It seemed to Richard that Uncle Darcy’s hand, clutching his shoulder, was even more threatening than the Chinaman’s of his nightmare, and his voice more imperative.
“Tell me! Where did you get it? _That’s my compass!_ I scratched those letters on that nut. ‘D. D.’ stands for Dan’l Darcy. I brought it home from my last voyage. ’Twas a good-luck nut they told me in the last port I sailed from. It was one of the first things Danny ever played with. There’s the marks of his first little tooth under those letters. I gave it to him when he got old enough to claim it, for the letters were his, too. He always carried it in his pocket and _he had it with him when he went away_. For the love of heaven, child, tell me where you found it?”
The hand which clutched Richard’s shoulder was shaking as violently as it had the day the old rifle gave up its secret, and Richard, feeling the same unnamable terror he had felt in his nightmare, could only stammer, “I--I don’t know. Captain Kidd found it.”
Then all three of them started violently, for a hearty voice just behind them called out unexpectedly:
“Hullo, what’s all the excitement about?”
It was Captain James Milford, who had strolled down from the bungalow, his hat stuck jauntily on the back of his head, and his hands in his pockets. A few moments before he had been scanning the harbor through a long spy-glass, and happening to turn it towards the dunes had seen the two children digging diligently with shovel and hoe.
“Looks as if they’d started to honey-comb the whole Cape with holes,” he thought. “Curious how many things kids of that age can think of. It might be well to step down and see what they’re about.”
He put up the spy-glass and started down, approaching them on one side as the Towncrier reached them on the other.
“Now for a yarn that’ll make their eyes stand out,” he thought with a smile as he saw the old man sit down on the sand.
“Wonder if it would sound as thrilling now as it did when I was Dick’s age. I believe I’ll just slip up and listen to one for old times’ sake.”