The man glanced at me with an expression of sympathy and bashfulness. ‘I hope there’s nothen private and agin your wish in this, sir? ‘he exclaimed. ‘I’m for standin’ neutral in this here job.’ ‘Pray read,’ said I. He did so, backing and filling in his postures in true sailor fashion as he struggled through the writing, reciting the words slowly, with considerable pauses between, which furnished his hearers with time to digest what he delivered. He then put the papers down, but with an air of astonishment, as I noticed with grief and anxiety, as if having been before incredulous of the captain’s story, he was beginning to regard it as a fact now in the face of such documentary evidence as he had read. ‘All right, Joe; thank ye,’ said the carpenter gruffly; ‘you can go on deck agin.’ The man went up the ladder slowly, as though lost in thought. ‘Lads,’ exclaimed Lush, ‘ye’ll agree with me there’s no need for further arguefication after what ye’ve just heard.’ ‘The money’s right enough, and we’ll git it,’ said one of the men. ‘Where’s the chart of the island as Wilkins said the captain talked about?’ inquired the limber bold-faced young seaman with whom I had spoken at the wheel when I found the barque off her course. All eyes were at once turned upon me. ‘You’ll find it in the drawer of the table of the captain’s cabin,’ said I. The fellow coolly entered the berth, and presently returned with a handful of papers. ‘Which’ll it be, sir?’ he exclaimed, placing them before me. I picked up the parchment chart, and gave it to the carpenter, who spread it out before him, and instantly all the men came round to his chair, and stood in a heap of shouldering figures mowing and mopping over his shoulders to catch a view, tossing the hair with jerks of their heads out of their eyes, and breathing hard with excitement. ‘I suppose you’re capable of explaining the meaning of these here marks?’ exclaimed the carpenter, pressing a shovel-shaped thumb upon the outline of the island. ‘You shall have the yarn as the captain gave it me,’ said I, speaking with a throat dry with mortification and sickness at heart; for it was only too certain now that my agreements with the captain coupled with this chart had hardened the men’s conviction into an immovable resolution. They listened with breathless interest as I told them that the barb of the arrow indicated the situation of the buried money; that the treasure lay hidden so many paces away from the wash of the water of the lagoon; that the blot in the centre of the bight was meant to express a coral pillar that served as a mark to obtain the bearings of the gold by; and so on. I see their feverish eyes as I write coming and going from my face to the chart, and the various expressions of exultation, eager determination, amazement, and delight on the mob of countenances over the carpenter’s shoulders.