“You are right, Jack,” replied the Governor, after a short pause; “that will, I think, do. I must tell him the story of the friars, because I swore you had something to do with it—but I’ll tell him no more: leave it all to me.”
Captain Wilson returned in the afternoon, and found the Governor in the veranda.
“I have had some talk with young Easy,” said the Governor, “and he has told me a strange story about that night, which he was afraid to tell to everybody.”
The Governor then narrated the history of the friars and the will.
“Well, but,” observed Captain Wilson, “the history of that will afford no clue to the legacy.”
“No, it does not; but still, as I said, Jack had a hand in this. He frightened the old lady as a devil, and you caught her in your arms and saved her from falling, so he had a hand in it, you see.”
“I do now remember that I did save a very dowager-like old personage from falling at the sight of a devil, who, of course, must have been our friend Easy.”
“Well, and that accounts for the whole of it.”
“A thousand doubloons for picking up an old lady!”
“Yes, why not?—have you not heard of a man having a fortune left him for merely opening the pew-door of a church to an old gentleman?”