"The path," Reginald said to himself, "that doubtless he walked, leading to the hut where he saw Alderly die. The same, yet all so different!"
"A little glade on which the moon did shine as though on a sweet English field at home," he remembered Nicholas had written--and, lo! they were in it now. "A little glade bordered on all sides by golden shaddocks, grapefruits, citrons and lime-trees, with, at their feet and trailing round them, the many-hued convolvuli of the tropics, passion-flowers and grandillos." Only, instead of seeking for a bloodstained sea-robber, Reginald was following in the footsteps of this woodland nymph--this girl whose beauty and innocence acted like a charm upon him.
Then, next, they entered the tangled forest that Nicholas had passed through, and here again all was as he had described it. The gleaming leaves of the star-apple shone side by side with the palms and cotton-trees; the fresh cool plantains and the cashews stopped their way sometimes; the avocados and yams and custard-apples were all around them. And turning a bend of the path they came upon the hut, even as, two centuries ago, Nicholas had come upon the hut where Alderly had played host to the spectres of his drunken imagination.
Of course it could not be the same; the old one must long ago have rotted away, even if not pulled down. This to which the girl led him was a large, substantial wooden building, painted white and green, with all around it--which made it appear even larger--a balcony, or piazza, and with jalousies thrown over the rails of the piazza from above the windowless frames. On the balcony were rude though comfortable chairs covered with striped Osnaburgh cloths; against the railing there stood a gun--it was hers!--and there were large calabashes standing about, some full of water and some empty, with smaller ones for drinking from.
"This is my home," the girl said. "And it is here that we have lived for nearly two hundred years, the house being rebuilt as it fell into disrepair from time to time. I pray you to be seated. Later, when you have rested, you shall see where the diggings have been made in the searches for the supposed treasure."
"And where," said Reginald, speaking as one in a stupor, "is the spot you told me of, the cellar where the treasure once had been?"
"It is below the floor of this verandah we are standing on. Why do you ask?"
"Your story interests me so," he replied. "It seems so like a dream. But," he continued, "later on, another day, perhaps you will tell me all of it. For instance, I should so much like to know how your ancestor, who at last never returned, came to possess the treasure and to leave it buried here."
"He found it here," she said, "by chance, and ever afterwards he made this island a resort of his. I have told you he was a bad man--I am afraid, a pirate."
Again there came a feeling into Reginald's mind that he was losing his senses, that he was going mad. And the next question he asked, with the answer he received, might, indeed, have justified him in so thinking.