However, I met none on my way down, and found both the _Etoyle_ and my ship just as I had left them, and the boat tied to the tree, also as I had left it. Then I went aboard the galliot, and finding some food and drink, set to work to stay my cravings. There was none too much, I found, to last long, though as the men had cooked the fish and birds they were still fresh enough. Also there was flour, and bread already made, and some peas, while, for the water, it was nearly all there. The fruit was quite rotten and not to be eaten, but this mattered not at all, since, on Coffin Island, I had perceived several kinds growing with profusion, amongst others many prickly pears. And now, as I made my meal, I marked out in my mind what I should do to draw matters to a conclusion. And this I decided on. "It is a treasure house," Alderly had said of his hut, therefore, firstly, I had got to explore that house, hoping to find therein as much if not more than we had been robbed of. Then when Phips and I met again, as I hoped we might, he should decide about that treasure, and what was to be done with it. But first to find it. Yet, even as I thought this there came to me another reflection--viz., that I could not carry it away with me. The galliot would take me to a neighbouring island inhabited by my own people, but an officer alone in such a vessel, with no hands to work it but himself, must necessarily lead to much talk and the asking of many questions--how many more would be asked if that officer were accompanied by boxes and chests of great weight? Therefore, that would never do! I must get away alone, leaving the treasure--if I found any more than I had already gotten--somewhere secure, and then I must come back again for it, properly fitted out. Or, if I could reach Phips ere he quitted the reef, we could come back together in the _Furie_, take off the goods and so home with no need for further voyagings out and in. And, on still reflecting, this was what I had a mind to do. The reef was not a long way off; a day and night would take me there, with a favourable wind. Only I must provision the galliot somehow; I must not go to sea thus; but then I remembered, this was easily to be done if I swallowed my squeamishness. The _Etoyle_ was full of food and drink--the former coarse but life-sustaining--if I took that as I took its owner's hordes, then I could get away. Only, first I had to find the treasure, then dispose of it safely. After that I might go at once. Indeed, if fortune still kept with me, as she had ever done of late, I might be away from this island within another thirty hours. And so thinking, I finished my repast and set about what I had to do. CHAPTER XXIV. WHAT WAS IN THE TREASURE HOUSE.