Suddenly he saw three heads appear above the sand hill, so close to him that he crouched down quickly with a keen thrill, close beside the hummock near which he stood. His first fear was that they might have seen him in the moonlight; but they had not, and his heart rose again as the counting voice went steadily on. "One hundred and twenty," it was saying—"and twenty-one, and twenty-two, and twenty-three, and twenty-four," and then he who was counting came out from behind the little sandy rise into the white and open level of shimmering brightness.
It was the man with the cane whom Tom had seen some time before—the Captain of the party who had landed. He carried his cane under his arm now, and was holding his lantern close to something that he held in his hand, and upon which he looked narrowly as he walked with a slow and measured tread in a perfectly straight line across the sand, counting each step as he took it. "And twenty-five, and twenty-six, and twenty-seven, and twenty-eight, and twenty-nine, and thirty."
Behind him walked two other figures; one was the half-naked negro, the other the man with the plaited queue and ear-rings whom Tom had seen lifting the chest out of the boat. Now they were carrying the heavy box between them, laboring through the sand with shuffling tread as they bore it onward.
As he who was counting pronounced the word "thirty," the two men set the chest down on the sand with a grunt, the white man panting and blowing and wiping his sleeve across his forehead. And immediately he who counted took out a slip of paper and marked something down upon it. They stood there for a long time, during which Tom lay behind the sand hummock watching them, and for a while the silence was uninterrupted. In the perfect stillness Tom could hear the washing of the little waves beating upon the distant beach, and once the far-away sound of a laugh from one of those who stood by the boat.
One, two, three minutes passed, and then the men picked up the chest and started on again; and then again the other man began his counting. "Thirty and one, and thirty and two, and thirty and three, and thirty and four"—he walked straight across the level open, still looking intently at that which he held in his hand—"and thirty and five, and thirty and six, and thirty and seven," and so on, until the three figures disappeared in the little hollow between the two sand hills on the opposite side of the open, and still Tom could hear the sound of the counting voice in the distance.
Just as they disappeared behind the hill there was a sudden faint flash of light; and by-and-by as Tom lay still listening to the counting he heard, after a long interval, a far-away muffled rumble of distant thunder. He waited for a while, and then arose and stepped to the top of the sand hummock behind which he had been lying. He looked all about him, but there was no one else to be seen. Then he stepped down from the hummock, and followed in the direction which the pirate Captain and the two men carrying the chest had gone. He crept along cautiously, stopping now and then to make sure that he still heard the counting voice, and when it ceased he lay down upon the sand, and waited until it began again.
Presently, so following the pirates, he saw the three figures again in the distance, and, skirting around back of a hill of sand covered with coarse sedge-grass, he came to where he overlooked a little open level space gleaming white in the moonlight.
The three had been crossing the level of sand, and were now not more than twenty-five paces from him. They had again set down the chest, upon which the white man with the long queue and the gold ear-rings had seated to rest himself, the negro standing close beside him. The moon shone as bright as day and full upon his face. It was looking directly at Tom Chist, every line as keen cut with white lights and black shadows as though it had been calved in ivory and jet. He sat perfectly motionless, and Tom drew back with a start, almost thinking he had been discovered. He lay silent, his heart beating heavily in his throat; but there was no alarm, and presently he heard the counting begin again, and when he looked once more, he saw they were going away straight across the little open. A soft sliding hillock of sand lay directly in front of them. They did not turn aside, but went straight over it, the leader helping himself up the sandy slope with his cane, still counting, and still keeping his eyes fixed upon that which he held in his hand. Then they disappeared again behind the white crest on the other side.
So Tom followed them cautiously until they had gone almost half a mile inland. When next he saw them clearly it was from a little sedgy rise which looked down like the crest of a bowl upon the floor of sand below. Upon this smooth white floor the moon beat with almost dazzling brightness.
The white man who had helped to carry the chest was now kneeling, busied at some work, though what it was Tom at first could not see. He was whittling the point of a stick into a long wooden peg, and when, by-and-by, he had finished what he was about, he arose and stepped to where he who seemed to be the Captain had stuck his cane upright into the ground as though to mark some particular spot. He drew the cane out of the sand, thrusting the stick down in its stead. Then he drove the long peg down with a wooden mallet which the negro handed to him. The sharp rapping of the mallet upon the top of the peg sounded loud in the perfect stillness, and Tom lay watching and wondering what it all meant. The man, with quick repeated blows, drove the peg further and further down into the sand until it showed only two or three inches above the surface. As he finished his work there was another faint flash of light, and by-and-by another smothered rumble of thunder, and Tom, as he looked out toward the westward, saw the silver rim of the round and sharply outlined thunder cloud rising slowly up into the sky and pushing the other and broken drifting clouds before it.
The two white men were now stooping over the peg, the negro man watching them. Then presently the man with the cane started straight away from the peg, carrying the end of a measuring-line with him, the other end of which the man with the plaited queue held against the top of the peg. When the pirate Captain had reached the end of the measuring-line he marked a cross upon the sand, and then again they measured out another stretch of space.
So they measured a distance five times over, and then, from where Tom lay, he could see the man with the queue drive another peg just at the foot of a sloping rise of sand that beyond swept up into a tall white dune marked sharp and clear against the night sky behind. As soon as the man with the plaited queue had driven the second peg into the ground they began measuring again, and so, still measuring, disappeared in another direction which took them in behind the sand dune, where Tom no longer could see what they were doing.
