"I'll stop you from making yourself look a fool before your own steward," I retorted, "if you'll quit shouting and listen to me for a minute. I have nothing to do with Allan's or any other business concern...."
At the first glimpse of this resolute-looking cotton-spinner I knew that, to achieve my end, I should have to take him more fully into my confidence than either my inclination allowed or my instructions warranted. I took my letter-case from my pocket and extracting a folded blue paper, laid it before Sir Alexander on the white damask table-cloth. These were my credentials which we are only supposed to show in moments of direst necessity.
"Will you read that?" I said.
The baronet looked questioningly at me, then slowly put on a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles which he took from a case in his pocket. He carefully perused my blue paper and then handed it back to me.
"Eh," he remarked without a trace of apology in his manner, "and we all thought you were the doctor I ordered our New York office to send to join the yacht at Rodriguez. Well, young man, and what can I do for you?"
With the utmost candour I told him. Thereafter, for ten minutes or more, our heads were close together. Then he rang the bell.
"My compliments to Captain Lawless," he said to the steward, "and I should be obliged if he could spare me a few minutes! We will come to him in the chart-house!"
He gave the steward the start of us by lingering to offer me a cigar and to light one for himself. Then we made our way up on deck and presently entered the chart-house, a room abaft the bridge and above the smoke-room. Here the captain, looking very red and shaggy without his cap, awaited us.
"Ah, captain!" said our host, "let me make you acquainted with Major Okewood, who is coming on a cruise with us. I want you to show me on the chart Cock Island in the Eastern Pacific. And let's hear, too, what the 'Sailing Directions' have to say about it!"
Thus I learnt that my pleading had prevailed with him and that, behind a hard and business-like exterior, there flickered a little spark of romance that had burst into flame at the magic tale of treasure trove I had poured into his ears. As the skipper spread out upon the mahogany top of the chart-locker the section in which, amid weird whorls and lines signifying tides and depths, Cock Island figured, I felt once more the strong tug at my heart from that secluded islet whence at the foot of volcanic peaks an enigmatic grave seemed to beckon....