Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/136

104 The worthy Governor William Glass had a curious yarn to tell of that first ruler of the island, Jonathan Lambert of Salem, who had published his grandiose proclamations and whose ambitious dreams were so soon eclipsed. The accepted account is that he was drowned while out in his boat, but the British garrison had found on the island a man who said he had been there with Lambert and that he suspected another companion of the first king of Tristan da Cunha of having made away with him in order to secure his hoard of gold. Afraid of discovery, the regicide had fled the island, leaving the treasure behind him.

The ingenious inventor of this narrative had professed to know where the treasure was buried,

At any rate, the story sufficed to supply the imaginative vagabond with free rum and tobacco, which, no doubt, was the end in view.

Augustus Earle hunted the wild goats, which had multiplied on the mountain-slopes, and he has left us this pleasing picture of the simple and