and trouble, deacon," returned Daggett, in a sort of doubting way, that, for a moment, rendered his friend exceedingly uncomfortable. "Go, I know I must, sooner or later; but could I only live to get to the Vineyard, 'twould be found that my share of the old homestead would make up for all my wants. I may live to see the end of the other business."

Among the other tales of Daggett, was one which said that he had never yet received his share of his father's property; an account that was true enough, though the truth might have shown that the old man had left nothing worth dividing. He had been a common mariner, like the son, and had left behind him a common mariner's estate. The deacon mused a moment, and then he took an occasion to advert to the subject that had now been uppermost in his thoughts ever since he had been in the habit of holding secret conferences with the sick man. What that subject was, will appear in the course of the conversation that ensued.

"Have you thought of the chart, Daggett," asked the deacon, "and given an eye to that journal ?"

"Both, sir. Your kindness to me has been so great, that I am not a man apt to forget it."

"I wish you would show me, yourself, the precise places on the chart, where them islands are to be found. There is nothing like seeing a thing with one's own eyes."

"You forget my oath, Deacon Pratt. Every man on us took his bible oath not to point out the position of the islands, until a'ter the year 1820. Then, each and all on us is at liberty to do as he pleases. But, the chart is in my chest, and not only the islands, but the key, is so plainly laid down, that any marmer could find 'em. With that chest, however, I cannot part so long as I live. Get me well, and I will sail in the Sea Lion, and tell your captain Gar'ner all he will have occasion to know. The man's fortune will be made who first gets to either of them places."

"Yes, I can imagine that, easy enough, from your accounts, Daggett-but, how am I to be certain that some other vessel will not get the start of me?"

66

Because the secret is now my own. There was but seven on us in that brig, all told. Of them seven, four died at the islands of the fever, homeward bound; and of the other three, the captain was drowned in the squall I told you of, when he was washed overboard. That left only Jack Thompson and me; and Jack, I think, must be the very man whose death I see'd, six months since, as being killed by a whale on the False Banks."

"Jack Thompson is so common a name, a body never knows. Besides, if he was killed by that whale, he may have told the secret to a dozen before the accident."

"There's his oath ag'in it. Jack was sworn, as well as all on us,

and he was a man likely to stand by what he swore to. This was none of your custom-house oaths, of which a chap might take a dozen of a morning, and all should be false; but it was an oath that. put a seaman on his honour, since it was a good fellowship affair, all round."

Deacon Pratt did not tell Daggett that Thompson might have as good reasons for disregarding the oath as he had himself; but he thought it. These are things that no wise man utters on such occasions; and this opinion touching the equality of the obligation of that oath was one of them.

"There is another hold upon Jack," continued Daggett, after reflecting a moment. "He never could make any fist of latitude and longitude at all, and he kept no journal. Now, shorid he get it wrong, he and his friends might hunt a year without finding either of the places."

"You think there was no mistake in the pirate's account of that key, and of the buried treasure ?" asked the deacon, anxiously.

"I would swear to the truth of what he said as freely as if I had seen the box myself. They was necessitated, as you may suppose, or they never would have left so much gold in sich an uninhabited place; but leave it they did, on the word of a dying man."

Dying ?-You mean the pirate, I suppose ?"

"To be sure I do. We was shut up in the same prison, and we talked the matter over at least twenty times, before he was swung off. When they was satisfied I had nothing to do with the pirates, I was cleared; and I was on my way to the Vineyard, to get some craft or other, to go a'ter these two treasures (for one is just as much a treasure as t'other) when I was put ashore here. It's much the same to me, whether the craft sails from Oyster Pond or from the Vineyard."

66

Of course. Well, as much to oblige you, and to put your mind at rest, as anything else, I've bought this Sea Lion, and engaged young Roswell Gar'ner to go out in her, as her master. She'll be ready to sail in a fortnight, and, if things turn out as you say, a good voyage will she make. All interested in her will have reasor to rejoice. I see but one thing needful just now, and that is that you should give me the chart at once, in order that I may study it well, before the schooner sails."

"Do you mean to make the v'y'ge yourself, deacon ?" asked Daggett, in some surprise.

"Not in person, certainly," was the answer. "I'm getting somewhat too old to leave home for so long a time; and, though born and brought up in sight of salt-water, I've never tried it beyond a trip to York, or one to Boston. Still, I shall have my property in the adventure, and it's natʼral to keep an eye on that.

Now, the chart well studied beforehand would be much more useful, it seems to me, than it can possibly be, if taken up at a late hour."

"There will be time enough for Captain Gar'ner to overhaul his thart well, afore he reaches either of his ports," returned the mariner, evasively. "If I sail with him, as I suppose I must, nothing will be easier than for me to give all the courses and distances."

This reply produced a long and brooding silence. By this time, the reader will have got a clue to the nature of the secret that was discussed so much and so often between these two men. Daggett, finding himself sick, poor, and friendless among strangers, had early cast about him for the means of obtaining an interest with those who might serve him. He had soon got an insight into the character of Deacon Pratt, from the passing remarks of the widow White, who was induced to allude to the uncle, in consequence of the charitable visits of the niece. One day, when matters appeared to be at a very low ebb with him, and shortly after he had been put ashore, the sick mariner requested an interview with the deacon himself. The request had been reluctantly granted; but, during the visit, Daggett had managed so well to whet his visitor's appetite for gain, that henceforth there was no trouble in procuring the deacon's company. Little by little had Daggett let out his facts, always keeping enough in reserve to render himself necessary, until he had got his new acquaintance in the highest state of feverish excitement. The schooner was purchased, and all the arrangements necessary to her outfit were pressed forward as fast as prudence would at all allow. The chart, and the latitude and longitude, were the circumstances over which Daggett retained the control. These he kept to himself, though he averred that he had laid down on the charts that were in his chest the two important points which had been the subjects of his communications.

