"No! no! no!" she said. "Remember, it is not in the island--my island,
I suppose, now. The Keys are as much yours, or anyone else's, as mine.
And if it had been on the island, and we had dug it up, I would not
have taken it. If you would not have shared it with me--I--I--well, I
would have thrown it into the sea."
"What a nice ending to poor old Nick's troubles and labours here in
finding it, and at home in writing his long account in that queer fist
of his! And also to all that your people have gone through, from your
namesake downwards. No, no, Barbara! We won't throw it back into the
sea, at any rate. And to-morrow we'll dig it up. Shall we?"
This was agreed upon, and then Reginald prepared to leave her. He
offered to stay in the house if she felt nervous--as she had once
before implored him to do; but now she said, "No, she was not nervous.
She feared nothing now. There was no one else who could come to harm
him or her; the island was theirs and theirs alone." He noticed that
she called it "theirs" and not "hers," but made no remark on the
subject, since an idea had arisen in his mind: he knew now what the
future of the treasure, of Barbara, and of himself must be!--and he
proceeded to arrange for their movements on the morrow.
"It will be low water two hours after daybreak," he said, "and by that
time I will have brought the cutter and the boat round to the strip of
beach nearest to the Keys. You might meet me there, Barbara, and bring
some food and fresh water, and then we will begin. Meanwhile, let me
have whatever tools and implements you possess for digging. I will
take them with me and bring them in the cutter in the morning."
In the shed behind the hut they found what was required, an old spade
and a nearly new one, a pickaxe and some ropes--for the Alderlys,
father and son, had had to attend to their garden in this tropical
island almost as much as though they had lived in Europe--and these
would be enough, he thought.
So, shouldering them, he bade her "Good-night"--it seemed to each as
though their hands were clasped together longer and more tightly now
than they had ever been before!--and went his way down to the river
once more.
It would have been strange if, to-night--the night before the story,
that his ancestor had written in those long past and forgotten years,
was to be realised--he should not have had a host of thoughts whirling
through his brain; if past and present had not been strangely confused
and jumbled up together in that brain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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