And forever
the sea sang a low muttering bass to the faint threnody of the wind
in the palms.
On this first day we gathered in the cool of the afternoon about
our table of packing-boxes for an event which even I, whose role
was that of skeptic, found exciting. Miss Browne was at last to
produce her map and reveal the secret of the island. So far,
except in general terms, she had imparted it to no one. Everybody,
in coming along, had been buying a pig in a poke--though to be sure
Aunt Jane had paid for it. The Scotchman, Cuthbert Vane had told
me incidentally, had insured himself against loss by demanding a
retaining fee beforehand. Somehow my opinion, both of his honesty
and of his intelligence, had risen since I knew this. As to
Cuthbert Vane, he had come purely in a spirit of adventure, and had
paid his own expenses from the start.
However, now the great moment was at hand. But before it comes, I
will here set down the treasure-story of Leeward Island, as I
gathered it later, a little here and there, and pieced it together
into a coherent whole through many dreaming hours.
In 1820, the city of Lima, in Peru, being threatened by the
revolutionaries under Bolivar and San Martin, cautious folk began
to take thought for their possessions. To send them out upon the
high seas under a foreign flag seemed to offer the best hope of
safety, and soon there was more gold afloat on the Pacific than at
any time since the sailing of the great plate-galleons of the
seventeenth century.
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