Crum placed the musty sheets of lettering on the table before him, solemnly took off his spectacles and wiped them, and then stared across quietly at me without a word, as if he would let this astonishing balderdash sink deeply into my all too shallow soul. There was a silence in the office, unbroken save by the buzzing of the blue-bottles at the windows and the distant roar of the Strand, filtered by intervening acres of brickwork. For my part I found no words to express my emotions. For really it came upon me as a shock to think what crack-brained enthusiasts our fathers were. Here was a sound, apparently intelligent, old British seaman, who had knocked about the world more than a little, worrying himself to set curses on the heads of his unborn descendants if they should fail to be just such fools as himself. He meets a half-dozen of forlorn savages in mid-ocean, by purely circumstantial evidence connects them with another band of niggers of whom he has only got word by hearsay, and proceeds to spend ten years of his life in tracking the latter to a lair which probably never existed. And not satisfied, as I say, with this astounding waste of time and energy, but he expects ten other fools to do the same. I stared, therefore, at the good Crum with these unvoiced musings extremely vivid in my brain, the while I thanked God softly below my breath for civilization and common sense. It was the lawyer who broke the silence before it got strained. “I may say, my lord,” he remarked, “that we have compared this writing with the signature of your ancestor’s marriage record in Sellwood church. It is identical, and there seems to be no doubt that it is authentic. I would remind you that it is beyond question that he spent many years in what was called ‘The Indies’ at that date—the Southern Seas of America, in point of fact—where he left the reputation of a valiant sailor—I’m afraid I must say buccaneer. But you must remember that times were different,” he added hastily, feeling that as a supporter of the law he must not seem to favour equivocal methods. “That I believe is entirely true,” I conceded. “Tradition has it that he was one of the most energetic old pirates of his day. But may I ask how you propose to explain his document getting to Lisbon into the shop of the local rubbish dealer, or whatever he may have been? Why did it not come home to those for whom it was intended? My unfortunate forefathers for twelve generations have had these curses hanging over them, and have lived in comfortable ignorance.”