"Nay, how should I know?" returned Gilbert, still in doubt as to Timothy's sanity.
Timothy grasped Gilbert by his two shoulders and said in a hollow, awe-stricken voice:
"'Tis The Golden Galleon!"
Gilbert started back in astonishment.
"How know you?" he cried.
"By the devices I have now seen carven upon her stern," said Timothy. "I knew them again. They are the same that we saw in the midst of that weird green light on the Sargasso Sea, and 'tis the self-same ship, as I'm a living son of a barber. 'Tis Jacob Hartop's Golden Galleon—or else her ghost, as Jacob averred."
"Her ghost!" echoed Gilbert; and he put his hand upon the table as if to assure himself that it was a solid substance. "Nay, Tim, 'tis no ghost," said he, "although I will not deny that she may be Jacob's galleon." He paused for many moments reflecting. At last he went on: "Prithee, Tim, didst ever hear from Jacob how long it was since he deserted that same golden galleon of his?"
"Three years at the least," answered Timothy; "for 'tis not to be forgotten that when he had left her he voyaged yet again to the Spanish Main, where he fell in with your uncle Jasper and the good ship Pearl."
Now, in preparing the table as a bed on the night before, Timothy had left only one thing lying there, and that thing was a large book which he had placed as a pillow for Gilbert. The book lay still upon the table close to Gilbert's hand. Gilbert idly turned back its first page. His eyes rested upon a line of cramped and almost illegible writing. He looked at it closer and then started back.
"Tim!" he cried. "'Tis true—'tis true what you say, for here is his very name writ in this book!" He put his finger on the page while Timothy drew nearer. "There, where I point," he added. "'Tis his own hand, see—'Jacob Hartop, Buccaneer, Hys logg booke'."