My Buried Treasure | Page 5

temperately.
"Any expedition after treasure," I pointed out, "is never without risk.
You must have discipline, and you must have picked men. Suppose
there's a mutiny? Suppose they try to rob us of the treasure on our way
home? We must have men we can rely on, and men who know how to
pump a Winchester. I can get you both. And Bannerman will furnish

me with anything from a pair of leggins to a quick firing gun, and on
Clark Street they'll quote me a special rate on ship stores, hydraulic
pumps, divers' helmets----"
Edgar's eye-glasses became frosted with cold, condemnatory scorn. He
shook his head disgustedly.
"I was afraid of this!" he murmured.
I endeavored to reassure him.
"A little danger," I laughed, "only adds to the fun."
"I want you to understand," exclaimed Edgar indignantly, "there isn't
going to be any danger. There isn't going to be any fun. This is a plain
business proposition. I asked you those questions just to test you. And
you approached the matter exactly as I feared you would. I was
prepared for it. In fact," he explained shamefacedly, "I've read several
of your little stories, and I find they run to adventure and blood and
thunder; they are not of the analytical school of fiction. Judging from
them," he added accusingly, "you have a tendency to the romantic." He
spoke reluctantly as though saying I had a tendency to epileptic fits or
the morphine habit.
"I am afraid," I was forced to admit, "that to me pirates and buried
treasure always suggest adventure. And your criticism of my writings is
well observed. Others have discovered the same fatal weakness. We
cannot all," I pointed out, "manufacture unshrinkable flannels."
At this compliment to his more fortunate condition, Edgar seemed to
soften.
"I grant you," he said, "that the subject has almost invariably been
approached from the point of view you take. And what," he demanded
triumphantly, "has been the result? Failure, or at least, before success
was attained, a most unnecessary and regrettable loss of blood and life.
Now, on my expedition, I do not intend that any blood shall be shed, or
that anybody shall lose his life. I have not entered into this matter

hastily. I have taken out information, and mean to benefit by other
people's mistakes. When I decided to go on with this," he explained, "I
read all the books that bear on searches for buried treasure, and I found
that in each case the same mistakes were made, and that then, in order
to remedy the mistakes, it was invariably necessary to kill somebody.
Now, by not making those mistakes, it will not be necessary for me to
kill any one, and nobody is going to have a chance to kill me.
"You propose that we fit out a schooner and sign on a crew. What will
happen? A man with a sabre cut across his forehead, or with a black
patch over one eye, will inevitably be one of that crew. And, as soon as
we sail, he will at once begin to plot against us. A cabin boy who the
conspirators think is asleep in his bunk will overhear their plot and will
run to the quarter-deck to give warning; but a pistol shot rings out, and
the cabin boy falls at the foot of the companion ladder. The cabin boy
is always the first one to go. After that the mutineers kill the first mate,
and lock us in our cabin, and take over the ship. They will then broach
a cask of rum, and all through the night we will listen to their drunken
howlings, and from the cabin airport watch the body of the first mate
rolling in the lee scuppers."
"But you forget," I protested eagerly, "there is always ONE faithful
member of the crew, who----"
Edgar interrupted me impatiently.
"I have not overlooked him," he said. "He is a Jamaica negro of
gigantic proportions, or the ship's cook; but he always gets his too, and
he gets it good. They throw HIM to the sharks! Then we all camp out
on a desert island inhabited only by goats, and we build a stockade, and
the mutineers come to treat with us under a white flag, and we, trusting
entirely to their honor, are fools enough to go out and talk with them.
At which they shoot us up, and withdraw laughing scornfully." Edgar
fixed his eye-glasses upon me accusingly.
"Am I right, or am I wrong?" he demanded. I was unable to answer.
"The only man," continued Edgar warmly who ever showed the
slightest intelligence in the matter was the fellow in the 'Gold Bug. HE

kept his mouth shut. He never let any one know that he was after buried