"You puzzle me, Mr. Stoodles."
"Arrah, then, out with it: The outcast was dead when I saw him, but I happened to notice that his back was tattooed. It took me eight hours to make out the marks. I can spake the native dialect well enough, but the script was hard to figure out. But I did it."
"And what did it tell?" asked Dave interestedly.
"Well, two outcasts had found the gold. So as not to forget exactly where it was, one tattooed a diagram or chart, or whatever you may call it, on the back of the other. One of them died a little later. That's all, come on."
The wonders of the next two hours, those who followed the guidance of Pat Stoodles never forgot. It was like a visit to fairy-land. They penetrated underground chambers of dazzling magnificence, the torches illuminating walls and roofs of glittering splendor.
At last, in a depression of a great rock-crystal stone, they came across a heap of straw.
Pulling it aside, a golden gleam dazzled the eager eyes of the onlookers.
"It's there! Oh, it's there!" cried the enraptured Dave Fearless.
The ocean treasure, again recovered, lay before them.
It had come so easily, so naturally, that there was something unreal about the whole thing.