Now, as I have writ, and as, indeed, the Geomancer rightly forecast, it was not to be that the treasure should be found by those who sailed in the _Algier Rose_. Therefore should I not have written down here this our first cruise in search of that treasure, had it not been that what happened on that voyage has much to do with what happened on the second one, when we did indeed find all. To do, that is to say, with the stealing of a great portion of the treasure by a thief, and how it came about that he could so steal it. But I wander from what should be a plain record, and will now proceed. When once we were safe anchored in Balsamo Bay, which is near unto St. Jago, and not far from the reef called by us the "Boylers," but by the Spaniards and Portygees the "Bajo"--wanderers on the seas who have late been there tell me it is now called the Bajo de la Plata,--we set to work at once; but our efforts met with no success. Of divers we had procured two, one a Portygee mulatto, the other an African negro--the largest and most hideous brute in the form of man that I had ever set my eyes upon. Day by day we sent them down, and day by day they returned, swearing that they could find nothing of the Plate ship--no, not so much as a spar or a block. At first we thought they lied, as, indeed, we ever did, until at last the wreck was found, and then we knew they had spoken truth; for, having floated off, as we once thought, she was three cables--but you shall see. Thus we worked, fishing ever and catching nothing, for two years, in which time we endured many hardships. To begin with, the Spaniards harassed us much, in spite of our not having been at war with them since '60, and endeavoured to drive us away from the neighbourhood of the Reef. But them we defied, and, on their sending out at last a bomb-ketch to attack us, we first of all spoke it fair, and, on that being no good, blew it out of the water; whereon we heard no more of them, perhaps because just now they were busy with the French, who had for the last six or seven years gotten holt of the part called Aiitti, and wanted the rest. But now trouble bred amongst us, as, alas! it will do in any number or body of men who, after long seeking for a thing and finding it not, grow moody and heartsore. For the men began to mutter between themselves and to say that we should never find the sunken ship, and that, since we had a fine frigate of our own, well armed and manned, why not put it to some purpose, and go pirating and buccaneering in the Southern Seas? The first to hear of this was the carpenter, a straightforward honest man of good grit; the last, of course, was the captain. But being myself forewarned by this man, whose name was Hanway, I soon went and spake to the captain, telling him what was going forward and below; and marvellous calm he was when he did hear it.