‘As much as is necessary,’ said he. ‘I want to come to business, sir. I could keep you listening for hours whilst I told ye of our life aboard that island, how the brigantine went to pieces, how one day Mr. Ruddiman went for a swim in the lagoon, and how the cramp or some fit took him, and he sunk with me a-looking on, being no swimmer, and incapable of giving him any help.’ ‘And how long were you on the island?’ said I. ‘Four months and three days. It was one morning that I crawled from the little hut we had built ourselves out of some of the brigantine’s wreckage that had drifted ashore, and saw a small man-of-war with her tops’l aback just off the island. She was a Yankee surveying craft, and a boat was coming off when I first see her. They took me aboard, and landed me at Valparaiso two months later. But all that’s got nothing to do with what I want to talk to ye about. I’ve got now to recover this money, and I mean to have it, and you’ll help me to get it, Mr. Dugdale.’ ‘But why have you waited all this time before setting about to recover this treasure?’ said I. ‘I never had a chance of doing it afore,’ he replied; ‘but it’s come now, and I don’t mean to lose it.’ ‘What is your scheme?’ ‘As easy,’ he cried, ‘as the digging up of the money’ll be. I shall head straight away for Rio, and there discharge all my crew, then take in a few runners to navigate the vessel to the Sandwich Islands, where I’ll ship a small company of Kanakas, just as many as’ll help us to sail the _Lady Blanche_ to my island. I shan’t fear _them_. Kanakas ain’t Europeans; they’re as simple as babies; and we can do a deal that they’ll never dream of taking notice of.’ I listened with a degree of astonishment and consternation it was impossible for me to conceal in my face; yet I managed to preserve a steady voice. ‘But you have a cargo consigned to Port Louis, I presume?’ said I. ‘You don’t mean to run away with this ship, do you? for that would be an act of piracy punishable with the gallows, as I suppose you know?’ He eyed me steadily and squarely. ‘I don’t mean to run away with this ship,’ he answered; ‘I know my owners, and what they’ll think. It’ll be a deviation that ain’t going to interfere with the ultimate delivery of my cargo at Port Louis, and I don’t suppose it’ll take me much time to fix upon a sum that’ll make my owners very well pleased with the delay, and quite willing that I should do it again on the same tarms.’ ‘But why do you desire to bring me into this business?’ I exclaimed, startled by the intelligence I found in this last answer of his.