Although this man had been wily in making his revelations, and had chosen his confidant with caution and sagacity, most of that which he related was true. He had belonged to a sealer that had been in a very high southern latitude, where it had made some very important discoveries, touching the animals that formed the objects of its search. It was possible to fill a vessel in those islands in a few weeks; and the master of the sealer, Daggett having been his mate, had made all his people swear on their "bible oaths" not to reveal the facts, except under prescribed circumstances. His own vessel was full when he made the discoveries, but misfortune befel her on her homeward-bound passage, until she was herself totally lost in the West Indies, and that in a part of the ocean where she had no business to be.

In consequence of these several calamities, Daggett and one

more man were the sole living depositories of the important information. These men separated, and, as stated, Daggett had reason to think that his former shipmate had been recently killed by a whale. The life and movements of a sailor are usually as eccentric as the career of a comet. After the loss of the sealingvessel, Daggett remained in the West Indies and on the Spanisk Main for some time, until falling into evil company he was imprisoned on a charge of piracy, in company with one who better deserved the imputation. While in the same cell, the pirate had made a relation to Daggett of all the incidents of a very eventful life. Among other things revealed was the fact that, on a certain occasion, he and two others had deposited a very considerable amount of treasure on a key that he described very minutely, and which he now bestowed on Daggett as some compensation for his present unmerited sufferings, his companions having both been drowned by the upsetting of their boat on the return from the key in question. Subsequently, this pirate had been executed, and Daggett liberated. He was not able to get to the key without making friends and confidants on whom he could rely, and he was actually making the best of his way to Martha's Vineyard with that intent, when put ashore on Oyster Pond. In most of that which this man had related to the deacon, therefore, he had told the truth, though it was the truth embellished, as is so apt to be the case with men of vulgar minds. He might have been misled by the narrative of the pirate, but it was his own opinion that he had not been. The man was a Scot, prudent, wary, and sagacious; and in the revelations he made he appeared to be governed by a conviction that his own course was run, and that it was best that his secret should not die with him. Daggett had rendered him certain services, too, and gratitude might have had some influence.

"My mind has been much exercised with this matter of the hidden gold," resumed the deacon, after the long pause already mentioned. You will remember that there may be lawful owners of that should Gar'ner even succeed in finding it."

money,

"Twould be hard for 'em to prove their claims, sir, if what McGosh told me was true. Accordin' to his account, the gold came from all sides starboard and larboard, as a body might say-and it was jumbled together and so mixed, that a young girl could not pick out her lover's keepsake from among the other pieces. 'Twas the 'arnin's of three years' cruisin', as I understood him to say: and much of the stuff had been exchanged in port, especially to get the custom-house officers and king's officers out of its wake. There's king's officers among them bloody Spaniards, Deacon Pratt, all the same as among the English."

"Be temperate in your language, friend; a rough speech is unseemly, particularly of the Lord's day."

Daggett rolled the tobacco over his tongue, and his eyes twinkled with a sort of leer, which indicated that the fellow was not without some humour. He submitted patiently to the rebuke, however, making no remonstrance against its reception.

"No, no,” he added presently, "a starn chase, they say, is a long chase; and the owners of them doubloons, if owners they can now be called, must be out of sight, long before this. According to McGosh, some of the gold r'aally captured had passed back through the hands of them that sent it to sea, and they did not know their own children!" "It is certainly hard to identify coin, and it would be a bold man who should stand up, in open court, and make oath to its being the same he had once held. I have heard of the same gold's having answered the purposes of twenty banks, one piece being so like another."

66

Ay, ay, sir, gold is gold; and any of it is good enough for me, though doubloons is my favourites. When a fellow has got half-adozen doubloons alongside of his ribs, he can look the landlord full in the eye; and no one thinks of saying to sich as he, 'it's time to think of shipping ag'in.""

From the nature of this discourse, it will not be easy for the reader to imagine the real condition of Daggett. At the very moment he was thus conversing of money, and incidentally manifesting his expectations of accompanying Roswell Gardiner in the expedition that was about to sail, the man had not actually four-and-twenty hours of life in him. Mary Pratt had foreseen his true state, accustomed as she was to administer to the wants of the dying; but no one else appeared to be aware of it, not even the deacon. It was true that the fellow spoke, as it might be, from his throat only, and that his voice was hollow, and sometimes reduced to a whisper; but he ascribed this, himself, to the circumstance that he had taken a cold. Whether the deacon believed this account or not, it might be difficult to say; but he appeared to give it full credit. Perhaps his mind was so much occupied with the subject of his discussions with Daggett, that it did not sufficiently advert to the real condition of the man. Twice that afternoon did Deacon Pratt go between the cottage of the widow White and his own dwelling. As often did the relict fly across the way to express her wonder to the widow Stone, at the frequency of the rich man's visits. The second time that he came was when he saw the whale-boat rounding the end of Shelter Island, and he perceived, by means of his glass, that Dr. Sage was in it. At this sight the deacon hurried off to the cottage again, having something to say to Daggett that could no longer be delayed.

"The whale-boat will soon be in," he observed, as soon as he had taken his seat, "and we shall shortly have the doctor here. That young Gar'ner does what he has to do, always, with a jerk! There was no such haste, but he seems to be ever in a hurry!"