That Humphrey Trevena fully intended to make an effort to regain the hidden treasure there can be no possible doubt. Through an excess of caution he prepared an elaborate cipher, giving the exact latitude and longitude, and this he invariably carried about his person in a watertight metal case; but, unfortunately, he met his death through a fall over the cliffs near the Gribben, and when his body was washed ashore the cipher was found on him. In the natural sequence of events the secret should have come into the possession of his son Gilbert, but, though the latter had the cipher, neither the key nor the log could be found, though search was made high and low, and the secret remained a secret. Vague rumours of the existence of the "San Philipo" treasure floated about, but the majority of Gilbert's friends regarded the whole business as a myth, and the interest in the mystery gradually died out. The box, with its undecipherable contents, still remained as a sort of heirloom--for, with true Cornish superstition, the bygone members of the Trevena family kept particular guard over the relic of the redoubtable Humphrey--until the year 1850, when my father's uncle, Ross Trevena, having suffered in the general ruin that overtook Falmouth when steamships displaced the famous sailing packets of that port, left Polruan and settled in the neighbourhood of Pernambuco, in Brazil. Here he successfully engaged in coffee-planting, but at length he dropped out of all communication with his relatives in Cornwall, and on his death all trace of Humphrey's cipher were lost, and the faint interest in the "San Philipo" treasure had apparently flickered out. But, by a pure accident, a new light was shed upon the mystery, and a clue furnished which led to my Uncle Herbert's hurried visit to Pernambuco. Before relating, however, the strange circumstances of the recovery of the log of the "Anne," I must give some particulars of the present actors in this stirring drama. My father, Howard Trevena, is a typical Cornishman. Tall, broad-shouldered, and possessing an unusual amount of strength, he has a reputation in this part of the Duchy for manliness, good nature, and a love of outdoor recreation, his skill as a yachtsman being well known all along this dangerous coast betwixt the Lizard and Portland Bill.