“It is strange that so old a seafaring man should wear out a chart, and make no observation on it!” repeated the stranger, who was both vexed and at a loss what to conjecture.  “All my charts are written over and marked off, just as if I meant to get out an edition for myself.”

“Men differ in their tastes and habits,” answered Roswell Gardiner, carelessly.  “Some navigators are for ever finding rocks, and white water, and scribbling on their charts, or in the newspapers, when they get back; but I never knew any good come of it.  The men who make the charts are most to be trusted.  For my part, I would not give a sixpence for a note made by a man who passes a shoal or a rock, in a squall or a gale.”

“What would you say to the note of a sealer who should lay down an island where the seals lie about on the beach like pigs in a pen, sunning themselves?  Would you not call a chart so noted a treasure?”

“That would alter the case, sure enough,” returned Gardiner, laughing; “though I should not think of looking into this chest for any such riches.  Most of our masters navigate too much at random to make their charts of any great value.  They can find the places they look for themselves, but don’t seem to know how to tell other people the road.  I have known my old man lay down a shoal that he fancied he saw, quite a degree out of the way.  Now such a note as that would do more harm than good.  It might make a foul wind of a fair one, and cause a fellow to go about, or ware ship, when there was not the least occasion in the world for doing anything of the sort.”

“Ay, ay; this will do for nervous men, who are always thinking they see danger ahead; but it is different with islands that a craft has actually visited.  I do not see much use, Deacon Pratt, in your giving yourself any further trouble.  My uncle was not a very rich man, I perceive, and I must go to work and make my own fortune if I wish more than I’ve got already.  If there is any demand against the deceased, I am ready to discharge it.”

This was coming so much to the point that the deacon hardly knew what to make of it.  He recollected his own ten dollars, and the covetousness of his disposition so far got the better of his prudence as to induce him to mention the circumstance.

“Dr. Sage may have a charge—­no doubt has one, that ought to be settled, but your uncle mainly paid his way as he went on.  I thought the widow who took care of him was entitled to something extra, and I handed her ten dollars this morning, which you may repay to me or not, just as you please.”

Captain Daggett drew forth his wallet and discharged the obligation on the spot.  He then replaced the charts, and, without opening the till of the chest, he shut down the lid, locked it, and put the key in his pocket, saying that he would cause the whole to be removed, much as if he felt anxious to relieve the deacon of an incumbrance.  This done, he asked a direction to the dwelling of the Widow White, with whom he wished to converse, ere he left the Point.