style="font-size:15px;"> “Mr Parkley will be here shortly,” said Dutch. “Would you prefer to see him?”
“Yes – no,” said the stranger. “I should like to see him, but I am content to talk to you. You Englishmen are so intelligent, and those who sent me here told me that their fellow-countrymen would be ready to help my designs.”
“May I ask what they are?” said Dutch, who began to feel suspicious of the stranger.
“Yes, for I shall betray nothing. First, am I right? Yes,” he said, glancing round, and pointing at the diving suits. “I see I am right. You work under water – dive?”
“That is our business, and the making of apparatus.”
“Apparatus? Oh, yes, I understand. Would you – would Mr Parkley like to make a great fortune?”
“Not a doubt about it,” said Mr Parkley, entering, all hat and comforter. “How do?” he continued, bluffly, as the visitor rose and bowed, and then scanned him searchingly, as hat and comforter were placed once more upon the diving suit.
“This is Mr Parkley, the head of this establishment.”
“I am delighted,” said the stranger, raising his eyebrows, and half-closing his eyes. “Will you, then, read?”
“Thinks I don’t look it, Pugh,” said Mr Parkley aside, as he took the letter handed him, opened it, glanced at the contents and superscription, and then handed it to Dutch.
“Sit down, sir,” he said, sharply, as he perched himself on a stool as jerkily as the stranger resumed his full of grace. “Read it aloud, Mr Pugh.”
Dutch still felt troubled; but he read, in a clear voice, the letter from a well-known English firm at Havana.
“Dear Sir, – The bearer of this, Señor Manuel Lauré, comes to you with our earnest recommendation. He has certain peculiar projects that he will explain. To some people they would seem wild and visionary; but to you, with your appliances, they will doubtless appear in a very different light. He is a gentleman of good position here, and worthy of your respect. If you do not see fit to carry out his wishes, kindly place him in communication with some other firm, and do what you can to prevent his being imposed upon. – Faithfully yours, —
“Glad to see you, sir,” said Mr Parkley, upon whom the letter wrought a complete change. “Good people, Roberts and Moore. Supplied them with a complete diving apparatus. So you’ve come over on purpose to offer me a fortune?”
“Yes,” said the visitor, “a great fortune. You smile, but listen. Do I think you a child, sir? Oh, no. I do not tell you I want to make a great fortune for you only, but for myself as well.”
“Of course,” said Mr Parkley, smiling, and showing in his manner how thoroughly business-like he was. “I thought that had to come.”
“See here, sir – This Mr Pugh is in your confidence?”
“Quite. Go on.”
“See, then: I have travelled much, boating – yachting you would call it in England – all around the shores of the Great Gulf of Mexico. I know every island and piece of coast in the Carib Sea.”
“Yes,” said Mr Parkley, drumming on the desk.
“I have made discoveries there.”
“Mines?” said Mr Parkley. “Not in my way.”
“No, sir – better than mines; for the gold and silver are gathered and smelted – cast into ingots.”
“Buried treasure, eh? Not in my way, sir – not in my way.”
“Yes, buried treasure, Mr Parkley; but buried in the bright, clear sea, where the sun lights up the sand and rocks below.”
“Sea, eh? Well, that is more in our way. Eh, Pugh?”
“Read the old chronicles of the time, sir, two or three hundred years ago,” said the Cuban, rising, with his eyes flashing, and his handsome face lit up by his glowing excitement, “and you shall find that gold ships and plate-ships – ships laden with the treasures of Mexico and Peru, taken by the Spaniards, were sunk here and there upon those wondrous coasts.”
“Old women’s tales,” said Mr Parkley, abruptly. “Cock-and-bull stories.”
“I do not quite understand,” said the Cuban, haughtily, “except that you doubt me. Sir, these are truths. I doubted first; but for five years in a small vessel I have searched the Carib Sea, and I can take you to where three ships have been wrecked and sunk – ships whose existence is only known to me.”
“Very likely,” said Mr Parkley; “but that don’t prove that they were laden with gold.”
“Look,” said the Cuban, taking from a pocket in his cloak a packet, and, opening it out, he unwrapped two papers, in one of which was a small ingot of gold, in the other a bar of silver. They were cast in a very rough fashion, and the peculiarity that gave strength to the Cuban’s story was that each bar of about six inches long was for the most part encrusted with barnacle-like shells and other peculiar sea growths.
“Hum! Could this have been stuck on, Pugh?” said Mr Parkley, curiously examining each bar in turn.
“I think not, sir, decidedly,” said Pugh. “Those pieces of metal must have been under water for a great length of time.”
“You are right, Mr Pugh,” said the Cuban, whose face brightened. “You are a man of sound sense. They have been under water three hundred years.”
He smiled at the young Englishman as he spoke, but the other felt repelled by him, and his looks were cold.
“How did you get those bars and ingots?” said Mr Parkley, abruptly.
“From amongst the rotten timbers of an old galleon,” said the Cuban. “But where?”
“That is my secret. Thirty feet below the surface at low water.”
“Easy depth,” said Mr Parkley, thoughtfully. “But why did you not get more?”
“Sir, am I a fish? I practised diving till I could go down with a stone, and stay a minute; but what is that? How could I tear away shell, and coral, and hard wood, and sand, and stones. I find six such bars, and I am satisfied. I seek for years for the place, and I know three huge mines of wealth for the bold Englishmen who would fit out a ship with things like these” – pointing to the diving suits – “with brave men who will go down with bars, and stay an hour, and break a way to the treasure, and there load – load that ship with gold and silver, and perhaps rich jewels. Sir, I say to you,” he continued, his face gradually glowing in excitement, “are you the brave Englishman who will fit out a ship and go with me? I say, make a written bond of agreement to find all we shall want in what you call apparatus and brave men. I show you the exact place. I take your ship to the spot to anchor, and then, when we get the treasures, I take half for myself, and you take half for yourselves. Is it fair?”
“Yes, it sounds fair enough,” said Mr Parkley, rubbing his nose with a pair of compasses. “What do you say, Pugh?”
“I
