"It's buried," said the captain, after a long pause. "I don't know that
there's any harm in telling you that; buried in a small island in the
South Pacific."

"Have you seen it?" inquired Mr. Chalk.

"I buried it," rejoined the other.

Mr. Chalk sank back in his chair and regarded him with awestruck
attention; Captain Bowers, slowly ramming home a charge of tobacco with
his thumb, smiled quietly.

"Buried it," he repeated, musingly, "with the blade of an oar for a
spade. It was a long job, but it's six foot down and the dead man it
belonged to atop of it."

The pipe fell from the listener's fingers and smashed unheeded on the
floor.

"You ought to make a book of it," he said at last.

The captain shook his head. "I haven't got the gift of story-telling,"
he said, simply. "Besides, you can understand I don't want it noised
about. People might bother me."

He leaned back in his chair and bunched his beard in his hand; the other,
watching him closely, saw that his thoughts were busy with some scene in
his stirring past.