We gin up all idee o’ hossfootin’ that night. It wuz too bad to leave the Beach, but we hed no mind to stay thar. We wuz mighty afeard, you see, an’ thar’s no use o’ denyin’ it—the thoughts o’ what become o’ that fifth man wuz boogerish; so we put for hum.
It would ’a been one o’ the very best nights for hossfootin’. The tide wuz high, an’ the moon come up over the Beach big an’ full; but the Beach lay all dusky an’ dark under the moon, an’ the night seemed owly. We laid our course straight across. It wurn’t pleasant sailin’, though, ez it hed been in the mornin’; fur the waves kep’ mekin’ moanin’ noises an’ guggling’s all ’round the boat. I wuz chilly, an’ my feelin’s crawled over me, and kep’ crawlin’ over me till we got to the landin’.
The folks wuz su’prised to see us. We got hum ’bout bed-time, an’ told at once what we’d seen; an’ instid o’ gittin’ off to bed ’arly, ez we al’ays did Sunday nights to git a good start Monday mornin’—instid o’ gittin’ off to bed, we all sot up an’ talked a long spell about it.
When I went to bed I couldn’t go to sleep, ’cause I kep’ thinkin’ over the hull matter. That day an’ that ere bright night hev al’ays seemed to me jist like two days into one. Thar wurn’t any daybreak, fur the moonlight wuz ez bright ez daylight, an’ you couldn’t tell when one went an’ another come. I s’pose though, arter all, that wuz a nat’rul thing in June, when the sun rises ’arliest in the year; but I never noticed it afore ur sence.
Two ur three days arterward, some o’ the neighbors stopped to the house in the edge o’the ev’nin’, an’ mongst other things that wuz talked over wuz that ere ship; fur, you see, she hed been noticed by all the people o’ that section the week afore, an’ now she wuz gone—nothin’ more’d been seen o’ her. I told what John an’ me hed seen, an’ so the story got afloat. All summer long, way into fall, neighbors an’ people livin’ quite a distance away would stop and ask me ’bout it—full a dozen men from the middle o’ the Islan’ stopped, fust an’ last, to ask me if it twan’t the same ship some o’ their mowers see, one foggy day six weeks later on, when they wuz on the Beach cuttin’ salt hay. Winter nights, we now an’ then would git to talkin’ it over ’round the fireplace. Well, time went on, an’ young people ez they growed up would ask me to tell it to them.
I’ve told it a good many times—a good many times. You see, it wur over fifty year ago sence it happened.
“Did anybody go to the spot an’ see what wuz buried thar?”
Some dare-devils from away West somewheres tried to dig thar. They took a clear night with only a little wind a-blowin’ an’ a few clouds afloat, but when they got fairly to work, it grew pitch dark, an’ foggy, ez quick ez a candle goes out. The air got so thick they couldn’t scarcely breathe, an’ then a skel’ton ghost with a dagger in its hand, that hed some kind o’ pale flame creepin’ an’ burnin’ on the blade, ’peared right above ’em. It stood a minute an’ shook the dagger, an’ then begun to move ’round ’em, comin’ nearer an’ nearer, till the men run headlong fur their boat, shakin’ cold, they wuz so scared.
I heerd one on ’em say, ten year arter, that that wuz the only time in all his life his hair ever stood on end.
But nobody round here never dug thar. They never even probed thar. They never tried the min’rul rod thar nuther, ez they did sometimes in other spots. Ev’rybody roun’ this ere part o’ the Islan’ knowed better. The treasure buried thar wuz enchanted treasure. Nobody meddles with enchanted treasure that knows what enchanted treasure is.