“What is it called?” I asked, for it was part of our plan for Charlie to do a little duck-shooting on Andros, before we tackled the business of Tobias and the treasure.

“It’s called ——­ Cay nowadays,” he answered, “but it used to be called Short Shrift Island.”

“Short Shrift Island!” I cried, in spite of myself, immediately annoyed at my lack of presence of mind.

“Certainly,” he rejoined, looking a little surprised, but evidently without suspicion.  He was too simple, and too taken up with his shell.

“It is such an odd name,” I said, trying to recover myself.

“Yes! those old pirate chaps certainly did think up some of the rummiest names.”

“One of the pirate haunts, was it?” I queried with assumed indifference.

“Supposed to be.  But one hears that of every other cay in the Bahamas.  I take no stock in such yarns.  My shells are all the treasure I expect to find.”

“What did you call that shell?” I asked.

He told me the name again, but again I forgot it immediately.  Of course I had asked it only for the sake of learning more precisely about Short Shrift Island.  He told me innocently enough just where it lay.

“Are you going after it?” he laughed.

“After what?” I enquired in alarm.

“The ——­“; (again he mentioned the name of the shell.)

“O! well,” I replied, “I am going on a duck-shooting trip to Andros before long, and I thought I might drop around to your cay and pick a few of them up for you.”

“It would be mighty kind of you, but they’re not easy to find.  I’ll tell you just exactly—­” He went off, dear fellow, into the minutest description of the habitats of ——­, while all the time I was eager to rush off to Charlie Webster and John Saunders, and shout into their ears—­as, later, I did, at the first possible moment, that evening:  “I’ve found our missing cay!  What’s the matter with your old maps, John?  Short Shrift Island is ——­; (I mentioned the name of a cay, which, as in the case of “Dead Men’s Shoes,” I am unable to divulge.)

“Maybe!” said Charlie, “maybe!  We can try it.  But,” he added, “did you find out anything about Tobias?”

CHAPTER III

In Which I am Afforded Glimpses into Futurity—­Possibly Useful.

Two or three evenings before we were due to sail, at one of our snuggery conclaves, I put the question whether any one had ever tried the divining rod in hunting for treasure in the islands.  Charlie took his pipe out of his mouth, the more comfortably to beam his big brotherly smile at me.

“What a kid you are!” he said.  “You want the whole bag of tricks, eh?”

But I retorted that he was quite behind the times if he considered the divining rod an exploded superstition.  Its efficacy in finding water, I reminded him, was now admitted by the most sceptical science, and I was able to inform him that a great American railway company paid a yearly salary to a “dowser” to guide it in the construction of new roads through a country where water was scarce and hard to find.