"Yes, for three years we scourged these seas, and made war on land as well as sea--capturing, plundering, murdering--yes, committing crimes that shame manhood, and make me fear the vengeance of a just God. And all for gold, gold, gold. And what good can gold do a man with a conscience haunted by crimes committed in getting it? Gold can do me no good; but man is a mean animal at best; and you can so teach him in crime that he will commit the most revolting out of sheer wantonness. "We soon had more gold and jewels than we knew what to do with. Some of our men left us and went home with enough to make them rich for the rest of their lives. And we have buried enough on these islands to buy a city. Gold lost its charms with us, and crime became an excitement and an entertainment. "We discovered this island while cruising from one ocean to the other, and found on it some sailors, whose vessel had been wrecked near where you landed. They had been seven years here, and it is to them we are indebted for these animals and fowls. They lived contented, for they had given up all hope of getting away, and are all dead now. We made this place a retreat, had a settlement here, after the wreck of the Storm in the cave, of forty men. They are all dead but me. I have been here forty years--nine of them passed alone; and now my time has almost come. I took the name of George Dunman because I had disgraced that of my parents, and because I am an outlaw, and I want to die here and be forgotten." It was after midnight when the old man finished his story. His manner became nervous and restless, and it was evident there was something more he wanted to disclose, but hesitated to do. The strangers accepted the old man's invitation, and took up their abode under his roof, finding plenty of food and kind treatment. But they soon became weary of so monotonous a life, and longing for some means of reaching their homes and civilization, would visit the coast nearly every day, in the hope of seeing some friendly sail and effecting their deliverance. This anxiety to get away on the part of his new friends so preyed on the old man's mind that his strength began to fail fast, and at the end of two months it became evident that his sands of life had but a few more days to run.