“I don’t take much stock in it,” said John.  “I’m inclined to think it’s a hoax.  Some one trying to fool the old fellow.  If there’d been any treasure, I guess one could have trusted old ‘Wrecker’ Wicks to get after it....  But, boys, it’s bed-time, anyhow.  Come down to the office in the morning and we’ll look it over.”

So our meeting broke up for the time being, and taking my candle, I went upstairs, to dream of caves overflowing with gold pieces, and John Tinker, fierce and moustachioed, standing over me, a cutlass between his teeth, and a revolver in each hand.

CHAPTER II

The Narrative of Henry P. Tobias, Ex-Pirate, as Dictated on His Deathbed, in the Year of Our Lord, 1859.

The good John had scarcely made his leisurely, distinguished appearance at his desk on the morrow, immaculately white, and breathing his customary air of fathomless repose, when I too entered by one door, and Charlie Webster by the other.

“Now for the document,” we both exclaimed in a breath.

“Here it is,” he said, taking up a rather grimy-looking roll of foolscap from in front of him.

“A little like hurricane weather,” said the broadly smiling Charlie Webster, mopping his brow.

The room we were in, crowded with pigeon-holes and dusty documents from ceiling to floor, looked out into an outer office, similarly dreary, and painted a dirty blue and white, furnished with high desks and stools, and railed off with ancient painted ironwork, forlornly decorative, after the manner of an old-fashioned countinghouse, or shipping office.  It had something quaintly “colonial” about it, suggesting supercargoes, and West India merchants of long ago.

John took a look into the outer office.  There was nothing to claim his attention, so he took up the uncouthly written manuscript, which, as he pointed out, was evidently the work of a person of very little education, and began to read as follows: 

  “County of Travas
  “State of Texas
  “December 1859

"I being in very poor health and cannot last long, feeling my end is near, I make the following statement of my own free will and without solicitation.  In full exercise of all my faculties, and feel that I am doing my duty by so doing.

"My friends have shown me much kindness and taken care of me when sick, and for their kindness I leave this statement in their hands to make the best of it, when I will now proceed to give my statement, which is as follows:—­

"I was born in the city of Liverpool, England (on the 5th day of December 1784).  My father was a seaman and when I was young I followed the same occupation.  And it happened, that when, on a passage from Spain to the West Indies, our ship was attacked by free-traders, as they called themselves, but they were pirates.