very best English, with only a few colloquial bits of dialect.

Mr. Neale turned. He recognized the grandson of old Ma’am Sib.

“Your grandmother has been voodooing my young assistants, Sam,” he said pleasantly. “They were digging and she must have thought that voodoo was easier than the natural way—to come and ask me to keep them away.”

The young Negro shrugged his shoulders. He had been sent to a school in the United States and he was better educated than was his ancient grandmother.

“No harm is done, anyhow, sar,” he replied. “I ask you to forgive.”

“Done!” answered the white man, “but I am curious to know just what is so important that she should take that sort of measure to drive off our digging comrades.”

“She thought that there was something buried here,” explained the colored fellow. “She knew that I have been doing some exploring in my spare time. But I found what I was looking for—and I was so disappointed that I did not even bother to tell her, sar.”

“Disappointed?”

“Yes, sar. There is an old legend in our family and my grandmother had told me and I was searching for a letter. When Captain William Kidd traded between New York and these islands, before he was really a pirate, he was much friends with our Governor. In those days the Governor was kind to pirates. He let them come into harbor and he did not give them to the law for punishing.”

Nicky and his friends became alert. Nicky thought of the old paper so carefully preserved by his family, although no one thought it would ever amount to anything. Cliff and Tom were intensely interested because this was becoming a living story, linking the present with the old, piratical days and their natural love of adventure was whetted by the suave words of the colored man.

“You may not know about Captain Kidd,” Sam continued. Nicky knew a great deal but he remained silent, listening eagerly. “He was really not as bad as the story books have made him. He was not one of the terrible pirates. But he did wrong and finally he was made a prisoner in America, and was kept in prison until he could be sent to England to be tried.”

He became very earnest and they all drew closer.

“While he was in prison he sent a letter to his friend, the Governor 

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