The first pictures that came to him were merely pictures, though astonishingly clear ones, of Webster’s boat, the Flamingo, of Webster himself, and of the men and the old dog Sailor; but in all this he might have been visualising from actual knowledge.  Yet the details were curiously exact.  We were all bathed in moonlight, he said—­very bright moonlight, moonlight you could read by.  Pictures of us out at sea, passing coral islands and so forth followed, all general in character.  But presently, his gaze becoming more fixed: 

“I see you anchored under a little settlement.  You are rowing ashore.  Dere are little pathways running up among de coral rock, and a few white houses.  And, yes!  Dere is a man in overalls, on de roof of a building, seeming like a little schoolhouse.  He waves to you; he is getting down from de roof to meet you.  But his face is in a mist, I can’t see him right.  Now he is gone.”

He stopped and waited awhile.  Then he resumed: 

“Seems to be a forest; big, big trees—­not like Nassau trees—­and thick brush everywhere; all choked up so thick and dark, can’t see nut’n.  Wait a minute, dough.  Dere seems to be old houses all sunk in and los’, like old ruins.  Can’t see dem right for de brush.  And wait—­Lord love you, sar, but I’se afraid—­I seem to see a big light coming up trough de brush from far under de ground—­just like you see old rotten wood shining in de dark—­deep, deep down.  Didn’t I tell you de Lord gave me eyes to see into de bowels of de earth?—­it’s de bowels of de earth for sure—­all lit up and shining.  Praise de Lord!—­it am de gold, for certain, all hidden away and shining dere under de ground—­”

“Can’t you see it closer, clearer?” I exclaimed involuntarily; “get some idea of the place it’s in?”

The old man gazed with a renewed intensity.

“No,” he said presently, and his disappointed tone seemed to me the best evidence yet of his truth, “I only see a little golden mist deep, deep down under de ground; now it is fading away.  It’s gone; I can only see de woods and de ruins again.”

This brought his visions to an end.  The spirits obstinately refused to make any more pictures, though the old man continued to gaze on in the decanter stopper for fully five minutes.

“De wind of de spirit bloweth as it listeth,” said he at length, with the note of a more genuine piety in his voice than at the beginning; and there was a certain hushed gravity in his manner as we said good-bye, which made me feel that there had been something in his visions that had even surprised and solemnised himself.

CHAPTER IV

In Which We Take Ship Once More.

The discovery which—­through my friend the dealer in “marine curiosities”—­I had made, or believed myself to have made, of the situation of Henry P. Tobias’s second “pod” of treasure, fitted in exactly with Charlie Webster’s wishes for our trip, small stock as he affected to take in it at the moment.