Reuben put on his coat and cap, and the brothers issued forth. Two square figures, the shoregoer rolling in his gait like the seafarer, as though, in fact, he was as fresh from the heave of the sea as the other. They walked along the pier till they came abreast of a stout little cutter lying at her moorings in the thick of a fleet of smacks hailing from Gravelines, Penzance, and other places. Christian viewed her in silence with the critical eye of an old sailor and a ship’s carpenter to boot.
“How old’s she, Rube?”
“Nine year.”
“She’ll do,” said Christian. “Rube, I’m going to spin yer a yarn.”
They went leisurely along the pier, and as they walked Christian told his brother about the skeleton in the tree and the document in Spanish which he had found in the dead man’s snuff-box. He produced the snuff-box and the paper, also the clay pipe mounted in the bone of an albatross’s wing, and the small gold cross. Reuben listened with an eye bright and keen with interest and conviction. The mere sight of the silver box was as convincing to his mind as though he had been carried to the island, and stood looking at Argensola’s bones and the hole in the tree in which the box of jewels lay hid.
That night the two brothers sat up late, deep in discourse. Christian put ten pounds upon the table.
“That’s all I own in the world,” said he. “It’ll help to victual the boat.”
“We shall want a navigator,” said Reuben. “I’m rather ignorant, myself, of that art, and I don’t suppose you’ve learnt yourself to read yet, ha’ ye, Christian? There’s young Bob Maxted knows all about shooting of the sun. Us two and him’ll be hands enough. Shall we make shares?”
“No,” said Christian; “you and me divides. T’other’ll come along on wages.”