"No," Barbara replied, "they never desisted. For first, they thought that Simon might have changed the hiding-place after he had left the paper in Jamaica--the life he led would probably necessitate his doing so, since his companions might otherwise have also found the vault--and, next, the island had become their home. Simon's son bought it for half-a-crown an acre, his wife having some little money, and we have lived here ever since, while every man who has succeeded to it has made further search." So the tale was told, and now the time had come for Reginald to tell his. And as that night he took farewell of Barbara, he said-- "To-morrow I shall tell you why the treasure has never been found by your family. To-morrow I shall bring you a narrative left by that connection of mine, saying where the treasure is hidden. He knew Simon Alderly, and he found out the hiding-place." "And was Simon indeed a pirate?" Barbara asked. "Would it grieve you to hear he was?" She thought a moment before replying, and then she said-- "No, for we have always thought him to be one. No, not if it will not make you think worse of me for having descended from him." "I knew that was so," Reginald replied, "when you told me your name. And I do not think I showed by my manner that I thought any the worse of you." CHAPTER XXXII. THE SOLITUDE IS INTERRUPTED. The weather had changed, and, as is always the case in the tropics, the change was extreme. The wind blew now from the northeast, dashing the sea up in mountains on to the strip of beach around that quarter of Coffin Island, hurling it with a roar like great claps of thunder over the beach on to the vegetation beyond it, crashing down trees and saplings, and entirely obliterating for a time the three little Keys, in the middle one of which was Simon Alderly's treasure. This Key Reginald had gazed upon more than once since he had been in the island; he had even pointed it out to Barbara on the morning after she had told her tale, and had added the few missing links to the knowledge she already possessed; and he had also informed her that therein lay her fortune. "So," the girl said on that morning, as she gazed down from the cliff on which they stood to where the already fast-rising waves were washing over the spot in question, "it is there they ought to have searched. It has laid there all the time! Yet no one ever thought of those little islets. Well! I am glad!" "Why?" asked Reginald, as he looked round at her. He had given her his arm to steady her against the fierce wind blowing now under the purple, sun-coloured clouds rolling up from the northeast, and she had taken it. Yet, as she did so, she scarcely knew why she should accept that proffered arm. She was used to all changes of weather in this, her island; she could stand as easily upon the tallest crags that it possessed as any of her goats, or even the sea-birds that dwelt upon them, could do. Yet, still, she had taken it!