The negro still sat by the chest where the two had left him, only now he was looking all about him, and so bright and strong was the moonlight that from where he lay Tom could see the glint of it twinkling in the whites of his eyeballs.
Presently from behind the hill there came, for the third time, the sharp rapping sound of the mallet driving still another peg, and then after a while the two pirates emerged from behind the sloping whiteness into the space of moonlight again.
They came direct to where the chest lay, and the white man and the black man lifting it once more, they walked away across the level of open sand, and so on behind the edge of the hill and out of Tom's sight.
Tom Chist could no longer see what the pirates were doing, neither did he dare to cross over the open space of sand that now lay between them and him. He lay there speculating as to what they were about, and meantime the storm cloud was rising higher and higher above the horizon, with louder and louder mutterings of thunder following each dull flash from out the cloudy cavernous depths. In the silence he could hear an occasional click as of some iron implement, and he opined that the pirates were burying the chest, though just where they were at work he could neither see nor tell.
Still he lay there watching and listening, and by-and-by a puff of warm air blew across the sand, and a thumping tumble of louder thunder leaped from out the belly of the storm cloud, which every minute was coming nearer and nearer. Still Tom Chist lay watching.
Suddenly, almost unexpectedly to him, the three figures reappeared from behind the sand hill, the pirate Captain leading the way, and the negro and white man following close behind him. They had gone just about half-way across the white sandy level between the hill and the hummock behind which Tom Chist lay, when the white man stopped and bent over as though to tie his shoe.
This brought the negro a few steps in front of his companion.
That which then followed happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly, so swiftly, that Tom Chist had hardly time to realize what it all meant before it was over. As the negro passed him the white man arose suddenly and silently erect, and Tom Chist saw the white moonlight glint upon the blade of a great case-knife which he now held in his hand. He took one, two, silent catlike steps behind the unconscious negro. Then there was a sweeping flash of the blade in the pallid light, and a blow, the thump of which Tom could distinctly hear even from where he lay stretched out upon the sand. There was an instant echoing yell from the black man, who ran stumbling forward, who stopped, who regained his footing, and then stood for an instant as though rooted to the spot.
Tom had distinctly seen the knife enter his back, and even thought that he had seen the glint of the point as it came out from the breast.
Meantime the pirate Captain had stopped, and now stood with his hand resting upon his cane looking impassively on.
Then the black man started to run. The white man stood for a while glaring after him; then he too started after his victim upon the run. The black man was not very far from Tom when he staggered and fell. He tried to rise, then fell forward again, and lay at length. At that instant the first edge of the cloud cut across the moon, and there was a sudden darkness; but in the silence Tom heard the sound of another blow and a groan, and then presently a voice calling to the pirate Captain that it was all over.
He saw the dim form of the Captain crossing the level sand, and then, as the moon sailed out from behind the cloud, he saw the white man standing over a black figure that lay motionless upon the sand.
Then Tom Chist scrambled up and ran away, plunging down into the hollow of sand that lay in the shadows below. Over the next rise he ran, and down again into the next black hollow, and so on over the sliding, shifting ground, panting and gasping. It seemed to him that he could hear footsteps following, and in the dreadful terror that possessed him he almost expected every instant to feel the cold knife-blade slide between his own ribs in such a thrust from behind as he had seen given to the poor black man.
How he ran the distance he never could tell, but it was almost as in a dream that he found himself at last in front of old Matt Abrahamson's cabin, gasping, panting, and sobbing for breath, his feet dragging behind him like lumps of lead.
As he opened the door and dashed into the cabin there was a flash of light, and as he slammed to the door behind him there was an instant peal of thunder as though a great weight had been dropped upon the roof of the sky, so that the doors and windows of the cabin rattled.
In Tom Chist's after recollections of that terrible time there was always a memory of a dreadful night of waking dreams mingled with the flashing lightning and the thunder of the storm that broke over the cottage, a downpour and beat of the rain upon the roof that lasted in an uproar of sound almost until morning.
Then came the dawning of a broad, wet daylight of sunshine that brought no relief.
As soon as he was up he went out of doors into the young day wet with the night's rain, and gazed out toward the offing where the mysterious sloop had been lying the day before.
It was no longer there.
It was some comfort to Tom to know that it was gone, and that it had taken those dreadful men with it. Were it not so he could not have walked a step through the day without a horrible fear that he might meet that dreadful man with the long shining knife.
He shuddered and gasped as a sudden keen memory of it all came upon him.
If he could only tell it to some one, he felt that it would be easier for him to bear; but then there was no one to whom he dared tell it; he could not tell it even to his foster-mother.
There was something especially trying to his troubled soul in his having to go out fishing with old Abrahamson that day, and it seemed to him that he suffered far more in the narrow, confined space of the little boat than he would have done upon the wide land, where he could walk about. His thoughts did not quit him for an instant. Even when he was hauling in his wet and dripping line with a struggling fish at the end of it a recurrent memory of what he had seen would suddenly come upon him, and he would writhe and twist in spirit at the recollection. If he could only tell about it, even to old Abrahamson, it would be some relief. But when he looked at the old man's leathery face, at his lantern jaws cavernously and stolidly chewing at a tobacco leaf, he felt that it was not possible for him to confide his terrible secret to him.
