"That goes very well with the initial on the kerchief," said Parson
Jones. "But what other name d'ye give him? Let it be something to go
with the C."

"I don't know," said Molly.

"Why not call him 'Chist,' since he was born in a chist out of the sea?
'Tom Chist'--the name goes off like a flash in the pan." And so "Tom
Chist" he was called and "Tom Chist" he was christened.

So much for the beginning of the history of Tom Chist. The story of
Captain Kidd's treasure-box does not begin until the late spring of
1699.

That was the year that the famous pirate captain, coming up from the
West Indies, sailed his sloop into the Delaware Bay, where he lay for
over a month waiting for news from his friends in New York.

For he had sent word to that town asking if the coast was clear for him
to return home with the rich prize he had brought from the Indian seas
and the coast of Africa, and meantime he lay there in the Delaware Bay
waiting for a reply. Before he left he turned the whole of Tom Chist's
life topsy-turvy with something that he brought ashore.

By that time Tom Chist had grown into a strong-limbed, thick-jointed
boy of fourteen or fifteen years of age. It was a miserable dog's life
he lived with old Matt Abrahamson, for the old fisherman was in his
cups more than half the time, and when he was so there was hardly a day
passed that he did not give Tom a curse or a buffet or, as like as not,
an actual beating. One would have thought that such treatment would