Part 58

"Let him make whatever trouble he can, it won't bother me, in the least."

"He is not acting alone," she persisted. "He has confederates--they may attack Clarendon, in an effort to capture the treasure."

"My dear child! this is the twentieth century, not the seventeenth!" he laughed. "We don't 'stand-by to repel boarders,' these days."

"Pirate's gold breeds pirate's ways!" she answered.

He stared at her, in surprise.

"Rather queer!--I've heard those same words before, in this connection."

"Community of minds."

"Is it a quotation?" he asked.

"Possibly--though I don't recall it. Suppose you are attacked and tortured till you reveal where you've hidden the jewels?" she insisted.

"I cannot suppose them so unreasonable!" he laughed, again. "However, I put Moses on guard--with a big revolver and orders to fire at anyone molesting the house. If we hear a fusillade we'll know it's he shooting up the neighborhood."

"Then the same idea did suggest itself to you!"

"Only to the extent of searching for the jewels--I regarded that as vaguely possible, but there isn't the slightest danger of any one being tortured."

"You know best, I suppose," she said--"but you've had your warning--and pirate's gold breeds pirate's ways. You've given up all hope of finding the treasure--abandoned jewels worth--how many dollars?"

"Possibly half a million," he filled in.

"Without a further search? Oh! Mr. Croyden!"

"If you can suggest what to do--anything which hasn't been done, I shall be only too glad to consider it."

"You say you dug up the entire Point for a hundred yards inland?"

"We did."

"And dredged the Bay for a hundred yards?"

"Yes."

She puckered her brows in thought. He regarded her with an amused smile.

"I don't see what you're to do, except to do it all over again," she announced--"Now, don't laugh! It may sound foolish, but many a thing has been found on a second seeking--and this, surely, is worth a second, or a third, or even many seekings."

"If there were any assurance of ultimate success, it would pay to spend a lifetime hunting. The two essentials, however, are wanting: the extreme tip of Greenberry Point in 1720, and the beech-trees. We made the best guess at their location. More than that, the zone of exploration embraced every possible extreme of territory--yet, we failed. It will make nothing for success to try again."

"But it is somewhere!" she reflected.

"Somewhere, in the Bay!--It's shoal water, for three or four hundred feet around the Point, with a rock bottom. The Point itself has been eaten into by the Bay, down to this rock. Parmenter's chest disappeared with the land in which it was buried, and no man will find it now, except by accident."

"It seems such a shame!" she exclaimed. "A fortune gone to waste!"

"Without anyone having the fun of wasting it!" laughed Croyden.

She took up Parmenter's letter again, and glanced over it. Then she handed it back, and shook her head.