When the boat touched the shore again he leaped scrambling to the beach, with a feeling of unutterable relief.
As soon as his dinner was eaten he ran away to find the Dominie Jones, and to pour out his troubles to those friendly ears.
He ran on, all the way from the hut to the parson's house, hardly stopping once in all the way, and when he knocked at the door he was panting and sobbing for breath.
The good man was sitting on the back-kitchen door-step smoking his long pipe of tobacco out into the sunlight, while his wife within was rattling around among the pans and dishes in preparation of their supper, of which a strong porky smell already filled the air.
Tom Chist never could tell how he got his story told, but somehow, in convulsive fits and starts, panting and gasping for breath, he did manage to tell it all.
Parson Jones listened with breathless and perfect silence, broken only now and then by inarticulate ejaculations.
"And I don't know why they should have killed the poor black man," said Tom, as he finished his narrative.
"Why, that is very easy enough to understand," said the good reverend man. "'Twas a treasure-box they buried, Tom. A treasure-box! A treasure-box!"
In his excitement Mr. Jones had got up from his seat and was stamping up and down, smoking out great clouds of tobacco smoke into the hot air.
"A treasure-box?" cried out Tom.
"Ay, a treasure-box! And that was why they killed the poor black man. He was the only one, d'ye see, beside they two who knew the place where 'twas hid, and now that they've killed him out of the way, there's nobody but themselves knows. The villains— Tut, tut, look at that, now!" In his excitement the dominie had snapped the stem of his tobacco-pipe in two.
"Why, then," said Tom, "if that is indeed so, 'tis indeed a wicked, bloody treasure, and fit to bring a curse upon anybody who finds it!"
"'Tis more like to bring a curse upon the soul who buried it," said Parson Jones; "and it may be a blessing to him who finds it. But tell me, Tom, do you think you could find the place again where 'twas hid?"
"I can't tell that," said Tom. "'Twas all in among the sand humps, d'ye see, and it was at night into the bargain. Maybe we could find the marks of their feet in the sand," he added.
"'Tis not likely," said the reverend gentleman, "for the storm last night would have washed all that away."
"I could find the place," said Tom, "where the boat was drawn up on the beach."
"Why, then, that's something to start from, Tom," said his friend. "If we can find that, then maybe we can find whither they went from there."
"If I was certain it was a treasure-box," cried out Tom Chist, "I would rake over every foot of sand betwixt here and Henlopen for to find it."
"'Twould be like hunting for a pin in a haystack," said the Reverend Hillary Jones.
As Tom walked away home, it seemed not only as though a ton's weight of gloom had been rolled away from his soul, but as though he could hardly contain himself with the prospect of treasure-hunting the next day to look forward to.
The next day, early in the afternoon, Parson Jones and Tom Chist started off together, Tom carrying a spade over his shoulder, and the reverend gentleman walking along with his cane. As they jogged along up the beach they talked together about the only thing they could talk about—the treasure-box. "And how big did you say 'twas?" quoth the good gentleman.
"About so long," said Tom Chist, measuring off upon the spade, "and about so wide and this deep."
"And what if it should be full of money, Tom?" said the reverend gentleman, swinging his cane around and around in wide circles in the excitement of the thought, as he strode along briskly. "Suppose it should be full of money, what then?"
"By Moses!" said Tom Chist, hurrying to keep up with his friend, "I'd buy a ship for myself, I would, and I'd trade to Injy and to Chiny to my own boot, I would. Suppose the chist was all full of money, sir, and suppose we should find it; would there be enough in it, d'ye suppose, to buy a ship?"
"To be sure there would be enough, Tom; enough and to spare, and a good big lump over."
"And if I find it 'tis mine to keep, is it, and no mistake?"
"Why, to be sure it would be yours!" cried out the parson, in a loud voice. "To be sure it would be yours!" He knew nothing of the laws, but the doubt of the question began at once to ferment in his brain, and he strode along in silence for a while. "Whose else would it be but yours if you find it?" he burst out. "Can you tell me that?"
"If ever I have a ship of my own," said Tom Chist, "and if ever I sail to Injy in her, I'll fetch ye back the best chist of tea, sir, that ever was fetched from Cochin Chiny."
Parson Jones burst out laughing. "Thankee, Tom," he said; "and I'll thankee again when I get my chist of tea. But tell me, Tom, didst thou ever hear of the farmer girl who counted her chickens before they were hatched?"
It was thus they talked as they hurried along up the beach together, and so came to a place at last where Tom stopped short and stood looking about him. "'Twas just here," he said, "I saw the boat last night. Ay, I know 'twas here, for I mind me of that bit of wreck yonder, and that there was a tall stake drove in the sand just where yon stake stands."
Parson Jones put on his barnacles and went over to the stake toward which Tom pointed. As soon as he had looked at it carefully, he called out: "Why, Tom, this hath been just drove down into the sand. 'Tis a brand-new stake of wood, and the pirates must have set it here themselves as a mark, just as they drove the pegs you spoke about down into the sand."
