“Delighted, I’m sure,” says Septimus, craftily.
Then they talk of the weather, eyeing one another like practised fencers in a death struggle.
“Ha! ha!” thinks Sep; “he has heard of the sunken doubloons.”
“Ha! ha!” thinks Solomon. “If he only knew I had that plaster cast in my pocket!”
“Are you making a long stay here?” says the former naïvely.
“Depends,” is the dark, laconic reply.
“Sorry I must leave you for a little,” says Sep. “An appointment.”
And he takes a magnificent header from the cliff into the very spot where the wrecked gold-ship lies buried.
When, after a couple of hours, he rose to the surface for breath, Sep was relieved to find himself alone.
“Peeler was right,” said he to himself, flinging back the matted hair from his noble brow. “My fortune is made.”