Pieces of Eight | Page 5

down Wicks's own house just lately, and out of the rafters there fell a roll of paper--now, I'm coming to it--a roll of paper, purporting to be the account of the burying of a certain treasure, telling the place where it is buried, and giving directions for finding it--"
Charlie and I exclaimed together; and John continued, with tantalising deliberation.
"It's in the safe, down at the office; you shall see it to-morrow. It's a statement purporting to be made by some fellow on his deathbed--some fellow dying out in Texas--a quondam pirate, anxious to make his peace at the end, and to give his friends the benefit of his knowledge."
"O John!" said I, "I sha'n't sleep a wink to-night."
"I don't take much stock in it," said John. "I'm inclined to think it's a hoax. Some one trying to fool the old fellow. If there'd been any treasure, I guess one could have trusted old 'Wrecker' Wicks to get after it.... But, boys, it's bed-time, anyhow. Come down to the office in the morning and we'll look it over."
So our meeting broke up for the time being, and taking my candle, I went upstairs, to dream of caves overflowing with gold pieces, and John Tinker, fierce and moustachioed, standing over me, a cutlass between his teeth, and a revolver in each hand.
CHAPTER II
The Narrative of Henry P. Tobias, Ex-Pirate, as Dictated on His Deathbed, in the Year of Our Lord, 1859.
The good John had scarcely made his leisurely, distinguished appearance at his desk on the morrow, immaculately white, and breathing his customary air of fathomless repose, when I too entered by one door, and Charlie Webster by the other.
"Now for the document," we both exclaimed in a breath.
"Here it is," he said, taking up a rather grimy-looking roll of foolscap from in front of him.
"A little like hurricane weather," said the broadly smiling Charlie Webster, mopping his brow.
The room we were in, crowded with pigeon-holes and dusty documents from ceiling to floor, looked out into an outer office, similarly dreary, and painted a dirty blue and white, furnished with high desks and stools, and railed off with ancient painted ironwork, forlornly decorative, after the manner of an old-fashioned countinghouse, or shipping office. It had something quaintly "colonial" about it, suggesting supercargoes, and West India merchants of long ago.
John took a look into the outer office. There was nothing to claim his attention, so he took up the uncouthly written manuscript, which, as he pointed out, was evidently the work of a person of very little education, and began to read as follows:
"County of Travas "State of Texas "December 1859
"I being in very poor health and cannot last long, feeling my end is near, I make the following statement of my own free will and without solicitation. In full exercise of all my faculties, and feel that I am doing my duty by so doing.
"My friends have shown me much kindness and taken care of me when sick, and for their kindness I leave this statement in their hands to make the best of it, when I will now proceed to give my statement, which is as follows:--
"I was born in the city of Liverpool, England (on the 5th day of December 1784). My father was a seaman and when I was young I followed the same occupation. And it happened, that when, on a passage from Spain to the West Indies, our ship was attacked by free-traders, as they called themselves, but they were pirates.
"We all did our best, but were overpowered, and the whole crew, except three, were killed. I was one of the three they did not kill. They carried us on board their ship and kept us until next day when they asked us to join them. They tried to entice us, by showing us great piles of money and telling us how rich we could become, and many other ways, and they tried to get us to join them willingly, but we would not, when they became enraged and loaded three cannon and lashed each one of us before the mouth of each cannon and told us to take our choice to join them, as they would touch the guns and that dam quick. It is useless to say we accepted everything before death, so we came one of the pirates' crew. Both of my companions were killed in less time than six months, but I was with them for more than two years, in which time we collected a vast quantity of money from different ships we captured and we buried a great amount in two different lots. I helped to bury it with my own hands. The location of which it is my purpose to point out, so that it can be found without trouble in