Tom came over and looked at the stake. It was a stout piece of oak nearly two inches thick; it had been shaped with some care, and the top of it had been painted red. He shook the stake and tried to move it, but it had been driven or planted so deeply into the sand that he could not stir it. "Ay, sir," he said, "it must have been set here for a mark, for I'm sure 'twas not here yesterday or the day before." He stood looking about him to see if there were other signs of the pirates' presence. At some little distance away there was the corner of something white sticking up out of the sand. He could see that it was a scrap of paper, and he pointed to it, calling out, "Yonder is a piece of paper, sir. I wonder if they left that behind them?"
If he had only known the miraculous chance that placed that paper there, he would not have walked over to it as careless as he did to pluck it up out of the sand. There was only an inch of it showing, and if it had not been for his sharp eyes, it would certainly have been overlooked and passed by. The next wind-storm would have covered it up, and all that afterward happened never would have happened. "Look, sir," he said, as he struck the sand from it, "it hath writing on it."
"Let me see it," said Parson Jones. He adjusted the spectacles a little more firmly astride of his nose as he took the paper in his hand and began conning it. "What's all this?" he said; "a whole lot of figures and nothing else." And then he read aloud, "'Mark—S. SW. by S.' What d'ye suppose that means, Tom?"
"I don't know, sir," said Tom. "But maybe we can understand it better if we read on."
"'Tis all a great lot of figures," said Parson Jones, "without a grain of meaning in them so far as I can see, unless they be sailing directions." And then he began reading again: "'Mark—S. SW. by S. 40, 72, 91, 130, 151, 177, 202, 232, 256, 271'—d'ye see, it must be sailing directions—'299, 335, 362, 386, 415, 446, 469, 491, 522, 544, 571, 598'—what a lot of them there be—'626, 652, 676, 695, 724, 851, 876, 905, 940, 967. Peg. S.E. by E. 269 foot. Peg. S. SW. by S. 427 foot. Peg. Dig to the west of this six foot.'"
"What's that about a peg?" exclaimed Tom. "What's that about a peg? And then there's something about digging too!" It was as though a sudden light began shining into his brain. He felt himself growing quickly very excited. "Read that over again, sir," he cried. "Why, sir, you remember I told you they drove a peg into the sand. And don't they say to dig close to it? Read it over again, sir—read it over again!"
"Peg?" said the good gentleman. "To be sure it was about a peg. Let's look again. Yes, here it is. 'Peg. SE. by E. 269 foot.'"
"Ay!" cried out Tom Chist again, in great excitement. "Don't you remember what I told you, sir, 269 foot? Sure that must be what I saw 'em measuring with the line."
Parson Jones had now caught the flame of excitement that began to blaze up so strongly in Tom's breast. He felt as though some wonderful thing was about to happen to them. "To be sure, to be sure!" he called out in a great big voice. "And then they measured out 427 foot west by south, and then they drove another peg, and then they buried the box six foot to the west of it. Why, Tom—why, Tom Chist! if we've read this aright, thy fortune is made."
Tom Chist stood staring straight at the old gentleman's excited face, and seeing nothing but it in all the bright infinity of sunshine. Were they indeed about to find the treasure-chest? He felt the sun very hot upon his shoulders, and he heard the harsh, insistent jarring of a tern that hovered and circled with forked tail and sharp white wings in the sunlight just above their heads; but all the time he stood staring into the good old gentleman's face.
It was Parson Jones who first spoke. "But what do all these figures mean?" And Tom observed how the paper shook and rustled in the tremor of excitement that shook his hand. He raised the paper to the focus of his spectacles and began to read again. "'Mark. 40, 72, 91—'"
"Mark?" cried out Tom, almost screaming. "Why, that must mean the stake yonder; that must be the mark." And he pointed to the oaken stick with its red tip blazing: against the white shimmer of sand behind it.
"And the 40 and 72 and 91," cried the old gentleman, in a voice equally shrill; "why, that must mean the number of steps the pirate was counting when you heard him."
"To be sure that's what they mean!" cried Tom Chist. "That is it, and it can be nothing else. Oh, come, sir—come, sir; let us make haste and find it!"
"Stay! stay!" said the good gentleman, holding up his hand; and again Tom Chist noticed how it trembled and shook. His voice was steady enough, though very hoarse, but his hand shook and trembled as though with a palsy. "Stay! stay! First of all, we must follow these measurements. And 'tis a marvellous thing," he croaked, after a little pause, "how this paper ever came to be here."
"Maybe it was blown here by the storm," suggested Tom Chist.
"Like enough; like enough," said Parson Jones. "Like enough, after the wretches had buried the chest and killed the poor black man, they were so buffeted and bowsed about by the storm that it was shook out of the man's pocket, and thus blew away from him without his knowing aught of it."
"But let us find the box!" cried out Tom Chist, squirming in his excitement.
"Ay, ay," said the good man; "only stay a little, my boy, until we make sure what we're about. I've got my pocket-compass here, but we must have something to measure off the feet when we have found the peg. You run across to Tom Brooke's house and fetch that measuring-rod he used to lay out his new byre. While you're gone I'll pace off the distance marked on the paper with my pocket-compass here."
Tom Chist was gone for almost an hour, though he ran nearly all the way and back, upborne on the wings of his exuberant excitement. When he returned, panting, Parson Jones was nowhere to be seen, but Tom saw his footsteps leading away inland, and he followed the scuffling marks in the smooth surface across the sand humps and down into the hollows, and by-and-by found the good gentleman in a spot he at once knew as soon as he laid his eyes upon it.
