Perfectly calm now, he stepped to a locker, rummaged in it a moment, and drew out a faded piece of yellow parchment, which he spread on the table.  It was a map or chart.  In the centre of it was a circle.  In the middle of the circle was a small dot and a letter T, while at one side of the map was a letter N, and against it on the other side a letter S.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Can you not guess?” queried Captain Bilge.  “It is a desert island.”

“Ah!” I rejoined with a sudden flash of intuition, “and N is for North and S is for South.”

“Blowhard,” said the Captain, striking the table with such force as to cause a loaf of ship’s bread to bounce up and down three or four times, “you’ve struck it.  That part of it had not yet occurred to me.”

“And the letter T?” I asked.

“The treasure, the buried treasure,” said the Captain, and turning the map over he read from the back of it—­“The point T indicates the spot where the treasure is buried under the sand; it consists of half a million Spanish dollars, and is buried in a brown leather dress-suit case.”

“And where is the island?” I inquired, mad with excitement.

“That I do not know,” said the Captain.  “I intend to sail up and down the parallels of latitude until I find it.”

“And meantime?”

“Meantime, the first thing to do is to reduce the number of the crew so as to have fewer hands to divide among.  Come, come,” he added in a burst of frankness which made me love the man in spite of his shortcomings, “will you join me in this?  We’ll throw them all over, keeping the cook to the last, dig up the treasure, and be rich for the rest of our lives.”

Reader, do you blame me if I said yes?  I was young, ardent, ambitious, full of bright hopes and boyish enthusiasm.

“Captain Bilge,” I said, putting my hand in his, “I am yours.”

“Good,” he said, “now go forward to the forecastle and get an idea what the men are thinking.”

I went forward to the men’s quarters—­a plain room in the front of the ship, with only a rough carpet on the floor, a few simple arm-chairs, writing-desks, spittoons of a plain pattern, and small brass beds with blue-and-green screens.  It was Sunday morning, and the men were mostly sitting about in their dressing-gowns.

They rose as I entered and curtseyed.

“Sir,” said Tompkins, the bosun’s mate, “I think it my duty to tell you that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction among the men.”

Several of the men nodded.

“They don’t like the way the men keep going overboard,” he continued, his voice rising to a tone of uncontrolled passion.  “It is positively absurd, sir, and if you will allow me to say so, the men are far from pleased.”

“Tompkins,” I said sternly, “you must understand that my position will not allow me to listen to mutinous language of this sort.”