss Browne and I ordered into the cabin.  The three remaining pirates, armed with our spades and picks and dispensing a great deal of jocular profanity, set out for the cave under the guidance of Mr. Tubbs.

Thankful as I was for the departure of Captain Magnus, I underwent torments in the stifling interior of the cabin.  Aunt Jane wept piteously.  I had almost a fellow-feeling with Miss Higglesby-Browne when she relapsed from her rigidity for a moment and turning on Aunt Jane fiercely ordered her to be still.  This completed the wreck of Aunt Jane’s universe.  Its two main props had now fallen, and she was left sitting solitary amid the ruins.  She subsided into a lachrymose heap in the corner of the cabin, where I let her remain for the time, it was really such a comfort to have her out of the way.  At last I heard a faint moan: 

“Virginia!”

I went to her.  “Yes, auntie?”