"Well," resumed the negro, "Louis soon hear a domine say, 'This our
bargain, then,--I take your place to watch a pirates' treasure,--I
guess I soon fix him, and get him all slick away. But afore you and I
deal, p'raps you show where a money is buried.' A stranger then point
between a rocks beside him, and say in he's deep voice, 'Dere!' And then
down by a colour man, Louis he see into a ground, what seems all full
of treasure shining in a moonlight; here awful much gold and dollars,
and dere a gold and silver plate, and a t'other place full of di'monds
and jewels, bright as stars in a night sky. Grach! I tink he won'er,
and b'lieve he rile a little that a almanack-maker so easy get a five
hundred dollars for Dortje Deypester. A domine stare into a cave as if
he's eyes eat up all he look at; but at last he get up and say, 'I gree,
and dere my hand on a bargain; I take care all instead of you, and much
more as you can show me.' So he fill he's pouches, and then go away to
ole Deypester for a horses and bags to bring away a rest, dough he often
turn a head to look back at a treasure. He hardly gone when a strange
colour man call out to Louis in he's deep voice, 'This a dark night for
a sad heart to journey in.' Louis turn he round directly, and see him
close beside, berry tall and genteel, such a bootiful gentleum! dough
he no make out he's face for a clouds over a moon. He little feared
and won'ered at first, but soon he got up he's pluck and say, 'I guess
it dark enough, but how you know my heart sad?' T' other answer him
smart, 'That want no wizard, when he hear a sighs like yours. But he
know little more yet: he reckon you want a five hundred dollars afore
to-morrow, or lose your sweetheart, which a true shame for ac_tive_
springy lad like you: a pirates' treasure dere, hab a ten thousand times
as much, as he know by a watching it these twenty years.'--'In a God's
name!' say Louis then, 'who are you,--and who set you there?'--'One
of a last of a Spanish buccaneers' say the other; 'that berry Captain
Hornigold, what make love to Dortje Deypester. He take a ship, and kill
all on board but me and young child, that I slave to; then he bring us
bote to a shore, where he hide all his plunder, and stab us, and tell a
ghosts to watch it. A young child he live, and found on a river bank,
and so called by it name--Louis Hudson, it yourself!--but I die, and
wan'er about a treasure-grave till a captain come back, or another take
my place, or a right owner come for his own. All that happen to-night,
and I soon at liberty for ever!--You hear a money-digger say he look
to a pirates' spoil hereafter, and be sure he never quit a creek
again, dough he never find a gold any more. This treasure here, belong
to a father, who killed in ship; it now all your own; take him, but
take a nothing more;--use him well, and you be fifty times so rich as
Deypester, and hab a blessing beside.--Hark! a bell strike twelve!--my
time most up now, and dere come a captain!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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