"Two cent'ries ago! Oh! It didn't happen to say anything about the treasure old Simon Alderly had stowed away here, did it?" "Since you ask me so directly, and as it is your business, I will reply at once. It did." For a moment Alderly's face was a sight to see. First the brown of his face turned to a deeper hue, then the colour receded, leaving him almost livid, then slowly the natural colour returned again, and he said, huskily-- "It did, eh? So I thought, though I don't know why the wench, Barb, told me a lie." "Are you sure she did tell you a lie? I don't think your sister seems a person of that sort." "Never mind my sister. Tell me about the treasure--_my_ treasure. I am the heir, you know; I am the only Alderly left after two cent'ries hunting for it--you was right about them cent'ries, mister. Two it was. Where is that treasure? Go on, tell me." "I have not quite made up my mind about doing that," said Reginald. "It remains for me to decide whether I shall do so just yet." "It remains for you to decide whether you will tell me where my property is! It does, does it? And what else?--what do it remain for me to do?" and he advanced so close to Reginald and looked so threatening, both from his angry glances and his great height and build, that many a man might have been cowed. But not such a man as Reginald Crafer! "What do it remain for me to do--eh?" he asked again. "To kill you, p'raps." Reginald's laugh rang out so loud at this that it might have been heard on the Keys outside--the Keys whereon the treasure was. And it made Alderly's fury even greater than before. "I _could_ kill you, mister, easy, if I wanted to. And no one would never know of it except Barb. And if she knowed of it, why, I'd kill her too. Anyhow, I mean to have my fortune." "As to killing," said Reginald, "I don't quite agree with you. You seem to me a powerful kind of a person, without much knowledge, however, of using that power." Here Alderly stamped with fury. "Therefore, you are not so very terrible. However, about _your_ fortune. To begin with, are you quite sure it is yours?" "Why! whose else is it if it ain't mine?" the bully asked, stupidly now. "Ain't this island mine now father's dead?" "You say it is, though I am sure I don't know whether you are telling the truth or not. It might be as much your sister's as yours." Alderly burst out laughing, scornfully this time; but Reginald went on. "Your father might have left a will, you know, leaving her a portion of it, or, indeed, the whole, if he didn't approve of your general behaviour." Alderly laughed again--though now he looked rather white, the other thought; and then he said emphatically:-- "Father didn't leave no papers. So I'm the heir. Girls don't count, I'm told." All of which--both laughter, pallor, and remarks--led Reginald to form a suspicion that whatever papers the elder Alderly might have left had been destroyed.