“The story goes that this Wilberforce was one of her forebears. His ship was wrecked and finally he alone survived. He escaped, was picked up and brought back to England with nothing but the clothes he wore and this parchment in a bag round his neck. With all that he had gone through he lost his mind for a space. He recovered before he died enough to tell some story. His sons quarreled. The story, with one half of the parchment, went to one branch of the family and the other, with the other half, to another. They never got together again until her father and mother, strangely enough the last survivors of the two branches of the family which had been so long separated, came together by marriage, and after their death she pieced out the secret.�
I told them the exact truth as you see. How much of it they understood I could not tell. Probably but little, yet the idea of the treasure was real enough undoubtedly and my glib way of rehearsing the story evidently made a great impression on them.
“Is that all?� asked Pimball, as I stopped for breath.
“All that I know.�
“And you think there is treasure there?�
Now of late I had changed my mind, why I know not, but I had; yet it would not do to tell them that, for I wanted so to fill their mind with gold as to leave no place for woman.
“I am sure of it,� I answered vehemently—“gold, silver, jewels, God knows what, everything to make us rich forever.�
“And what do you reckon the value of it all?�
“Oh, several millions of pounds,� I answered lightly as if the treasure was so great that a million more or less was of no moment.
To the end of my life I shall never forget the gleaming of their eyes, the covetousness in their faces and their bearing, the tense silence broken only by their deep breathing, the vulgar passion for greed that suddenly filled the little cabin.