"After all," said Rectus, that night, "what was the good of it? That little piece of stone don't amount to anything, and you might have been drowned."

"I don't think I could have been drowned," said I, "for I should have dropped the old thing, and floated, if I had felt myself giving out. But the good of it was this: It showed me what a disagreeable sort of place a sea-garden is, when you go down into it to pick things."

"Which you wont do again, in a hurry, I reckon," said Rectus.

"You're right there, my boy," I answered.

The next day, the Chippertons and ourselves took a two-horse barouche, and rode to the "caves," some six or seven miles from the town. We had a long walk through the pineapple fields before we came to the biggest cave, and found it wasn't very much of a cave, after all, though there was a sort of a room, on[227] one side, which looked like a church, with altar, pillars and arches. There was a little hole, on one side of this room, about three feet wide, which led, our negro guide said, to a great cave, which ran along about a mile, until it reached the sea. There was no knowing what skeletons, and treasures, and old half-decayed boxes of coins, hidden by pirates, and swords with jewels in the handles, and loose jewels, and silver plate, and other things we might have found in that cave, if we had only had a lantern or some candles to light us while we were wandering about in it. But we had no candles or lantern, and so did not become a pirate's heirs. It was Corny who was most anxious to go in. She had read about Blackbeard, and the other pira............