“That key!  Why, deacon, that is in north latitude —­ deg. —­“, and you make a crooked road of it truly, when you tell me to go as far south as —­ deg. —­“, In order to reach it.”

“It is well to have two strings to a body’s bow.  When you hear what you are to bring from that key, you will understand why I send you south, before you are to come here to top off your cargo.”

“It must be with turtle, then,” said Roswell Gardiner, laughing.  “Nothing grows on these keys but a few stunted shrubs, and nothing is ever to be found on them but turtle.  Once in a while a fellow may pick up a few turtle, if he happen to hit the right key.”

“Gar’ner,” rejoined the deacon, still more solemnly—­“that island, low and insignificant as it is, contains treasure.  Pirates made their deposits here a long time ago, and the knowledge of that fact is now confined to myself.”

The young man stared at the deacon as if he had some doubts whether the old man were in his right mind.  He knew the besetting weakness of his character well, and had no difficulty in appreciating the influence of such a belief as that he had just expressed, on his feelings; but it seemed so utterly improbable that he, living on Oyster Pond, should learn a fact of this nature, which was concealed from others, that, at first, he fancied his owner had been dreaming of money until its images had made him mad.  Then he recollected the deceased mariner, the deacon’s many conferences with him, the interest he had always appeared to take in the man, and the suddenness, as well as the time, of the purchase of the schooner; and he at once obtained a clue to the whole affair.

“Daggett has told you this, Deacon Pratt”—­said Gardiner, in his off-hand way.  “And he is the man who has told you of those sealing-islands too?”

“Admitting it to be so, why not Daggett as well as any other man?”

“Certainly, if he knew what he was saying to be true—­but the yarn of a sailor is not often to be taken for gospel.”

“Daggett was near his end, and cannot be classed with those who talk idly in the pride of their health and strength—­men who are ever ready to say—­’Tush, God has forgotten.’”

“Why was this told to you, when the man had natural friends and relatives by the dozen over on the Vineyard?”

“He had been away from the Vineyard and them relatives fifty years; a length of time that weakens a body’s feelings considerably.  Take you away from Mary only a fourth part of that time, and you would forget whether her eyes are blue or black, and altogether how she looks.”

“If I should, a most miserable and contemptible dog should I account myself!  No, deacon, twice fifty years would not make me forget the eyes or the looks of Mary!”

“Ay, so all youngsters think, and feel, and talk.  But let ’em try the world, and they’ll soon find out their own foolishness.  But Daggett made me his confidant because Providence put me in his way, and because he trusted to being well enough to go in the schooner, and to turn the expedition to some account in his own behalf.”