It was the open space where the pirates had driven their first peg, and where Tom Chist had afterwards seen them kill the poor black man. Tom Chist gazed around as though expecting to see some sign of the tragedy, but the space was as smooth and as undisturbed as a floor, excepting where, midway across it, Parson Jones, who was now stooping over something on the ground, had trampled it all around about.
When Tom Chist saw him, he was still bending over, scraping the sand away from something he had found.
It was the first peg!
Inside of half an hour they had found the second and third pegs, and Tom Chist stripped off his coat, and began digging like mad down into the sand, Parson Jones standing over him watching him. The sun was sloping more than half-way toward the west when the blade of Tom Chist's spade struck upon something hard.
If it had been his own heart that he had hit in the sand his breast could hardly have thrilled more sharply.
It was the treasure-box!
Parson Jones himself leaped down into the hole, and began scraping away the sand with his hands as though he had gone crazy. At last, with some difficulty, they tugged and hauled the chest up out of the sand to the surface, where it lay covered all over with the grit that clung to it.
It was securely locked and fastened with a padlock, and it took a good many blows with the blade of the spade to burst the bolt. Parson Jones himself lifted the lid.
Tom Chist leaned forward and gazed down into the open box. He would not have been surprised to have seen it filled full of yellow gold and bright jewels. It was filled half full of books and papers, and half full of canvas bags tied safely and securely around and around with cords of string.
Parson Jones lifted out one of the bags, and it jingled as he did so. It was full of money.
He cut the string, and with trembling, shaking hands, handed the bag to Tom, who, in an ecstasy of wonder and dizzy delight, poured out with swimming sight upon the coat spread on the ground a cataract of shining silver money that rang and twinkled and jingled as it fell in a shining heap upon the coarse cloth.
Parson Jones held up both hands into the air, and Tom stared at what he saw, wondering whether it was all so, and whether he was really awake. It seemed to him as though he was in a dream.
There were two and twenty bags in all in the chest; ten of them full of silver money, eight of them full of gold money, three of them full of gold dust, and one small bag with jewels wrapped up in wad cotton and paper.
"'Tis enough," cried out Parson Jones, "to make us both rich men as long as we live."
The burning summer sun, though sloping in the sky, beat down upon them as hot as fire; but neither of them noticed it. Neither did they notice hunger nor thirst nor fatigue, but sat there as though in a trance, with the bags of money piled up on the sand all around them, a great pile of money heaped upon the coat, and the open chest beside them. It was an hour of sundown before Parson Jones had begun fairly to examine the books and papers in the chest.
Of the three books, two were evidently log-books of the pirates who had been lying off the mouth of the Delaware Bay all this time. The other book was written in Spanish, and was evidently the log-book of some captured prize.
It was then, sitting there upon the sand, the good old gentleman reading in his high cracking voice, that they first learned from the bloody records in those two books who it was who had been lying inside the Cape all this time, and that it was the famous Captain Kidd. Every now and then the reverend gentleman would stop to exclaim, "Oh, the bloody wretch!" or, "Oh, the desperate, cruel villains!" and then would go on reading again a scrap here and a scrap there.
And all the while Tom Chist sat and listened, every now and then reaching out furtively and touching the heap of money still lying upon the coat.
One might be inclined to wonder why Captain Kidd had kept those bloody records. He had probably laid them away because they so incriminated many of the great people of the Colony of New York that, with the books in evidence, it would have been impossible to bring the pirate to justice without dragging a dozen or more fine rich gentlemen into the dock along with him. If he could have kept them in his own possession, they would doubtless have been a great weapon of defence to protect him from the gallows. Indeed, when Captain Kidd was finally brought to conviction and hung, he was not accused of his piracies, but of striking a mutinous seaman upon the head with a bucket and accidentally killing him. They did not dare to accuse him of his piracies. He was really hung because he was a pirate, and we know that it was the log-books that Tom Chist brought to New York that did the business for him; but what he was accused and convicted of was the killing of his own ship-carpenter with a bucket.
So Parson Jones, as he and Tom Chist sat there in the slanting light, skimmed through these terrible records of piracy, and Tom, with the pile of gold and silver money beside him, sat and listened to him.
What a spectacle, if any one had come upon them! But they were alone, with only the vast arch of sky above them and the wide white stretch of sand around them. The sun sank lower and lower, until it slanted so far in the sky that there was only time to glance through the other papers in the chest.
They were nearly all goldsmiths' bills of exchange drawn in favor of certain of the more prominent merchants of New York. Parson Jones, as he read over the names, knew of nearly all the gentlemen by hearsay. Ay, here was this gentleman; he thought that name would be among 'em. What? Here is Mr. So-and-so. Well, if all they say is true, the villain has robbed one of his own best friends. "I wonder," he said, "why the wretch should have hidden these papers so carefully away with the other treasures, for they could do him no good?" Then, answering his own question: "Like enough because these will give him a hold over the gentlemen to whom they are drawn so that he can make a good bargain for his own neck before he gives the bills back to their owners. I tell you what it is, Tom," he continued; "it is you yourself shall go to New York and bargain for the return of these papers. 'Twill be as good as another fortune to you."
The majority of the bills were drawn in favor of one Richard Chillingsworth, Esq. "And he is," said Parson Jones, "one of the richest men in the Province of New York. You shall go to him with the news of what we have found."
