"It wouldn't be of much use to us without," sniggered Glen. "Lord, but that was a clever stroke of Roberts'--the cleverest thing he ever done. Right under the guns of the African Comp'ny's fort she lay in Sierra Leone harbour--a Portuguese ship of twenty guns. At a quarter to eleven there was her crew, as many as might be--we could hear 'em singing and laughing as we pulled across the water to 'em--and at ten minutes past three there wasn't a mother's son of them all alive; and no noise, mind you. Rich she was, too. Sugar--we had run short of sugar for our punch, and welcome it was--sugar, skins, tobacco, ninety thousand moidors, and this cross with the diamonds for the King of Portugal. Roberts himself said he had never seen stones like it, and he was a good judge of stones was Roberts. He was quick, too. Why, we had that cross on the dinghy and were well up the Sierra Leone River before daybreak, just the three of us--Roberts, me, and Adam Mayle--Kennedy he called himself then, being a gentleman born and with more sense than the rest of us. He buried the cross, two days sail up the Sierra Leone River, and Roberts made a chart of its bearings. He gave it to me on the deck of the _Royal Fortune_ when he was mortally wounded, and I kept it all the time we were in prison. I showed it to Adam Mayle when we escaped, but we had no means to get at it--at least, I hadn't. Adam, he was a gentleman born, and had got his savings placed all safe in his own name." I hoped Glen would go on in this strain until my slip was forgotten. I was, besides, acquiring information. But Roper cut him short. "It was a cross--it wasn't jewels," said he, suspiciously; and suddenly Tortue interrupted. "'Halves' was what you said, I think," he remarked, rather quickly, and I could almost have believed that he was trying to cover up my mistake. I took advantage of his interruption as quickly as he had made it. "Half for you, half for Cullen," said I; and immediately Tortue flung out in an extravagant passion. He threatened me, he threatened Cullen, he opened his knife and gesticulated, he cursed, until I began to wonder: was he acting? Was this anger a pretence to divert attention finally from my unlucky guess? I could not be sure. I could conceive no reason for such a pretence. But certainly, whether he intended it or not, he brought about that result; for his companions began to fear he would make an end of me before they had got the information where the cross was hid, and so busied themselves with appeasing him. He permitted himself at the last to be appeased, and George Glen took up the argument.