"But," he went on, "as for the treasure, as for the finding of it--that might as well have happened fifty or a hundred years ago as now. It is yours and your family's; not a farthing of it belonged to my relative, nor belongs to me."
"That shall never be," she replied. "My father, although a rough, simple sailor, is an honest, straightforward man; he, at least, would never hear of such a thing as your not having your share. And for my brother----" but here she paused.
"Why," asked Reginald, after a moment had elapsed--"why do you hesitate at the name of your brother?"
"Because," she replied, "he is different. He is," and she buried her face in her hands for a moment and then uncovered it again--"he is a cruel, grasping man, selfish and greedy. He rules us more as if he were father than father himself, and he tyrannises even over him. He takes all the money they both earn while they are away together, and, generally, he spends it. When they went to Aspinwall, at the time they were so busy about the Canal, he took all they had both earned and spent it at the Faro and Monte tables, as they call them down there. And once he struck father before me, when they were both at home, because he wanted to go over to Porto Rico, where the Spaniards gamble day and night, and father would not give him the money for some goats he had sold to a Tortola dealer. Oh!" she continued, "he is terrible! and when he takes his share of what is in the Key, I dread to think of what he will do with it."
As she finished, the storm increased with such violence that it was necessary for them to leave the crag on which they stood--otherwise they would possibly be blown off it ere many moments had elapsed. Moreover, the hot rain was beginning now--and in these regions only a few moments elapse between the fall of the first drop and the drenching downpour of a tropical storm; it was time for them to seek the refuge of Barbara's home. The thunder, too, was very near now, so at once they hurried onwards, gaining the desired shelter before the worst of the storm had set in.
It was to-day--the day following Barbara's account of Simon Alderly--that Reginald had promised to read to her Nicholas's narrative. He had it in his pocket now; indeed he regarded it as too precious a thing to leave carelessly about, and consequently it was always with him, and to-day he proposed ere leaving her to get through some portion of it. He meant to read it all through, partly as a story that he thought would interest the girl, partly as a justification of Nicholas. For, he considered, if, since she already believed her ancestor to be a pirate, he proved to her that he was indeed such, then Nicholas must be acquitted in her mind for having himself removed and hidden away that which did not belong to him. So they, having reached the house, sat themselves down to the narrative, he to read and she to listen. They were no longer able to sit upon the verandah since the rain now beat down pitilessly and as though it never meant to cease, and the wind, even in the middle of the little island, was very boisterous. And so, when the jalousies had been fastened tightly to prevent the flapping they had previously made, Reginald began Nicholas's story, prefacing it with the account of how it had been found.
It was about ten o'clock in the day when this young couple, who had so strangely been brought together in this island, began that story--for they met and parted early; it was nearly nightfall when Reginald arrived at the description of how Alderly died singing his drunken song. And amidst the swift-coming darkness--a darkness made more intense by the heavy pall of clouds that hung above the island--there seemed to come over them both that feeling of creepiness, of melancholy horror, which Nicholas had described himself as becoming overwhelmed with.
The girl seemed far more overcome by this feeling than Reginald was. She started again and again at every fresh gust that shook the frail fabric in which she dwelt, her eyes stared fixedly before her as though she saw the spectre of her pirate ancestor rising up, and once she begged him to desist for a moment from his reading.
"It was below here," she whispered, "below the very spot where we sit, that that wretch, that murderous villain, died in his sin. Oh! it is horrible! horrible to think that we have all lived here so long, that I was born here. Horrible!"
"Barbara," said Reginald, "do not regard it so seriously. I was wrong to read you all I have--yet, think. Think! It is two hundred years since it all happened--we have nothing to do with that long-buried past."