the table. It was a map or chart. In the centre of it was a circle.
In the middle of the circle was a small dot and a letter T, while at
one side of the map was a letter N, and against it on the other side
a letter S.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Can you not guess?" queried Captain Bilge. "It is a desert island."

"Ah!" I rejoined with a sudden flash of intuition, "and N is for
North and S is for South."

"Blowhard," said the Captain, striking the table with such force as
to cause a loaf of ship's bread to bounce up and down three or four
times, "you've struck it. That part of it had not yet occurred
to me."

"And the letter T?" I asked.

"The treasure, the buried treasure," said the Captain, and turning
the map over he read from the back of it--"The point T indicates
the spot where the treasure is buried under the sand; it consists of
half a million Spanish dollars, and is buried in a brown leather
dress-suit case."

"And where is the island?" I inquired, mad with excitement.

"That I do not know," said the Captain. "I intend to sail up and
down the parallels of latitude until I find it."