CHAPTER III. SOMETHING ABOUT A GREAT TREASURE.
"A treasure!" cried Don, as Robert Menden paused, to partake of some soup which Danny had brought to him.
"Yes, a treasure, lads—a treasure said to be worth twenty or thirty thousand dollars. Of course, that is not a fabulous sum, but it is pretty large for a poor Englishman like me, who has never had over two hundred pounds in his life."
"It's enough!" cried Dick. "I'd like to pick it up myself."
"But what kind of a treasure is it?" questioned Leander. "Won't you tell us more about it?"
"I will tell you everything, lads—for I have nothing to conceal, and you have been very kind to me. But first let me say, that I am at present totally unable to pay you for what you are doing for me now."
"We don't want any pay," came from Dick promptly, and the others nodded.
"As far as I know, I am not worth a dollar in the world, as you Americans would put it. I had something like eighty pounds in my pocket when I fell overboard, but my wallet is gone, and here is all I now possess." And Robert Menden held out a shining shilling and several English pennies.
"We'll try to set you on your feet again," came from Bob, who was always generous to the core. "We are not rich, but we can do something; can't we, fellows?"
"To be sure," answered Don. "But won't you tell your story, about your enemy and that treasure? I declare, it sounds like a book!" and he smiled broadly. Don had always been a great boy to read stories of pirates, treasures, Indians, and marvellous boy hunters and trappers. Yet he had never had his head turned by these bits of thrilling fiction.
"Well, to begin with, as I said before, I am an Englishman, and was born and brought up in a village not far from the city of London. Our family was fairly well-to-do, and for twenty years of my life matters ran smoothly enough. But then my parents died, and I being alone, moved into London, and became a clerk in a firearms store.
"In this store there was another clerk named Joseph Farvel. Joseph was not of the friendly sort, and he hated me from the start, because he had expected to get the place I was filling, for a friend of his, who was to pay him five pounds for obtaining the situation for him. He tried to get me into trouble, so that I would be discharged and he would have another chance for his friend, but his little plot against me was discovered, and he was thrown out in consequence.
