He led them halfway across the
island, lured them into a swamp, and made a bolt to escape, and the
tale is he was getting clear off when one of the Spanish seamen let
fly with his musket into the bushes and bowled him over like a
rabbit. It was a chance shot, and of course it put an end to all
hope of finding the treasure. They ransacked the island for a week
or more, but found never a dollar; and before giving it up some
inclined to believe what one of the prisoners had said, that the
treasure had never been buried in Mortallone at all, but in the
island of Roatan, some leagues to the eastward. But, if you ask my
opinion, the stranger that took lodgings with Melhuish was the mate
Griffiths, and no other. There has always been rumours that he got
away with the secret. Know about it?" said old Klootz. "Why, there
was even a song made up about it--
"'O, we threw the bodies over, and forth we did stand
Till the tenth day we sighted what seemed a pleasant land,
And alongst the Kays of Mortallone!'"
From the first the old man had no doubt but we had struck the secret.
All the way home he was scheming, and the very night we reached
Whydah again he came out with a plan.
"Have you ever read your Bible?" said he.
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