"What!" he said, with a look of apprehension flashing out of his eyes. "You will go yourself without one to guide you?" "Yes," said Mr Parkley; "and if you went down on your knees now to beg me, damme, sir, you've broke your contract, and I wouldn't take you." "Ha--ha--ha--ha--ha!" laughed the Cuban, derisively, as he quickly recovered his composure. "A beggarly threat. Do you not know that it took me five years of constant toil to make the discovery? and you talk like this!" "Yes," said Mr Parkley. "It took a beggarly mongrel foreigner five years, no doubt; but it would not take an enterprising Englishman five weeks." The Cuban's hand went into his breast again as he heard the words "beggarly mongrel foreigner," and Captain Studwick grasped a marlin-spike, ready to strike his arm down if he drew a weapon; but the rage was crushed down directly, and Laure laughed again derisively. "Go, then, fools, if you like. But I know: it is an empty threat. Ha, ha, ha! Go alone. A pleasant voyage, Senor Parkley, and you, too, Senor Captain. You will perhaps find me there before you." "Perhaps," said Mr Parkley. "But go I will, and hang me if I come back till I have found it." "Well, for the matter o' that, Master Parkley and Capen Studwick," said a rough voice, "if it means putting the schooner at anchor where them Spanish galleons was sunk in the Carib Sea, if you'll let me take the wheel, and you'll find fine weather, I'll steer you to the very spot." STORY ONE, CHAPTER NINE. 'POLLO'S EVIDENCE. "What?" shrieked the Cuban, rushing forward, with outstretched hands, but only to control himself directly and smile contemptuously. "I says as I'll clap this here schooner right over two or three spots where old ships went down, and also off the coast where one on 'em lies buried in the sand, all but her ribs and a few planks," said the old sailor, Sam Oakum. "He's a liar--a cheat. Bah!" exclaimed the Cuban with contempt. "I wouldn't adwise you to say them sorter things, gov'nor," said Oakum, quietly. "I knowd a chap as rubbed the skin off the bridge of his nose wunst and blacked both his eyes agin my fist for saying less than that." "Bah!" said the Cuban, snapping his fingers. "And do you know, Oakum?" exclaimed Mr Parkley, eagerly. "Can you prove it?" "If anybody would pass a man a bit o' 'bacco, I could, I dessay," said the old fellow quietly. "Thanky, mate. Just pass the word for 'Pollo to come aft, will you? He's in the galley." A sailor who had given Oakum the tobacco ran forward, while all waited in breathless attention--the Cuban standing like a statue, with folded arms, but, in spite of his apparent composure, smoking furiously, like a volcano preparing for an eruption. The sailor came back directly. "Says he's cooking the passengers' dinner, and can't leave it, sir," said the sailor.