While he had been talking, she had made up her mind what she would do.  She would tell him the plain truth about her doubloons, and offer him what remained of them as a ransom.  This she did, and was able at last half to persuade him that, so far as any one knew, that was all the treasure there was, and that the digging among the ruins of the old house was a mere fancy of her father’s.  There might be something there or not—­and she went so far as to give her word of honour that, if anything was found, he should have his share of it.

It was rather a woman’s way, she admitted, but she thought that, so long as she kept Tobias near the island, some favouring incident might happen at any moment—­that the proffered ransom, in fact, might prove the bait to a trap.

Tobias had seemed impressed, and promised his answer in the morning, leaving her to sleep—­with a sentry at her cabin door.  She had slept soundly, and wakened only at dawn.  As soon as she was up, Tobias had come to her, saying that he had accepted her offer, and asking her to direct him to her treasure.

This she had done, and, to avoid passing the settlement, they had taken the course round the eastern end of the island.  As they had approached the cave (and here Calypso turned a quizzical smile on me, which no one, of course, understood but ourselves), a sloop was seen approaching them from the westward ... and here she stopped and turned to Charlie Webster.

“Now,” said the “King,” “we shall hear the Story of Apollo—­or, let us say, rather Ajax—­the Far-Darter—­He of the Arrow that never missed its mark.”

And Charlie Webster, more at home with deeds than words, blushed and blushed through his part of the story, telling how—­having called at the settlement—­he had got our message from Sweeney, and was making up the coast for the hidden creek.  He had spied what he felt sure was Tobias’s schooner—­had called on him “In the King’s Name” to surrender—­("I had in my pocket the warrant for his arrest,” said Charlie, with innocent pride—­“the d——­d scoundrel”) but had been answered with bullets.  He had been terribly frightened, he owned, when Calypso had been brought on deck, but she had given him courage—­he paused to beam on her, a broad-faced admiration, for which he could find no words—­and, as he had never yet missed a flying duck at—­I forget how many yards Charlie mentioned—­well ... perhaps he oughtn’t to have risked it—­And so his story came to an end, amid reassuring applause.

“Now,” said the “King,” “for the Story of the Disappearing Gentleman and the Lighted Lantern.”

And then I told my story as it is already known to the reader, and I have to confess that, when I came to the chestful of doubloons and pieces of eight, I had a very attentive audience.  But, at first, the “King” shook his head with an amused smile.

“Ulysses is romancing for the benefit of my romantic second childhood,” he said, and then, after his favourite manner he added—­