Three months it was from the day Biatt first spoke to me to the day when, with an expert diver, we brought the box to the surface and opened it.
How I induced one of the big men of Jamaica to be banker and skipper for us need not be told; but he is one of whom men have dark sayings--chiefly, I take it, because he does bold, incomprehensible things.

That business paid him well, for when the rent of the ship was met, and the few men on it paid--slaves they were chiefly--he pocketed ten thousand pounds, while Biatt and I each pouched forty thousand, and Michael two thousand.

Aye, to be sure, Michael was in it! He is in all I do, and is as good as men of ten times his birth and history.

Michael will be a rich man one day.

In two years his two thousand have grown to four, and he misses no chance.
But those days when Biatt and I went treasure-ship hunting were not without their trials.