"Yes," they heard him say, "this arn't by no means the furst taime I was in thaise seas.--Good-even to ye, Mr Trevose and Mr Edgwyth!--No; I tall 'ee I was 'ere in the zummer of 1582, just after the taime that that there bloody pirate, Jose Leirya, was sailing of these vury seas. 'E was a fiend in 'uman shape, if there ever was one; nobody was zafe in anny of the ships 'e tuk. All the men--passengers or zeamen--that 'e captured 'e did bind and put under 'atches in their own ship, aifter 'e 'ad taken all out 'e wanted. Then 'e zet 'em adrift; but afore 'e zet 'em adrift 'e used to fire the ship in zeveral places, and all they poor creatures did roast. The childer 'e took aboard his own ship, keepin' zum on 'em, and the others 'e zold to the plantations. 'E was a reg'ler devil, 'e was; and they do zay as 'ow 'e be about 'ere even now, although 'e baint been 'eard of for zum taime. And more; they zay that zumwheres near this vury plaace 'o 'as buried tons of goold and silver, precious stones, and all kinds of vallybles; but 'ow far that be true I doen't knaw. But I do knaw as 'ow I would laike to fall in with 'e with these 'ere ships; we'd taich 'un a vaine lesson, wouldn't us, laads?" "Harry, come here a moment," said Roger, jumping down from the gun at this point in the old man's narrative, and walking aft. Harry joined him. "What do you want, old fellow?" said he. "Well, lad," remarked his friend, "it has just come to me, somehow, as old Cary mentioned about the treasure of that scoundrel, Jose Leirya, being buried somewhere about here, that possibly that cipher of ours which we brought from the _Gloria del Mundo_ may refer to that very treasure. You see, Cary says that Leirya hasn't been heard of for some time. That seems to point either to his death or the disbandment of his crew. "Now, Cary says he was here in 1582, in the summer, and mentions that that date was just after the time when Leirya was committing such atrocities on the high seas. There is what is presumably a date at the beginning of our document, and that date--if such it is--is 1581, the year before Cary came to these parts. People do not write in cipher save to conceal important information from the eyes of those not in the secret, do they? Very well.