"He, he," laughed the old man, till he nigh choked, "got all that came in the boat, not all under the water. No, no!" "Plenty more under water," grunted Juan, "so he say. Plenty more. Only no one able to get it and no one believe. He poor old Portygee, me poor negro, so no one believe." "What, does he know?" says Phips, "and, if you knew, why had you no mind to speak when first we came here and I employed you?" "Signor Phips," said the black, "then I knew of nothing; I only suspect you fished in wrong place. Then when you go away to English land there make much talk about you, and all ask me if English captain find much? And I say, no, and don't tink anyone find anyting. Then old man here--he ninety summers old!--then old man, Geronimo, he come in from mines of Hayna in middle of country, where he lived forty year, and hear of talk about you and the silver, and of me the Buzo" (which means a diver), "and he say he wish he come back sooner much, because he know where carrack lie, where shift off reefy." "Shift off the reef!" exclaimed the Captain and myself together, with a glance at each other. "Is that so indeed?" Then the old Portygee burst out laughing and then choking, and then when he found his voice again, he said, "Yees, yees; that so. I see sailors come ashore with plate. I drink with them, I danze with girls, too, only I not die. That very long ago now; girls all dead, too. He! he! Oh!" and again he had his spasms. Then once more he went on: "And so, Signor, because I was a fisherman, I go out to the Bajo and I look about, only I fear Tiburons (sharks), and once when water very low I see down deep a cannon, then I know the ship had shifted. So another day I go look again, and there floated up a piece of the ship, a rail, so I know for certain she move. Then I speak to many and I say I know where carrack is, but they believed not and would do nothing. And now they all dead, too, like the sailors and the girls. He! he! Ha! ha! Oh! oh!" We talked long with this miserable relic of the past--who so angered Phips with his recollections of the dead and the gone, especially the girls, that he almost ordered him out of the ship--and, indeed, it did seem as if at last we had lighted on some good news. He said, when he could persuade no one to believe or lend a hand to search further, he went away to the mines of Hayna, in the interior, where a fresh find of gold was made, and there he stayed for all the years, making a little livelihood and forgetting all about the plate ship. Then, having at last struck ninety--on which he laid great stress, as though an action of credit done by himself--he came back to Porto where he belonged, and fell in with Juan. And this black told us that when he did, indeed, come back and heard that we had been and gone, he fell into such a paroxysm of rage and grief that he nearly died, "for now," said he, "my chance is gone."