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There have been moments when I felt convinced that Carquemort possessed not a single redeeming virtue, but if only for the sake of ruining his chance to priority in hell, I must concede him one. He always came directly to the point, whatever might be the subject under discussion. This is unusual with a Frenchman, especially with a Frenchman of his class, or with any man of his nature, if his mate exists on earth unhanged. There was never any beating about the bush with Carquemort; and he had what was sometimes a most objectionable habit of calling a spade a spade.

The night of our first meeting he pulled a chair up to the table after the formal introductions had been made, and, looking first at one of us and then at the other with his small, heavy-browed, beady eyes, he said:

“Chiffard has told you that I have a chart, and you want to see it?”

“That’s about the size of it,” answered Thatcher, lightly; but Carquemort glared at him in a manner which plainly showed he did not like this levity, and I realized at once we must go about it carefully if we wished the man to talk. I kicked Thatcher under the table. Then I said:

“Chiffard has told us about the chart, but not much. As I understand it, you have a map on which is designated the location of hidden treasure. Such things are always interesting, of course; but one does not run across hidden treasure very frequently nowadays, and it will require some proof to persuade us that your chart is not a blague. If you can do that, we may be able to aid you.”

“You speak well,” answered Carquemort. “Chiffard assures me that, although Americans, you are both men of honor, and that if I show you the chart you will put your knowledge of its contents to no other use but that which may be agreed to between us. As to whether it is a blague—it will not take you long to determine that for yourself.”

He spoke as a man filled with confidence, and I admit I was impressed by his manner. We readily agreed to make no use of information we might derive from the chart, for all we wanted of it, and of him, was an evening’s entertainment. Chiffard sat by in silence, leaning forward on both elbows, eagerly attentive, and Thatcher had assumed a gravity of demeanor which seemed to reassure Carquemort, and which apparently inspired him with confidence in Thatcher’s integrity. He felt in the inner pocket of his double-breasted sailor-jacket and pulled out a dark-leather pocket-book, from which he took a well-worn, blue-linen envelope. From this he extracted the chart and laid it on the table.

I cannot analyze the peculiar feelings which came over me the instant I saw that piece of paper. They were a mixture of fear, greed, hope, and determination. There was no sensation of doubt, and none of joy. I have tried many times to explain to Thatcher just how I felt, and he has tried to do the same concerning himself, for me; but neither of us has been very successful. We both agree that our brains swam in a kind of feverish excitement. As for me, I was satisfied at a glance that the map was a very ancient one, and my interest was at once bound up in it. Thatcher, from scoffer, turned champion—aye, fanatic—so wonderful was the influence of that bit of brown paper on him. There was something uncanny in this fascination, something weird and of the supernatural; and it was exerted over every one who ever saw the chart. I could well understand why Chiffard had felt so restless and uneasy earlier in the evening.

It was a small piece of brown paper, so thick that I took it at first to be parchment. It had originally been oblong in form, about three inches by five; but when we first saw it a portion had been burned away, leaving the top and the right-hand edge of the paper charred and irregular. Across the upper portion these words, prefixed by a cross in red ink, remained of what had been written:

X Ici son 0000 . . .

environ en or pièces et . . .

The cross referred to a similar red mark on one of a group of islands carefully outlined in the centre of the sheet. The name of the group had evidently been written down, for near the charred edge of the paper appeared these fragments of words in capital letters:

ILE

SAI

MI

The remaining space was taken up with what appeared to be a kind of explanatory inscription, fully half of which had been destroyed in the burning. This much had been spared:

Pour trouver la cach

on se met le dos

contre le mat

l’on marche

directe ver

croix sur

chiens u

de 25 pa

la pierr

creuse

A much better conception of what the document looked like may be obtained from the picture given herewith, which is taken from a photograph of the original. But no reproduction or description can ever convey the slightest idea of the wonderful fascination the original chart itself had upon all those who saw it or who came in contact with it. Chiffard said it was bewitched, and he may be right. I used to scoff at any belief in supernatural agencies or influences; but I have gotten over that now.

We all four sat there in silence gazing at those few square inches of yellow paper, the fever burning in our pulses and our heads throbbing. Finally, Carquemort knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and this pounding on the table brought us back to our senses. Thatcher was the first to speak:

“Where are these islands?” he asked.

“I do not know,” replied Carquemort.

“That is what he wants you to find out,” put in Chiffard, nervously.

“But there are a good many islands in this world,” said I, picking up the chart and scrutinizing it carefully; “and there is not much of a clew to the whereabouts of this particular group to be found in this map. How did it come to get burned?”

“I cannot tell,” said Carquemort. “It was so when I got it.”

“And where did you get it?”

He hesitated a moment, then replied: “It came to me when my grandfather died. But that is unimportant. Here is the chart. We will talk of that.” His tone plainly forbade further inquiry. But I was athirst for facts.

“I don’t want to ask unreasonable questions,” I said, “but there are some things we must know.” Carquemort’s face twitched slightly, and he started to speak; but I raised my hand and shut him off. “Wait a moment. We are interested in this map—very much interested, as you no doubt see. I don’t care so far as you, personally, are concerned where or how you got it; but I want some explanation of how it came to light after apparently having been hidden away for so many years. Do you understand what I mean?”

