shall have to send in my papers. I am a ruined man.'
"`Nonsense, old chap!' said the other, slapping him upon the
shoulder. `I've had a nasty facer myself, but-' That was all I could
hear, but it was enough to set me thinking.
"A couple of days later Major Sholto was strolling on the beach:
so I took the chance of speaking to him.
"`I wish to have your advice, Major,' said I.
"`Well, Small, what is it?' he asked, taking his cheroot from his
lips.
"`I wanted to ask you, sir,' said I, `who is the proper person to
whom hidden treasure should be handed over. I know where half a
million worth lies, and, as I cannot use it myself, I thought
perhaps the best thing that I could do would be to hand it over to the
proper authorities, and then perhaps they would get my sentence
shortened for me.'
"`Half a million, Small?' he gasped, looking hard at me to see if
I was in earnest.
"`Quite that, sir- in jewels and pearls. It lies there ready for
anyone. And the queer thing about it is that the real owner is
outlawed and cannot hold property, so that it belongs to the first
comer.'
"`To government, Small,' he stammered, `to government.' But he
said it in a halting fashion, and I knew in my heart that I had got
him.
"`You think, then, sir, that I should give the information to the
governor general?' said I quietly.
"`Well, well, you must not do anything rash, or that you might
repent. Let me hear all about it, Small. Give me the facts.'
"`I told him the whole story, with small changes, so that he could
not identify the places. When I had finished he stood stock still
and full of thought. I could see by the twitch of his lip that there
was a struggle going on within him.
"`This is a very important matter, Small,' he said at last. `You
must not say a word to anyone about it, and I shall see you again
soon.'
"Two nights later he and his friend, Captain Morstan, came to my hut
in the dead of the night with a lantern.
"`I want you just to let Captain Morstan hear that story from your
own lips, Small,' said he.
"I repeated it as I had told it before.
"`It rings true, eh?' said he. `It's good enough to act upon?'
"Captain Morstan nodded.
"`Look here, Small,' said the major. `We have been talking it
over, my friend here and I, and we have come to the conclusion that
this secret of yours is hardly a government matter, after all, but
is a private concern of your own, which of course you have the power
of disposing of as you think best. Now the question is, What price
would you ask for it? We might be inclined to take it up, and at least
look into it, if we could agree as to terms.' He tried to speak in a
cool, careless way, but his eyes were shining with excitement and
greed.
"`Why, as to that, gentlemen,' I answered, trying also to be cool
but feeling as excited as he did, `there is only one bargain which a
man in my position can make. I shall want you to help me to my
freedom, and to help my three companions to theirs. We shall then take
you into partnership and give you a fifth share to divide between
you.'
"`Hum!' said he. `A fifth share! That is not very tempting.'
"`It would come to fifty thousand apiece,' said I.
"`But how can we gain your freedom? You know very well that you
ask an impossibility.'
"`Nothing of the sort,' I answered. `I have thought it all out to
the last detail. The only bar to our escape is that we can get no boat
fit for the voyage, and no provisions to last us for so long a time.
There are plenty of little yachts and yawls at Calcutta or Madras
which would serve our turn well. Do you bring one over. We shall
engage to get aboard her by night, and if you will drop us on any part
of the Indian coast you will have done your part of the bargain.'
"`If there were only one,' he said.
"`None or all,' I answered. `We have sworn it. The four of us must
always act together.'
"`You see, Morstan,' said he, `Small is a man of his word. He does
not flinch from his friends. I think we may very well trust him.'
"`It's a dirty business,' the other answered. `Yet, as you say,
the money will save our commissions handsomely.'
"`Well, Small,' said the major, `we must, I suppose, try and meet
you. We must first, of course, test the truth of your story. Tell me
where the box is hid, and I shall get leave of absence and go back
to India in the monthly relief-boat to inquire into the affair.'
"`Not so fast,' said I, growing colder as he got hot. `I must have
the consent of my three comrades. I tell you that it is four or none
with us.'
"`Nonsense!' he broke in. `What have three black fellows to do
with our agreement?'
"`Black or blue,' said I, `they are in with me, and we all go
together.'
"Well, the matter ended by a second meeting, at which Mahomet Singh,
Abdullah Klan, and Dost Akbar were all present. We talked the matter
over again, and at last we came to an arrangement. We were to
provide both the officers with charts of the part of the Agra fort,
and mark the place in the wall where the treasure was hid. Major
Sholto was to go to India to test our story. If he found the box he
was to leave it there, to send out a small yacht provisioned for a
voyage, which was to lie off Rutland Island, and to which we were to
make our way, and finally to return to his duties. Captain Morstan was
then to apply for leave of absence, to meet us at Agra, and there we
were to have a final division of the treasure, he taking the major's
share as well as his own. All this we sealed by the most solemn
oaths that the mind could think or the lips utter. I sat up all
night with paper and ink, and by the morning I had the two charts
all ready, signed with the sign of four- that is, of Abdullah,
Akbar, Mahomet, and myself.
