Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/312

300 gold hidden by long forgotten pirates, had been at stake. Perhaps the whimsicality of the whole affair amused him, but had the actual doubloons lain gleaming before him, he would have made the same answer. And never had he needed the money so much as now.

And the existence of that gold was more than a legend with his people—it had grown to be a tradition, almost an accepted historic fact. The yellowing chart, stolen by the vagabond with the forking scar at the Café of Many Tongues, had been in their possession more than a century and a half. So, too, had been the picture of the ghost-ship, with the facsimile chart on its back, cut by the covetous painter from the frame still hanging on the wall of the deserted house. Even here the tradition had held, for disease and death had come to the culprit in the end.

Two hundred years ago the rich treasure had been cached on the island. If the reading of the ancient paper was right, the hiding place was on this very cape where even now the sailor's pick rang as it struck something hard—perhaps some coral formation or volcanic rock. No—it was a skull which the Captain held for a moment in his hands, then tossed away.

With that old chart had gone the warning that disaster and death, violent and sudden, would come to unsuccessful seekers and finders alike. But there had been this romantic codicil—no harm would come from the quest to lovers who had plighted their troth and kept it faithfully and true.

At this ancient superstition he would have laughed now, as never in the days of his boyhood. It was his last chance