“I do,” said Carquemort, somewhat sullenly.

“Don’t you see,” I continued, persuasively, “that, unless we can satisfy ourselves that no one else has had possession of this map in a way to know its value, there is no use of our spending our time in seeking out these islands?”

“I do not believe the existence of the paper has been known of for over a hundred years,” answered Carquemort, slowly, and with much apparent effort. “The paper was locked in a box. I opened the box three years ago in St. Malo. A lad read to me the writing on the paper, and I kept it without telling any one of it. The lad was much excited and deeply affected by what he read, just as you have been and as I was when he repeated it to me; but he promised to tell no one of it, and I believe he kept his word. At any rate, he had little time to speak much of it, for we sailed away on the same bark—the Sainte Geneviève—three days later, he as mousse and I as second mate.”

Here Carquemort paused for a moment and inhaled a cloud of smoke.

“He was the only one besides myself who knew of the existence of the chart,” he continued. “He was washed overboard one night.”

He spoke in hoarse tones, and his voice grew fainter as he told the story.

The last words were almost whispered as he leaned far over the table, looking at none of us, and they could not conceal the truth. I shuddered and closed my eyes, but so great an impression did the story make upon my mind that I have since frequently wakened from a sound sleep at hearing that boy’s cry as he was “washed overboard” in the night.

There was another brief silence, broken at last by Thatcher.

“You can’t read, then?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s why you showed the map to the boy?”

“Yes.”

“And who else has seen it since?”

“No one—until to-day. I showed it then to Chiffard.”

“Why did you keep it so secret for three years?” I interrupted, somewhat impatiently. “You said it was three years ago you got it in St. Malo, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he answered, sitting up straight and raising his voice until it sounded almost like a hoarse yell in the quiet little room. “Three years I kept it. I could not use it. There seemed to be a curse upon it. I was superstitious, perhaps.” Then his voice lowered, and there was an expression of almost savage greed in the depths of his eyes. “But I must use it now. I might as well die finding the gold as die for fear of it! Ask me no more—I have answered your question. It is certain that nobody has seen this chart since it was made and hidden away, and I believe it must have been in existence a hundred years or more.”

“But there is one more point upon which we must be satisfied,” I insisted, “and after that we can let the past be gone. How came you here, having sailed from St. Malo three years ago?”

“The Sainte Geneviève was bound for Cayenne, French Guiana,” proceeded Carquemort, straightforwardly, now somewhat calmed. “We had bad weather from the start, and at the end of four months were blown upon the desert island of Trinidad, off Brazil. The bark went to pieces on the rocks and two of the men died. The rest of us were taken off at the end of six weeks by a British tramp, that landed us in Buenos Ayres. The French Consul there finally put us aboard a steamer for London, but we broke down and had to put into Rio. There I left my mates and shipped on a coffee-trader for New Orleans. We lay three months at Santos (where the men were dying like flies with yellow-fever) before we could get a cargo; and when at last I got to New Orleans, a month ago, with fifty dollars in my pocket, I made up my mind that as soon as we could clear quarantine I’d come to New York and see if I could not get a change of luck. This chart is all I have, and I’m going to find these islands if I can get any help; it’s the last card I have to play!”

“Well,” said I, “exactly what do you wish to do if by any means we should discover the location of these islands?”

“Go there,” said Carquemort, curtly.

“But that will cost money,” said Thatcher.

“I furnish the chart; you furnish the money.”

“And then what?” I asked.

“About the treasure?”

“Yes.”

“We divide.”

“If we furnish money enough to get to these islands—wherever they may be—and find the treasure, you will share equally with us anything that maybe unearthed?”

“I will agree to that,” said Carquemort.

“I should like to think this over a little,” I said, in an undertone, turning to Thatcher.

“Of course,” he replied; “but I wanted to know what kind of a deal he was willing to make.”

“And me?” exclaimed the cook, anxiously—“and me? Where am I in here?”

“We shall have to see about that, Chiffard,” answered Thatcher, smiling. “We will dine here again to-morrow night, and then perhaps we can talk more seriously about this.”

“That is all very well,” said I; “but how can we talk about it if we don’t know where the islands are? How is that to be learned?” And I turned inquiringly towards Carquemort.

He shrugged his shoulders after the fashion of his race, and asked if there was not enough written on the chart to show where the treasure was hidden. He seemed incredulous when we told him that there were only a few letters that gave the slightest clew to the identity of the islands.

“But there may be enough,” added Thatcher; “and after we have set to work in earnest we may be able to decipher the enigma. I don’t intend to throw up my hands yet.” I had never seen him so enthusiastic.

It was some time before we could persuade Carquemort to let us have a copy of the chart; but we finally convinced him that no harm could possibly come of it, and that we must have some such data to aid us in working out the problem that must be solved before any further steps could be taken. And so, after the map and the writing had been carefully traced upon a thin sheet of paper, Carquemort put the precious documents away in his pocket again, and we parted for the night.