"When shall I go?" said Tom Chist.
"You shall go upon the very first boat we can catch," said the parson. He had turned, still holding the bills in his hand, and was now fingering over the pile of money that yet lay tumbled out upon the coat. "I wonder, Tom," said he, "if you could spare me a score or so of these doubloons?"
"You shall have fifty score, if you choose," said Tom, bursting with gratitude and with generosity in his newly found treasure.
"You are as fine a lad as ever I saw, Tom," said the parson, "and I'll thank you to the last day of my life."
Tom scooped up a double handful of silver money. "Take it, sir," he said, "and you may have as much more as you want of it."
He poured it into the dish that the good man made of his hands, and the parson made a motion as though to empty it into his pocket. Then he stopped, as though a sudden doubt had occurred to him. "I don't know that 'tis fit for me to take this pirate money, after all," he said.
"But you are welcome to it," said Tom.
Still the parson hesitated. "Nay," he burst out, "I'll not take it; 'tis blood-money." And as he spoke he chucked the whole double handful into the now empty chest, then arose and dusted the sand from his breeches. Then, with a great deal of bustling energy, helped to tie the bags again, and put them all back into the chest.
They reburied the chest in the place whence they had taken it, and then the parson folded the precious paper of directions, placed it carefully in his wallet, and his wallet in his pocket. "Tom," he said, for the twentieth time, "your fortune has been made this day."
And Tom Chist, as he rattled in his breeches pocket the half-dozen doubloons he had kept out of his treasure, felt that what his friend had said was true.
As the two went back homeward across the level space of sand, Tom Chist suddenly stopped stock still and stood looking about him. "'Twas just here," he said, digging his heel down into the sand, "that they killed the poor black man."
"And here he lies buried for all time," said Parson Jones; and as he spoke he dug his cane down into the sand. Tom Chist shuddered. He would not have been surprised if the ferrule of the cane had struck something soft beneath that level surface. But it did not do so, nor was any sign of that tragedy ever seen again. For, whether the pirates had carried away what they had done and buried it elsewhere, or whether the storm in blowing the sand had completely levelled off and hidden all sign of that tragedy where it was enacted, certain it is that it never came to sight again—at least so far as Tom Chist and the Reverend Hillary Jones ever knew.
This is the story of the treasure-box. All that remains now is to wind up the story of Tom Chist, and to tell of what came of him in the end.
He did not go back again to live with old Matt Abrahamson. Parson Jones had now taken charge of him and his fortunes, and Tom did not have to go back to the fisherman's hut.
Old Abrahamson talked a great deal about it, and would come in his cups and harangue good Parson Jones, making a vast protestation of what he would do to Tom if he ever caught him for running away. But Tom on all these occasions kept carefully out of his way, and nothing came of the old man's threatenings.
Tom used to go over to see his foster-mother now and then, but always when the old man was from home. And Molly Abrahamson used to warn him to keep out of her father's way. "He's in as vile a humor as ever I see, Tom," she said; "he sits sulking all day long, and 'tis my belief he'd kill ye if he caught ye."
Of course Tom said nothing, even to her, about the treasure, and he and the reverend gentleman kept it all to themselves. About three weeks later Parson Jones managed to get him shipped aboard of a vessel bound for New York town, and a few days later Tom Chist landed at that place. He had never been in such a town before, and he could not sufficiently wonder and marvel at the number of brick houses, at the multitude of people coming and going along the fine hard earthen sidewalk, at the shops and the stores where goods hung in the windows, and, most of all, the fortifications and the battery at the point, at the rows of threatening cannon, and at the scarlet-coated sentries pacing up and down the ramparts. All this was very wonderful, and so were the boats clustered riding at anchor in the harbor. It was like a new world, so different was it from the sand hills and the sedgy levels of Henlopen.
Tom Chist took up his lodgings at a coffee-house down close to the town wall, and thence he sent by the post-boy a letter written by Parson Jones to Master Chillingsworth. In a little while the boy returned with a message, asking Tom to come up to Chillingsworth's house that afternoon at two o'clock.
Tom accompanied the post-boy with a great deal of trepidation, and his heart fell away altogether when he found himself brought to a fine grand brick house, three stories high, and with wrought-iron letters across the front.
The counting-house was in the same building; but Tom, because of Mr. Jones's letter, was conducted directly into the parlor, where the great rich man was awaiting his coming. He was sitting in a double-nailed arm-chair, smoking a pipe of tobacco, and with a bottle of fine old Madeira close to his elbow.
Tom had not had a chance to buy a new suit of clothes yet, and so he cut no very fine figure in the rough dress he had brought with him from Henlopen. Nor did Mr. Chillingsworth seem to think very highly of his appearance, but sat looking sideways at him as he smoked.
"Well, my lad," he said, "and what is this great thing you have to tell me that is so mightily wonderful? I got what's-his-name—Mr. Jones's—letter, and now I am ready to hear what you have to say."
But if he thought but little of his visitor's appearance at first, he soon changed his sentiments toward him, for Tom had not spoken twenty words when Mr. Chillingsworth's whole aspect changed. He straightened himself up in his seat, laid aside his pipe, pushed away his glass of Madeira, and bade Tom take a chair.
