‘You need not trouble yourself to recite further,’ said the dwarf, with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘You guess my secret. I thought none of you had wit enough to pick the marrow out of that bone, but it was all my own fault. I came on board this schooner, and in doing so threw away, by one moment of folly, the fruits of years of labour and danger. Dolt that I was!—what could it matter to me whether you succeeded in blundering out, as you blundered in, or stayed here until the first heavy blow smashed your ship to powder on these coral reefs? It would have been all the same to me.’ Having made this speech with great bitterness, but in a perfectly composed fashion, the dwarf sat down upon a coil of rope, and shrugged his shoulders almost as high as the crown of his head. The crew were now all in a hubbub, for they comprehended, more or leas, that there was the wreck of an ancient galleon upon the reef, and they knew that silver and gold are metals which brine rusts not. ‘I suppose,’ quoth the dwarf, ‘that you will give me a fair share of the booty when we get it?’ This they all proclaimed that they were very ready to do, and one or two of the more eager shook hands with the dwarf, who assumed a very sour smile. ‘Now, then,’ quoth the captain, when the tumult was a little abated, ‘tell us somewhat more about this, and rely upon it we will deal justly by you. Who and what are you?’ ‘Why,’ quoth the dwarf, ‘my story is of the shortest; my name is Paul Bedloe, and I was born beneath the Peel of Douglas, in the Isle of Man; my father owning a small craft, which plied to Liverpool—a village on the Lancaster coast—I was brought up a sailor, but I liked better to write and cipher than to handle ropes and furl sails; and having, also, a great liking for geography and astronomy, I became a very good navigator, and going to London, settled at Limehouse, where I kept a school for teaching seamen the art of navigation. Growing somewhat tired of this business, however, I went several voyages to these seas with a captain who had been my scholar; and afterwards, returning to Europe, I wandered through many countries, taking great delight in Spain, where I found several interesting accounts left by the first discoverers of America of their voyages. One day, in the shop of a Jew in Cadiz, I discovered the book which you, sir’—turning to me—‘doubtless, found in my chest. One leaf of that work had a very particular interest for me, and from the time I first saw it, I have kept it carefully on my person.’ With that the Manxman produced the missing page from his bosom.