“I think you will do,” he said with reluctance. “And now the conditions!”
I smiled agreeably.
“You are already sworn to secrecy,” said Edgar. “And you now agree in every detail to obey me implicitly, and to accompany me to a certain place, where you will dig. If I find the treasure, you agree, to help me guard it, and convey it to wherever I decide it is safe to leave it. Your responsibility is then at an end. One year after the treasure is discovered, you will be free to write the account of the expedition. For what you write, some magazine may pay you. What it pays you will be your share of the treasure.”
Of my part of the million dollars, which I had hastily calculated could not be less than one-fifth, I had already spent over one hundred thousand dollars and was living far beyond my means. I had bought a farm with a waterfront on the Sound, a motor-boat, and, as I was not sure which make I preferred, three automobiles. I had at my own, expense produced a play of mine that no manager had appreciated, and its name in electric lights was already blinding Broadway. I had purchased a Hollander express rifle, a real amber cigar holder, a private secretary who could play both rag-time and tennis, and a fur coat. So Edgar’s generous offer left me naked. When I had again accustomed myself to the narrow confines of my flat, and the jolt of the surface cars, I asked humbly:
“Is that all I get?”
“Why should you expect any more?” demanded Edgar. “It isn’t your treasure. You wouldn’t expect me to make you a present of an interest in my mills; why should you get a share of my treasure?” He gazed at me reproachfully. “I thought you’d be pleased,” he said. “It must be hard to think of things to write about, and I’m giving you a subject for nothing. I thought,” he remonstrated, “you’d jump at the chance. It isn’t every day a man can dig for buried treasure.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “Perhaps I appreciate that quite as well as you do. But my time has a certain small value, and I can’t leave my work just for excitement. We may be weeks, months—— How long do you think we——”
Behind his eye-glasses Edgar winked reprovingly.
“That is a leading question,” he said. “I will pay all your legitimate expenses—transportation, food, lodging. It won’t cost you a cent. And you write the story—with my name left out,” he added hastily; “it would hurt my standing in the trade,” he explained—“and get paid for it.”
I saw a sea voyage at Edgar’s expense. I saw palm leaves, coral reefs. I felt my muscles aching and the sweat run from my neck and shoulders as I drove my pick into the chest of gold.