He listened without a word as Tom Chist told of the buried treasure, of how he had seen the poor negro murdered, and of how he and Parson Jones had recovered the chest again. Only once did Mr. Chillingsworth interrupt the narrative. "And to think," he cried, "that the villain this very day walks about New York town as though he were an honest man, ruffling it with the best of us! But if we can only get hold of these log-books you speak of. Go on; tell me more of this."
When Tom Chist's narrative was ended, Mr. Chillingsworth's bearing was as different as daylight is from dark. He asked a thousand questions, all in the most polite and gracious tone imaginable, and not only urged a glass of his fine old Madeira upon Tom, but asked him to stay to supper. There was nobody to be there, he said, but his wife and daughter.
Tom, all in a panic at the very thought of the two ladies, sturdily refused to stay for the dish of tea Mr. Chillingsworth offered him.
He did not know that he was destined to stay there as long as he should live.
"And now," said Mr. Chillingsworth, "tell me about yourself."
"I have nothing to tell, your honor," said Tom, "except that I was washed up out of the sea."
"Washed up out of the sea!" exclaimed Mr. Chillingsworth. "Why, how was that? Come, begin at the beginning, and tell me all."
Thereupon Tom Chist did as he was bidden, beginning at the very beginning, and telling everything just as Molly Abrahamson had often told it to him. As he continued, Mr. Chillingsworth's interest changed into an appearance of stronger and stronger excitement. Suddenly he jumped up out of his chair and began to walk up and down the room.
"Stop! stop!" he cried out at last, in the midst of something Tom was saying. "Stop! stop! Tell me; do you know the name of the vessel that was wrecked, and from which you were washed ashore?"
"I've heard it said," said Tom Chist, "'twas The Bristol Merchant."
"I knew it! I knew it!" exclaimed the great man, in a loud voice, flinging his hands up into the air. "I felt it was so the moment you began the story. But tell me this, was there nothing found with you with a mark or a name upon it?"
"There was a kerchief," said Tom, "marked with a T and a C."
"Theodosia Chillingsworth!" cried out the merchant. "I knew it! I knew it! Heavens! to think of anything so wonderful happening as this! Boy! boy! dost thou know who thou art? Thou art my own brother's son. His name was Oliver Chillingsworth, and he was my partner in business, and thou art his son." Then he ran out into the entry-way, shouting and calling for his wife and daughter to come.
So Tom Chist—or Thomas Chillingsworth, as he was now to be called—did stay to supper, after all.
This is the story, and I hope you may like it. For Tom Chist became rich and great, as was to be supposed, and he married his pretty cousin Theodosia (who had been named for his own mother, drowned in The Bristol Merchant).
He did not forget his friends, but managed so that Parson Jones came to New York to live.
As to Molly and Matt Abrahamson, they both enjoyed a pension of eighty pounds a year for as long as they lived; for now that all was well with him, Tom bore no grudge against the old fisherman for all the drubbings he had suffered.
The treasure-box was brought on to New York, and if Tom Chist did not get all the money there was in it (as Parson Jones had opined he would), he got at least a good big lump of it.
And it is my belief that those log-books did more to get Captain Kidd arrested in Boston town and hanged in London than anything else that was brought up against him.
Sing, that the winter is over,
Sing for the coming of spring,
For the showers and flowers and beautiful hours,
And the flash of the robin's wing.
Sing, for the gladness of Easter;
Lift up your voices and sing.
Deep in the heart of the forest,
Down at the roots of the trees,
There is stir of the violets coming,
And smile of anemones,
And many a kiss of fragrance
Goes out to the fragrant breeze.
Sing, for the coming of Easter,
And many a rare surprise
Of beauty and bloom awaiting
The looking of happy eyes.
Sing, for the Easter sunshine
And the blue benignant skies.
And carry the tall white lilies,
And the roses brimming sweet,
To the church where aisle and altar
Are sought by hastening feet.
Sing, to the Lord of the Easter,
Who is coming, your songs to meet.
Margaret E. Sangster.
I must own up I never could wrestle much with figures; they generally threw me. I am afraid I was born without the power of appreciating what is called proportion in figures. I do not take that for an excuse. I ought to have practised more, and it is probable that I should have improved on an imperfect sense.
How my breath was taken away when I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears a young Irishman, in a great New York dry-goods house, rattle out marvellous results which had stiff calculations in multiplication and addition, and he did it all in his head, and had no slate to figure on! His ability was of use in a practical way. A salesman would say to this Irishman something like this: "Fourteen cases of prints, 22 pieces per case, 38 yards to the piece, at 6-7/8 cents per yard." The salesman had no sooner stopped calling it all out than the lightning calculator had given him the result. The advantage to the house was that before the purchaser of the goods had left the building his bill was handed to him. All day long that living calculating-machine kept on figuring just in this way, and his work never seemed to tire him.
I had a friend who possessed this marvellous mental power. He was a bookkeeper in a large Southern house dealing in cotton, and sometimes when great lots of thousands of bales of cotton were sold he figured up the results.
To come back, however, to the conception of figures and the difficulty in understanding proportions. I know what is meant by 1, or 10, or 100, or 1000, or 100,000, or 1,000,000, but when I get into a billion, and try to encompass that, my ideas are vague. When I read that the Secretary of the Treasury gave, some time ago, this figure as the money in circulation in the United States, $1,606,139,735, I got lost with that figure 1 which stood before the other nine figures.
