“Lord! I said no such thing. I said that in my ’pinion the stuff wasn’t here; but I may be wrong. There’s Jude hollering for us to come to breakfast. Come along down and I’ll show you my meanin’.”
He scarcely spoke during the meal, and when it was over he took the tobacco box from his pocket and opened the chart on the table.
“Now,” said Satan, “I’ll show you what I mean by sayin’ the stuff may be here, but it’s a big sight larger maybe it isn’t. Don’t crowd me. Stand behind me on either side and keep your eyes on the chart. Well, now, there’s Lone Reef with the creek marked and the name of her, and there’s Rum Cay to the left, and there’s the latitude and longitude wrote up—all plain, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, seein’ Rum Cay is given, and seein’ Lone Reef is down on all the charts and as well known as Cuba to any sailor man, what did the man want stickin’ the latitude and longitude down for? The chart’s not a sailin’ chart. A blind monkey wouldn’t use it nor bother about examinin’ the latitude and longitude wrote on it. He’d just say, ‘Lone Reef is the place I want to get to,’ and he’d get there with the ordinary ship’s chart.”
“Yes.”
“Well,” said Satan, “in my opinion the chap that sank the Nombre de Dios knew of the old wreck lyin’ over there on Lone Reef and used it as a blind, for the latitude and longitude wrote there so faint that no man would bother to try to read it isn’t the latitude and longitude of Lone Reef; it’s a hundred and ten mile out. It’s the latitude and longitude of Cormorant Cay, a blasted sandbank down to s’uthard, all shoals and gulls, and that’s where the Nombre de Dios lies, in my ’pinion.”
Ratcliffe whistled.
“Of course I may be wrong,” said Satan, “there’s no knowin’.”
“I see what you mean,” said Ratcliffe. “This chap reckoned that anyone finding or stealing the chart would take the latitude and longitude written there for granted as the latitude and longitude of Lone Reef, and not bother to examine the figures and verify them; having no cause, indeed, to do so, seeing Lone Reef is so well known and on all the charts.”