Do you observe how mere an accident it
was that these events should have occurred upon the SOLE day of all
the year in which it has been, or may be sufficiently cool for
fire, and that without the fire, or without the intervention of the
dog at the precise moment in which he appeared, I should never have
become aware of the death's head, and so never the possessor of the
treasure?"
"But proceed--I am all impatience."
"Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories current--the
thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried, somewhere upon the
Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must have
had some foundation in fact. And that the rumors have existed so
long and so continuous, could have resulted, it appeared to me,
only from the circumstance of the buried treasures still REMAINING
entombed. Had Kidd concealed his plunder for a time, and
afterwards reclaimed it, the rumors would scarcely have reached us
in their present unvarying form. You will observe that the stories
told are all about money-seekers, not about money-finders. Had the
pirate recovered his money, there the affair would have dropped.
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