Page:White and Hopkins--The mystery.djvu/179

Rh with vast contempt. "That's what makes me sure it is the chest."

Pulz muttered some of the jargon of alchemy.

"That's it," approved Handy Solomon. "If we could get"

"We wouldn't know how to use it," interrupted Pulz.

"The book" said Thrackles.

"Well, the book" asserted Pulz pugnaciously. "How do you know what it will be? It may be the Philosopher's Stone and it may be one of these other damn things. And then where'd we be?"

It was astounding to hear this nonsense bandied about so seriously. And yet they more than half believed, for they were deep-sea men of the old school, and this was in print. Thrackles voiced approximately the general attitude.

"Philosopher's stone or not, something's up. The old boy took too good care of that box, and he's spending too much money, and he's got hold of too much hell afloat to be doing it for his health."

"You know w'at I t'ink?" smiled Perdosa. "He mak' di'mon's. He say dat."

The Nigger had entered one of his black, brooding moods from which these men expected oracles.

"Get him ches'," he muttered. "I see him full—full of di'mon's!"

They listened to him with vast respect, and were visibly impressed. So deep was the sense of awe that Handy Solomon unbent enough to whisper to me:

"I don't take any stock in the Nigger's talk ordinarily. He's a hell of a fool nigger. But when his eye