These were let down by rope. A note was brought
up on the rope, signed by Mr. Tubbs, and containing strangely
jumbled exhortations, prayers and threats. A second descent of the
rope elicited another missive, neatly folded and addressed in the
same hand to Miss Jane Harding. Cuthbert gave this privately to
me, but its contents must forever be unknown, for it went, unread,
into Cookie's fire. I had no mind to find Aunt Jane, with her
umbrella as a parachute, vanishing over the cliffs to seek the arms
of a repentant Tubbs.
The fly in the ointment of our satisfaction, and the one remaining
obstacle to our possession of the treasure, was the presence of the
two pirates in our midst. They were not nice pirates. They were
quite the least choice of the collection. Chris, when he was not
swearing, wept moistly, and so touched the heart of Aunt Jane that
we lived in fear of her letting him go if she got the opportunity.
He told her that he had lost an aunt in his tender youth, of whom
she reminded him in the most striking way, and that if this
long-mourned relative had lived he felt he should have been a
better man and not led away against his higher nature by the chance
of falling in with bad companions. Aunt Jane thought her
resemblance to Chris's aunt a remarkable coincidence and an
opportunity for appealing to his better self which should be
improved.
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