She pointed to the scale at the head of the chart, which, to be sure, gave six miles to the inch. By the same measurement the crosses covered, each way, from half a mile to three-quarters. Moreover, each had patently been dashed in with two hurried strokes of the pen and without any pretence of accuracy. The first cross covered a "key" or sand-bank off the northern shore of the island; the second sprawled athwart what appeared to be the second height in a range of hills running southward from Cape Alderman, and down along the entire eastern coast at a mean distance of a mile, or a little over, from the sea; while the third was planted full across a grove of trees at the head of the great inlet--Gow's Gulf--to the south, and, moreover, spanned the chief river of the island, which, running almost due south from the back of the hills or mountains (their size was not indicated) below Cape Alderman, discharged itself into the apex of the gulf. "Without bearings of some sort," said Miss Belcher, "these marks are merely ridiculous." "You may well say so, ma'am," Captain Branscome answered, but inattentively. "Mortallone--Mortallone," he went on, muttering the word over as if to himself. "It is curious, all the same." "What is curious?" demanded Miss Belcher. "Why, ma'am, I have never myself visited the Gulf of Honduras, but among seamen there are always a hundred stories floating about. In a manner of speaking, there is no such shop for gossip as the sea. In every port you meet 'em, in taverns where sailors drink and brag-- the liquor being in them--and one man talks and the rest listen, not troubling themselves to believe. It is good to find one's self ashore, you understand? And a good, strong-flavoured yarn makes the landlord and all the shore-keeping folk open their eyes--" "Bless the man!" Miss Belcher rapped her knuckles on the table. "This is not a 'longshore tavern." "No, ma'am." "Then why not come to the point?" "The point, ma'am--well, the point is that every one--that is to say, every seaman--has heard tell of treasure knocking about, as you might put it, somewhere in the Gulf of Honduras." "What sort of treasure?" "Why, as to that, ma'am, it varies with the story. Sometimes 'tis bar silver from the isthmus, and sometimes 'tis gold plate and bullion that belonged to the old Kings of Mexico; but by the tale I've heard offtenest, 'tis church treasure that was run away with by a shipful of logwoodmen in Campeachy Bay. But there again you no sooner fix it as church treasure, and ask where it came from, than you have to choose between half a dozen different accounts. Some say from the Spanish islands--Havana for choice; others from the Main, and I've heard places mentioned as far apart us Vera Cruz and Caracas. The dates, too--if you can call them dates at all--vary just as surprisingly." "The date on this chart is 1776," said Miss Belcher, who had been peering at it while the Captain spoke.