But for my deep-seated impressions that treasure was here
somewhere actually buried, we might have had all our labor in
vain."
"But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle--
how excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did you
insist upon letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, from the
skull?"
"Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident
suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you
quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of sober mystification.
For this reason I swung the beetle, and for this reason I let it
fall from the tree. An observation of yours about its great weight
suggested the latter idea."
"Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles me.
What are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?"
"That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself.
There seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting for
them--and yet it is dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my
suggestion would imply. It is clear that Kidd--if Kidd indeed
secreted this treasure, which I doubt not--it is clear that he must
have had assistance in the labor.
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