“Look here, old pal, I’ll make a bargain with you, if you like.  I suppose you’re keen for that other treasure, now, eh?”

“I am,” said I, rather stiffly.

“Well then, I’ll go after it with you—­on one condition.  You can keep the treasure, if you’ll give me Tobias!”

“Give you Tobias?” I laughed.

“Yes! if you go after the treasure, he’ll probably keep his word, and go after you.  Now it would do my heart good to get him, as you had the chance of doing that afternoon.  Whatever were you doing to miss him?”

“I proposed to myself the satisfaction of making good that mistake,” I said, “on our next meeting.  I feel I owe it to the poor old captain.”

“Never mind; hand the captain’s rights over to me—­and I’ll help you all I know with your treasure.  Besides, Tobias is a job for an Englishman—­eh, John?  It’s a matter of ‘King and Country’ with me.  With you it would be mere private vengeance.  With me it will be an execution; with you it would be a murder.  Isn’t that so, John?”

“Exactly,” John nodded.

“Since you were away,” Charlie began again, “I’ve bought the prettiest yawl you ever set eyes on—­the Flamingo—­forty-five over all, and this time the very fastest boat in the harbour.  Yes! she’s faster even than the Susan B. Now, I’ve a holiday due me in about a fortnight.  Say the word, and the Flamingo’s yours for a couple of months, and her captain too.  I make only that one condition.”

“All right, Charlie,” I agreed, “he’s yours.”

Whereat Charlie shot out a huge paw like a shoulder of mutton, and grabbed my hand with as much fervour as though I had saved his life, or done him some other unimaginable kindness.  And, as he did so, his old broad sweet smile came back again.  He was thinking of Tobias.

CHAPTER II

In Which I Learn Something.

While Charlie Webster was arranging his affairs so that he might be able to take his holiday with a free mind, I busied myself with provisioning the Flamingo, and in casually chatting with one and another along the water front, in the hope of gathering some hint that might guide us on our coming expedition.  I thought it possible, too, that chance might thus bring me some information as to the recent movements of Tobias.

In this way, I made the acquaintance of several old salts, both white and black, one or two of whom time and their neighbours had invested with a legendary savour of the old “wrecking days,” which, if rumour speaks true, are not entirely vanished from the remoter corners of the islands.  But either their romantic haloes were entirely due to imaginative gossip, or they themselves were too shrewd to be drawn, for I got nothing out of them to my purpose.  They seemed to be more interested in talking religion than the sea, and as navigators of Biblical deep seas little visited except by professional theologians they were remarkable.  Generally speaking, indeed, piety would seem to have taken the place of piracy among the sea-going population of Nassau; a fact in which, no doubt, right-thinking folk will rejoice, but which I, I am ashamed to say, found disappointing.