NAT--I always believed, I tell you. [_Pleadingly._] And now that I know so much why can’t you tell me the rest? I must know! I have a right to be heir to the secret. Why don’t you confess---- BARTLETT--[_Interrupting--his brain catching at the word._] Confess? Confess, did ye say, Sarah? To Nat, did ye mean? Aye, Sarah, I’ll tell him all and leave it to him to say if I did wrong. [_His gleaming eyes fixed on his son’s._] I’ll tell ye, boy, from start to finish o’ it. I been eatin’ my heart to tell someone--someone who’d believe--someone that’d say I did no wrong. Listen, boy, ye know o’ our four days in an open boat after the Triton went down. I told ye o’ that when I come home. But what I didn’t tell ye was they was six o’ us in that boat, not four. NAT--Six? There were you and Horne and Cates and Jimmy---- BARTLETT--The cook o’ the Triton and the ship’s boy. We’d been on the island two days--an island barren as hell, mind--without food or drink. We was roasted by the sun and nigh mad with thirst. Then, on the second day, I seed a Malay canoe--a proper war canoe such as the pirates use--sunk down inside the reef. I sent Jimmy down to go over her thinkin’ they might be some cask o’ water in her the sea’d not got to. [_With impressive emphasis._] He found no water, boy, but he did find--d’ye know what, boy? NAT--[_Exultantly._] The gold, of course! BARTLETT--[_Laughing harshly._] Ha-ha! Ye do believe right enough, don’t ye! Aye, the gold--in a chest. We hauled her up ashore and forced the lid open. [_Gloatingly._] And there it was afore our eyes in the sun--gold bracelets and rings and ornaments o’ all sorts fixed up fancy with diamonds and emeralds and rubies and sech--red and green--shinin’ in the sun! [_He stops impressively._] NAT--[_Fascinatedly._] Diamonds and---- But how did they get there? BARTLETT--Looted treasure o’ some Chinese junk, likely. What matter how it come about? There it was afore our eyes. And then, mind ye, that thief o’ a cook came runnin’ up from where he’d been shirkin’ to look at what we’d found. “No share for ye, ye swab,” I yelled at him; and then he says: “It ain’t gold--brass and junk,” he says and run off for fear o’ me. Aye, he run off to the boy and told him to jine with his sneakin’ plan to steal the gold from us! NAT--[_Savagely._] But why didn’t you stop him? Why didn’t you----? BARTLETT--I be comin’ to that, boy, and ye’ll see if I did wrong. We carried the chest to the shade o’ a palm and there was that thief o’ a cook an’ the boy waitin’. I collared ’em both and made ’em look at the gold. “Look and tell me if it’s gold or no,” I says. [_Triumphantly._] They was afeerd to lie. Even that thief o’ a cook owned up ’twas gold. Then when I turned ’em loose, because he knowed he’d git no share, he shouted again: “Brass and junk. Not worth a damn.” NAT--[_Furiously._] But why did you allow---- Why didn’t you----