Never a letter or word had she, except when little Sally and little Harve came. Then there also arrived, that is a week or so later, a package with some indistinguishable foreign postmark, and, inside the careful wrappings, a silver spoon with seven little moons engraved on the handle. But there was no card, for none was needed.
But she was very happy nevertheless. She had her beautiful dream, and she had a real live sweetheart and husband, too, and one very faithful and true. For such things can be.
And oh! about that chest! Well, when it was opened, after they left the port, the gleam seemed to have dulled, and when they bent over to count the treasure, they found but a few of the round shiny things, on the surface—under them, nothing but piles of pebbles. So had the wicked old man's "idee" worked out.
Into the sea they went, the iron chest, and after it, the top layer of the coins. She would have none of it, nor the sailors either. It was accursed, they said, and afterwards told in Salthaven how the shiny things spattered and hissed when they struck the waves.
And Sally, as they watched the last bubble break above them, kissed her sweatheart.
"Better heart's treasure than pirate gold, eh Ben?"
And oh—yes once, ten years later, last summer it was—she went with Ben on a voyage around the Horn. And longing, of course, to see the island once more, they voyaged east, and west, and north, and south, in that region, but no island did they see.
"He was right, was Spanish Dick," Sally said. "It was
