"Without bearings of some sort," said Miss Belcher, "these marks are
merely ridiculous."
"You may well say so, ma'am," Captain Branscome answered, but
inattentively. "Mortallone--Mortallone," he went on, muttering the
word over as if to himself. "It is curious, all the same."
"What is curious?" demanded Miss Belcher.
"Why, ma'am, I have never myself visited the Gulf of Honduras, but
among seamen there are always a hundred stories floating about.
In a manner of speaking, there is no such shop for gossip as the sea.
In every port you meet 'em, in taverns where sailors drink and brag--
the liquor being in them--and one man talks and the rest listen, not
troubling themselves to believe. It is good to find one's self
ashore, you understand? And a good, strong-flavoured yarn makes
the landlord and all the shore-keeping folk open their eyes--"
"Bless the man!" Miss Belcher rapped her knuckles on the table.
"This is not a 'longshore tavern."
"No, ma'am."
"Then why not come to the point?"
"The point, ma'am--well, the point is that every one--that is to say,
every seaman--has heard tell of treasure knocking about, as you might
put it, somewhere in the Gulf of Honduras."
"What sort of treasure?"
"Why, as to that, ma'am, it varies with the story.
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