“Had the man the impudence to confess that he had been a pirate, and helped to bury treasure on this key?”

“That is not, by any means, his history.  Daggett was never a pirate himself, but accident placed him in the same prison and same room as that in which a real pirate was confined.  There the men became friends, and the condemned prisoner, for such he was in the end, gave this secret to Daggett as the last service he could do him.”

“I hope, deacon, you do not expect much in the way of profit from this part of the voyage?”

“I expect the most from it, Gar’ner, as you will too, when you come to hear the whole story.”

The deacon then went into all the particulars of the revelations made by the pirate to his fellow-prisoner, much as they had been given by Daggett to himself.  The young man listened to this account at first with incredulity, then with interest; and finally with a feeling that induced him to believe that there might be more truth in the narrative than he had originally supposed possible.  This change was produced by the earnest manner of the deacon as much as by the narrative itself; for he had become graphic under the strong impulses of that which, with him, was a master passion.  So deep had been the impression made on the mind of the old man by Daggett’s account, and so intense the expectations thereby awakened, that he omitted nothing, observed the most minute accuracy in all his details, and conveyed just as distinct impressions to his listener, as had been conveyed to himself, when the story was first told to him.

“This is a most extr’or’nary account, take it on whatever tack you will!” exclaimed Roswell Gardiner, as soon as a pause in the deacon’s story enabled him to put in another word.  “The most extr’or’nary tale I ever listened to!  How came so much gold and silver to be abandoned for so long a time?”

“Them three officers hid it there, fearing to trust their own crew with it in their vessel.  Their pretence was to stop for turtle, just as you must do:  whilst the hands were turtling, the captain and his mates walked about the key, and took occasion to make their deposits in that hole on the coral rock, as you have heard me say.  Oh! it’s all too natural not to be true!”

Roswell Gardiner saw that the old man’s hopes were too keenly excited to be easily cooled, and that his latent covetousness was thoroughly awakened.  Of all the passions to which poor human nature is the slave, the love of gold is that which endures the longest, and is often literally carried with us to the verge of the grave.  Indeed, in minds so constituted originally as to submit to an undue love of money, the passion appears to increase, as others more dependent on youth, and strength, and enterprise, and ambition, gradually become of diminished force, slowly but surely usurping the entire sway over a being that was once subject to many masters.  Thus had it been with the deacon.  Nearly all his passions now centred in this one.  He no longer cared for preferment in politics, though once it had been the source of a strong desire to represent Suffolk at Albany; even the meeting, and its honours, was loosening its hold on his mind; while his fellow-men, his kindred included, were regarded by him as little more than so many competitors, or tools.