Now who does exactly appreciate what is a million? A young friend of mine asked me to show him "a million of anything." I might have taken the grains of sand on the sea-beach, and counted and weighed out an ounce of them, but that would have been troublesome work. Had I done so, however, I could have shown him a million of grains of sand. I had, however, some No. 9 shot, just such shot as are used for snipe-shooting, and then, as luck would have it, a No. 9 shot is just about the size of the letter "o" in Harper's Round Table. The manufacturers of shot, who know exactly what are the diameters of their leaden pellets, tell me that a No. 9 drop-shot has a diameter of 8/100 of an inch, and that 568 of such shot weigh one ounce. Therefore 1,000,000 of such shot would weigh 110 pounds, and a trifle of an ounce over.
I wanted, however, to get some idea of bulk. I had a box made one inch high, one inch deep—in fact, a cubic inch. This I filled with No. 9 shot, and it held just about 2000 pellets. Now a million of these shot would be, of course, 500 times 2000 pellets, or 500 little boxes would hold the million. If, then, I had a big box made to contain the million, this receptacle would have to be about eight inches on all sides. I can get of this some idea as to the bulk of these small shot by the million.
The more ways I could look at a million, the better I thought I would understand it. I wrote to the Treasury Department in Washington, and I put two questions, which one of the leading authorities answered in the most obliging manner. All I have to do, then, is to copy this gentleman's letter.
Treasury Department, Office of the Treasurer,
Washington, D. C., March 16, 1893.
Sir,—You ask me the following questions: 1st. How long does it take, under the most advantageous circumstances, for an expert to count 100,000 silver dollars? 2d. How long does it take, under the most advantageous circumstances, for an expert to count one hundred thousand notes?
In reply to the first inquiry, permit me to state that for a continuous count of an expert it will require twenty hours to handle 100,000 standard silver dollars. Under ordinary conditions, and observing the rules and regulations of the office for count as to correctness, and at the same time keep a careful eye for the detection of counterfeits, 4500 per hour, or 27,000 per six working hours each day is about the limit of capacity of our experts in that line.
To the second inquiry I may say that it will take an expert 16-2/3 hours to count 100,000 new notes, and for a current or ordinary day's work 40,000 notes is about all that can be done.
Respectfully yours,
E. H. Nebeker,
Treasurer U. S.
Take, then, a million of silver dollars, and set an expert counting it. If he worked night and day over it, lost no time in eating, drinking, or sleeping, he would finish a fairly tough job of counting a million of silver dollars in precisely 8-1/3 days.
I asked the Washington authority to give me some general idea as to the weight of 100,000 standard silver dollars, and the Acting Assistant Treasurer wrote me, "that 100,000 standard silver dollars will weigh 7161.5 pounds troy, and will occupy a space of 10.49 cubic feet." Then a million of silver dollars would weigh 71,615 pounds troy. The silver brick takes up less room than coin in some respects, but a vault made to hold a million of dollars worth of silver bullion must have more size than an ordinary coal cellar.
If you want to get swamped with figures, supposing at least you have the conception of what is a million of dollars, the total stock of money in the world is $3,656,935,000 in gold, and $3,944,700,000 in silver, making a grand total of $7,601,635,000. Say that the population of the United States is 65,000,000, then about this amount of money, $10.47 in gold, $8.55 in silver, $6.51 in paper notes, or $25.62, suffices for each one's use. If there was not as much money as that per head—little boys and little girls and babies included—the fathers, who hold the purse-strings, would complain that money was tight or hard to get, and exchange of goods for coin would be difficult.
Certainly the Secretaries of the Treasury must understand what are the vast amounts they have charge of. Only try and appreciate how much money was taken in by the United States in 1883 for gross revenue. It was $954,230,146. But the United States wanted a great deal of money that year, and so it paid out in 1883 $885,491,968.
This is one of the big counts of the United States Treasury. On the 29th of August of 1893 the cash alone on hand was $174,770,422.97 in coin. Sixty experts began work on it, and it took three months to finish the job. The weight of mixed coin was nearly 5000 tons.
When you come to figures in their application to time most of us get quite lost. We call this year 1896—that is 1896 years since the birth of Christ. In the history of the world that is only an instant, and yet it seems so far distant as to be somewhat out of our comprehension. But what is the mental process which can span the period between to-day and the time when the pyramids were built—say 3000 years before the birth of Christ. Perhaps one way of comprehending it is to divide every 100 years by three, because 33-1/3 years may about present a generation.
Suppose we take the conquest of England by William of Normandy, and his coronation at Westminster, in 1066. That was 830 years ago. In the eight centuries there would be about three generations for each 100 years, and that would make twenty-five generations and twenty-nine years over. Let us say the event took place twenty-five generations ago—it is curious dividing time in that way—how much nearer William the Conqueror seems to be to us. There is only one trouble about this method; it is the sense of humiliation it causes, because twenty-five or thirty generations ago our forefathers must have been rather savage people. At the same time we have the consolation of knowing that we have improved since then. Why, Christopher Columbus found America only twelve generations back—and there are many people alive who have seen five generations, counting themselves. It does not do, however, to go too far back, say to the forefather who was alive when the pyramid was reared. I do not understand 1964 generations ago.