Then here the old Portuguese screamed out, also in a sort of English,
"Yees, yees. All gone now, Spanish sailors drink all up, then die. Die very soon afterwards. Drink all day and danze with the girls, then die."
"Well," says Phips, "what good's that to me? If the drink and the girls got all, I can profit nothing."
"He, he," laughed the old man, till he nigh choked, "got all that came in the boat, not all under the water. No, no!"
"Plenty more under water," grunted Juan, "so he say. Plenty more. Only no one able to get it and no one believe. He poor old Portygee, me poor negro, so no one believe."
"What, does he know?" says Phips, "and, if you knew, why had you no mind to speak when first we came here and I employed you?"
"Signor Phips," said the black, "then I knew of nothing; I only suspect you fished in wrong place. Then when you go away to English land there make much talk about you, and all ask me if English captain find much? And I say, no, and don't tink anyone find anyting. Then old man here--he ninety summers old!--then old man, Geronimo, he come in from mines of Hayna in middle of country, where he lived forty year, and hear of talk about you and the silver, and of me the Buzo" (which means a diver), "and he say he wish he come back sooner much, because he know where carrack lie, where shift off reefy."
"Shift off the reef!" exclaimed the Captain and myself together, with a glance at each other. "Is that so indeed?"
Then the old Portygee burst out laughing and then choking, and then when he found his voice again, he said,
"Yees, yees; that so. I see sailors come ashore with plate. I drink with them, I danze with girls, too, only I not die. That very long ago now; girls all dead, too. He! he! Oh!" and again he had his spasms.