Part 3

“I see,” I said, “I am to act as the historian of the expedition.”

“That will be arranged later,” said Edgar. “What I chiefly want you for is to dig. Can you dig?” he asked eagerly. I told him I could; but that I would rather do almost anything else.

“I must have one other man,” repeated Edgar, “a man who is strong enough to dig, and strong enough to resist the temptation to murder me.” The retort was so easy that I let it pass. Besides, on Edgar, it would have been wasted.

“I think you will do,” he said with reluctance. “And now the conditions!”

I smiled agreeably.

“You are already sworn to secrecy,” said Edgar. “And you now agree in every detail to obey me implicitly, and to accompany me to a certain place, where you will dig. If I find the treasure, you agree, to help me guard it, and convey it to wherever I decide it is safe to leave it. Your responsibility is then at an end. One year after the treasure is discovered, you will be free to write the account of the expedition. For what you write, some magazine may pay you. What it pays you will be your share of the treasure.”

Of my part of the million dollars, which I had hastily calculated could not be less than one-fifth, I had already spent over one hundred thousand dollars and was living far beyond my means. I had bought a farm with a waterfront on the Sound, a motor-boat, and, as I was not sure which make I preferred, three automobiles. I had at my own, expense produced a play of mine that no manager had appreciated, and its name in electric lights was already blinding Broadway. I had purchased a Hollander express rifle, a real amber cigar holder, a private secretary who could play both rag-time and tennis, and a fur coat. So Edgar’s generous offer left me naked. When I had again accustomed myself to the narrow confines of my flat, and the jolt of the surface cars, I asked humbly:

“Is that all I get?”

“Why should you expect any more?” demanded Edgar. “It isn’t your treasure. You wouldn’t expect me to make you a present of an interest in my mills; why should you get a share of my treasure?” He gazed at me reproachfully. “I thought you’d be pleased,” he said. “It must be hard to think of things to write about, and I’m giving you a subject for nothing. I thought,” he remonstrated, “you’d jump at the chance. It isn’t every day a man can dig for buried treasure.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “Perhaps I appreciate that quite as well as you do. But my time has a certain small value, and I can’t leave my work just for excitement. We may be weeks, months—— How long do you think we——”

Behind his eye-glasses Edgar winked reprovingly.

“That is a leading question,” he said. “I will pay all your legitimate expenses—transportation, food, lodging. It won’t cost you a cent. And you write the story—with my name left out,” he added hastily; “it would hurt my standing in the trade,” he explained—“and get paid for it.”

I saw a sea voyage at Edgar’s expense. I saw palm leaves, coral reefs. I felt my muscles aching and the sweat run from my neck and shoulders as I drove my pick into the chest of gold.

“I’ll go with you!” I said. We shook hands on it. “When do we start?” I asked.

“Now!” said Edgar. I thought he wished to test me; he had touched upon one of my pet vanities.

“You can’t do that with me!” I said. “My bags are packed and ready for any place in the wide world, except the cold places. I can start this minute. Where is it, the Gold Coast, the Ivory Coast, the Spanish Main——”

Edgar frowned inscrutably. “Have you an empty suit-case?” he asked.

“Why EMPTY?” I demanded.

“To carry the treasure,” said Edgar. “I left mine in the hall. We will need two.”

“And your trunks?” I said.

“There aren’t going to be any trunks,” said Edgar. From his pocket he had taken a folder of the New Jersey Central Railroad. “If we hurry,” he exclaimed, “we can catch the ten-thirty express, and return to New York in time for dinner.”

“And what about the treasure?” I roared.

“We’ll’ bring it with us,” said Edgar.

I asked for information. I demanded confidences. Edgar refused both. I insisted that I might be allowed at least to carry my automatic pistol. “Suppose some one tries to take the treasure from us?” I pointed out.

“No one,” said Edgar severely, “would be such an ass as to imagine we are carrying buried treasure in a suit-case. He will think it contains pajamas.”

“For local color, then,” I begged, “I want to say in my story that I went heavily armed.”

“Say it, then,” snapped Edgar. “But you can’t do it! Not with me, you can’t! How do I know you mightn’t——” He shook his head warily.

It was a day in early October, the haze of Indian summer was in the air, and as we crossed the North River by the Twenty-third Street Ferry the sun flashed upon the white clouds overhead and the tumbling waters below. On each side of us great vessels with the Blue Peter at the fore lay at the wharfs ready to cast off, or were already nosing their way down the channel toward strange and beautiful ports. Lamport and Holt were rolling down to Rio; the Royal Mail’s Magdalena, no longer “white and gold,” was off to Kingston, where once seven pirates swung in chains; the Clyde was on her way to Hayti where the buccaneers came from; the Morro Castle was bound for Havana, which Morgan, king of all the pirates, had once made his own; and the Red D was steaming to Porto Cabello where Sir Francis Drake, as big a buccaneer as any of them, lies entombed in her harbor. And I was setting forth on a buried-treasure expedition on a snub-nosed, flat-bellied, fresh-water ferry-boat, bound for Jersey City! No one will ever know my sense of humiliation. And, when the Italian boy insulted my immaculate tan shoes by pointing at them and saying, “Shine?” I could have slain him. Fancy digging for buried treasure in freshly varnished boots! But Edgar did not mind. To him there was nothing lacking; it was just as it should be. He was deeply engrossed in calculating how many offices were for rent in the Singer Building!