Admiral Sir Francis Drake, with the right to search, discover, and appropriate the same; and for the purpose thereof they did then and there form a guild or corporation to so discover, search for, and disclose said treasures, and by virtue thereof they solemnly subscribed their names.  But at this moment the reading of the parchment was arrested by an exclamation from the assembly, and the broker was seen frantically struggling at the door in the strong arms of Mark-the-Pinker.

“Let me go!” he cried, as he made a desperate attempt to reach the side of Master Flash-in-the Pan.  “Let me go!  I tell you, gentlemen, that document is not worth the parchment it is written on.  The laws of the State, the customs of the country, the mining ordinances, are all against it.  Don’t, by all that’s sacred, throw away such a capital investment through ignorance and informality.  Let me go!  I assure you, gentlemen, professionally, that you have a big thing,—­a remarkably big thing, and even if I ain’t in it, I’m not going to see it fall through.  Don’t, for God’s sake, gentlemen, I implore you, put your names to such a ridiculous paper.  There isn’t a notary—­”

He ceased.  The figures around him, which were beginning to grow fainter and more indistinct, as he went on, swam before his eyes, flickered, reappeared again, and finally went out.  He rubbed his eyes and gazed around him.  The cabin was deserted.  On the hearth the red embers of his fire were fading away in the bright beams of the morning sun, that looked aslant through the open window.  He ran out to the cliff.  The sturdy sea-breeze fanned his feverish cheeks, and tossed the white caps of waves that beat in pleasant music on the beach below.  A stately merchantman with snowy canvas was entering the Gate.  The voices of sailors came cheerfully from a bark at anchor below the point.  The muskets of the sentries gleamed brightly on Alcatraz, and the rolling of drums swelled on the breeze.  Farther on, the hills of San Francisco, cottage-crowned and bordered with wharves and warehouses, met his longing eye.

Such is the Legend of Devil’s Point.  Any objections to its reliability may be met with the statement, that the broker who tells the story has since incorporated a company under the title of “Flash-in-the-Pan Gold and Silver Treasure Mining Company,” and that its shares are already held at a stiff figure.  A copy of the original document is said to be on record in the office of the company, and on any clear day the locality of the claim may be distinctly seen from the hills of San Francisco.

THE DEVIL AND THE BROKER

A MEDIAEVAL LEGEND

The church clocks in San Francisco were striking ten.  The Devil, who had been flying over the city that evening, just then alighted on the roof of a church near the corner of Bush and Montgomery Streets.  It will be perceived that the popular belief that the Devil avoids holy edifices, and vanishes at the sound of a Credo or Pater-noster, is long since exploded.  Indeed, modern scepticism asserts that he is not averse to these orthodox discourses, which particularly bear reference to himself, and in a measure recognize his power and importance.