“Oh, no, dear Abner!” cried Mary.  “We must not dig there!  Think of that young pirate.  Almost the first thing we would come to would be him!”

“I have thought of that,” said Abner; “but do you not believe that the most Christian act that you and I could do would be to take him out and place him in a proper grave near by?”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Mary, “do not say such a thing as that!  Think of his ghost!  They killed him and put him there, that his ghost might guard their treasure.  You know, Abner, as well as I do, that this is their dreadful fashion!”

“I know all about that,” said Abner, “and that is the reason I wish to go to-night.  I do not believe there has yet been time enough for his ghost to form.  But let us take him out now, dear Mary, and lay him reverently away,—­and then!” He looked at her with flashing eyes.

“But, Abner,” said she, “do you think we have the right?”

“Of course we have,” said he.  “Those treasures do not belong to the pirates.  If we take them they are treasure-trove, and legally ours.  And think, dear Mary, how poor we are to-night, and how rich we may be to-morrow!  Come, get the pail.  We must be off.”

Running nearly all the way,—­for they were in such a hurry they could not walk,—­Abner and Mary soon reached the bluff, and hastily scrambling down to the beach below, they stood upon the dreadful spot where Captain Kidd and his pirates had stood the night before.  There was the old battered pine tree, reaching out two of its bare arms encouragingly toward them.

Without loss of time Abner walked up to the tree, put his back to it, and then looked up into the sky.  Now he called Mary to him.  “Which star do you think he looked at, good wife?” said he.  “There is a bright one low down, and then there is another one a little higher up, and farther to the right, but it is fainter.”

“It would be the bright one, I think,” said Mary.  And then Abner, his eyes fixed upon the bright star, commenced to stride.  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.  Turning squarely around to the left he again made seven paces.  And now he beckoned vigorously to Mary to come and dig.

For about ten minutes they dug, and then they laid bare a great mass of rock.  “This isn’t the place,” cried Abner.  “I must begin again.  I did not look at the right star.  I will take the other one.”

For the greater part of that night Abner and Mary remained upon the beach.  Abner would put his back against the tree, fix his eyes upon another star, stride forward seven paces, and then seven to the left, and he would come upon a little scrubby pine tree.  Of course that was not the place.

The moon soon began to set, and more stars came out, so that Abner had a greater choice.  Again and again he made his measurements, and every time that he came to the end of his second seven paces, he found that it would have been impossible for the pirates to make their excavation there.