John nodded.

“He used to go around all the time with a big umbrella, and muttering to himself.  We used to think him half crazy.  Gone so brooding over this very subject of buried treasure.  Better look out, young man!”—­smiling at me.  “He used to be always grubbing about in the bush, and they said that he carried the umbrella, so that he could hide a machete in it—­a sort of heavy cutlass, you know, for cutting down the brush.  Well, several years ago, there came a visitor from New York, and he got thick with the old fellow.  They used to go about a lot together, and were often off on so-called fishing trips for days on end.  Actually, it is believed, they were after something on North Cay.  At all events, some months afterward, the New Yorker disappeared as he had come, and has not been heard from since.  But since then, they have found a sort of brick vault over there which has evidently been excavated.  I have seen it myself.  A sort of walled chamber.  There, it’s supposed, the New Yorker found something or other—­”

“An old tomb, most likely,” interrupted John, sceptically.  “There are some like that over at Spanish Wells.”

“Maybe,” said Charlie, “but that’s the story for what it’s worth.”

As Charlie finished, John slapped his knee.

“The very thing for you!” he said, “why have I never thought of it before?”

“What do you mean, John?” we both asked.

“Why, down at the office, I’ve got the very thing.  A pity I haven’t got it here.  You must come in and see it to-morrow.”

And he took a tantalising sip of his port.

“What on earth is it?  Why do you keep us guessing?”

“Why, it’s an old manuscript.”

“An old manuscript!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, an old document that came into my hands a short time ago.  Charlie, you remember old Wicks—­old Billy Wicks—­’Wrecker’ Wicks, they called him—­”

“I should say I do.  A wonderful old villain—­”

“One of the greatest characters that ever lived.  Oh, and shrewd as the devil.  Do you remember the story about his—­”

“But the document, for heaven’s sake,” I said.  “The document first; the story will keep.”

“Well, they were pulling down Wicks’s own house just lately, and out of the rafters there fell a roll of paper—­now, I’m coming to it—­a roll of paper, purporting to be the account of the burying of a certain treasure, telling the place where it is buried, and giving directions for finding it—­”

Charlie and I exclaimed together; and John continued, with tantalising deliberation.

“It’s in the safe, down at the office; you shall see it to-morrow.  It’s a statement purporting to be made by some fellow on his deathbed—­some fellow dying out in Texas—­a quondam pirate, anxious to make his peace at the end, and to give his friends the benefit of his knowledge.”

“O John!” said I, “I sha’n’t sleep a wink to-night.”