They ran to the nearest hill and saw the destruction of their companions.
The Portuguese boatswain was the first to recover.
"There ees now fewer to share," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Evans looked at Quinn and gave a signal. The double murder was done with knives. Where there had been four, now only two remained.
Evans and Quinn finished burying the treasure and removed all trace of their work. A map was drawn by Quinn, showing the exact location of the cache. The murderers slipped back to their boat and, under cover of darkness, crept up the harbor till they came to the mouth of a large river. Up this they pulled and disappeared into the interior. Neither of them was aware that Bucks had seen the treacherous killing and the disposal of the treasure.
Six weeks later a living skeleton crawled out of the fever-laden swamps of Panama and staggered down to a little village on the Gulf of Uraba. The man was Nat Quinn. He had followed the Rio Tuyra, zigzagged across the Isthmus, and reached the northern coast.
Somewhere in the dark tangle of forest behind him, where daylight never penetrates the thick tropical growth, lay the body of Bully Evans. It was lying face down in the underbrush, a little round hole in the back of the head. Quinn's treachery had anticipated that of the mate.
As the survivor lurched down to the settlement his voice rose in a high cackle of delirious song. These were the words of his chant:
It's bully boys, ho! and a deck splashed red—
The devil is paid, quo' he, quo' he,
A knife in the back and a mate swift sped!
Heave yo ho! and away with me.