"Something that pays big." Thrackles supplied the desired answer.
"Dat chis'----" suggested Perdosa.
"Voodoo----" muttered the Nigger.
"That's to scare us out," said Handy Solomon, with vast contempt. "That's what makes me sure it is the chest."
Pulz muttered some of the jargon of alchemy. "That's it," approved Handy Solomon. "If we could get----"
"We wouldn't know how to use it," interrupted Pulz.
"The book----" said Thrackles.
"Well, the book----" asserted Pulz pugnaciously.
"How do you know what it will be? It may be the Philosopher's Stone and it may be one of these other damn things. And then where'd we be?"
It was astounding to hear this nonsense bandied about so seriously. And yet they more than half believed, for they were deep-sea men of the old school, and this was in print. Thrackles voiced approximately the general attitude.