He went away with the chest, and we heard no more of the matter.
The winter closing in, I took service in the factory. I used to run
against this Martin almost every day, but being my superior he never
got beyond nodding to me.
"So it went on, that winter. The next spring I sailed with the
salting fleet as usual. I was mate by this time, and had learned to
navigate. I came back, to find Martin seated in the parlour and
talking, and my mother told me he had asked my sister to marry him.
They had met at the factory and fixed it up between them.
He appeared to be very fond of my sister, who was usually reckoned a
plain-featured woman, and there couldn't be a doubt she was fond of
him. Later on, I heard that she had told him all about the chart,
but had not shown it to him, being afraid to do so without my leave.
"He opened the subject himself about a week later, during which I
had become very thick with him. He said that, in his belief, there
was money in it, and I was a fool not to take it up. I answered,
What could I do? He said there was ways and means that a lad of
spirit ought to be able to discover. With that he talked no more of
it that day, but it cropped up again, and by little and little he so
worked me up that I took to dreaming of the cursed thing.
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