The second day he sits up and says in English: "Who are you?"
So I told him. Then he says: "Why are you doing this for me?
You wouldn't do it if you knew who I am." "I'd do it," I said, "if
you were the devil." "I am next door to him," he says. "I am
Melhuish, of the Poison Island Treasure." "I never heard of it,"
said I. "There's others call it the Priests' Treasure," says he;
"and if you have never heard of it, you cannot have sailed anywhere
near the Bay of Honduras." "Never in my life," I said. "My business
has lain along the coast for years. But what of it?" "What of it?"
he says, sitting up, his eyes all shining with the fever, "why,
nothing, except that I am one of the richest men in the world."
I set this down to raving. "You don't believe me?" he asks after
some time. "Why," I answers him, "this is a funny sort of place for
a nabob, and that you must allow; not to mention," I adds, "that from
here to Honduras is a long step." "You fool!" said he, "that is the
very reason of it. I don't believe in a hell on the t'other shore of
this life, whatever your views may be. You go to sleep and have done
with it--that's my belief. But I believe in hell upon earth, because
I have lived in it.
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