"Well, gentlemen, I weary you with my long story, and I know that my
friend Mr. Jones is impatient to get me safely stowed in chokey.
I'll make it as short as I can. The villain Sholto went off to
India, but he never came back again. Captain Morstan showed me his
name among a list of passengers in one of the mail-boats very
shortly afterwards. His uncle had died, leaving him a fortune, and
he had left the Army, yet he could stoop to treat five men as he had
treated us. Morstan went over to Agra shortly afterwards and found, as
we expected, that the treasure was indeed gone. The scoundrel had
stolen it all without carrying out one of the conditions on which we
had sold him the secret. From that I lived only for vengeance. I
thought of it by day and I nursed it by night. It became an
overpowering, absorbing passion with me. I cared nothing for the
law- nothing for the gallows. To escape, to track down Sholto, to have
my hand upon his throat- that was my one thought. Even the Agra
treasure had come to be a smaller thing in my mind than the slaying of
Sholto.
"Well, I have set my mind on many things in this life, and never one
which I did not carry out. But it was weary years before my time came.
I have told you that I had picked up something of medicine. One day
when Dr. Somerton was down with a fever a little Andaman Islander
was picked up by a convict-gang in the woods. He was sick to death and
had gone to a lonely place to die. I took him in hand, though he was
as venomous as a young snake, and after a couple of months I got him
all right and able to walk. He took a kind of fancy to me then, and
would hardly go back to his woods, but was always hanging about my
hut. I learned a little of his lingo from him, and this made him all
the fonder of me.
"Tonga- for that was his name- was a fine boatman and owned a big,
roomy canoe of his own. When I found that he was devoted to me and
would do anything to serve me, I saw my chance of escape. I talked
it over with him. He was to bring his boat round on a certain night to
an old wharf which was never guarded, and there he was to pick me
up. I gave him directions to have several gourds of water and a lot of
yams, cocoanuts, and sweet potatoes.
"He was staunch and true, was little Tonga. No man ever had a more
faithful mate. At the night named he had his boat at the wharf. As
it chanced, however there was one of the convict-guard down there- a
vile Pathan who had never missed a chance of insulting and injuring
me. I had always vowed vengeance, and now I had my chance. It was as
if fate had placed him in my way that I might pay my debt before I
left the island. He stood on the bank with his back to me, and his
carbine on his shoulder. I looked about for a stone to beat out his
brains with, but none could I see.
"Then a queer thought came into my head and showed me where I
could lay my hand on a weapon. I sat down in the darkness and
unstrapped my wooden leg. With three long hops I was on him. He put
his carbine to his shoulder, but I struck him full, and knocked the
whole front of his skull in. You can see the split in the wood now
where I hit him. We both went down together, for I could not keep my
balance; but when I got up I found him still lying quiet enough. I
made for the boat, and in an hour we were well out at sea. Tonga had
brought all his earthly possessions with him, his arms and his gods.
Among other things, he had a long bamboo spear, and some Andaman
cocoanut matting, with which I made a sort of a sail. For ten days
we were beating about, trusting to luck, and on the eleventh we were
picked up by a trader which was going from Singapore to Jiddah with
a cargo of Malay pilgrims. They were a rum crowd, and Tonga and I soon
managed to settle down among them. They had one very good quality:
they let you alone and asked no questions.
"Well, if I were to tell you all the adventures that my little
chum and I went through, you would not thank me, for I would have
you here until the sun was shining. Here and there we drifted about
the world, something always turning up to keep us from London. All the
time, however, I never lost sight of my purpose. I would dream of
Sholto at night. A hundred times I have killed him in my sleep. At
last, however, some three or four years ago, we found ourselves in
England. I had no great difficulty in finding where Sholto lived,
and I set to work to discover whether he had realized on the treasure,
or if he still had it. I made friends with someone who could help
me- I name no names, for I don't want to get anyone else in a hole-
and I soon found that he still had the jewels. Then I tried to get
at him in many ways; but he was pretty sly and had always two
prize-fighters, besides his sons and his khitmutgar, on guard over
him.
"One day, however, I got word that he was dying. I hurried at once
to the garden, mad that he should slip out of my clutches like that,
and, looking through the window, I saw him lying in his bed, with
his sons on each side of him. I'd have come through and taken my
chance with the three of them, only even as I looked at him his jaw
dropped, and I knew that he was gone. I got into his room that same
night, though, and I searched his papers to see if there was any
record of where he had hidden our jewels. There was not a line,
however, so I came away, bitter and savage as a man could be. Before I
left I bethought me that if I ever met my Sikh friends again it
would be a satisfaction to know that I had left some mark of our
hatred; so I scrawled down the sign of the four of us, as it had
been on the chart, and I pinned it on his bosom. It was too much
that he should be taken to the grave without some token from the men
whom he had robbed and befooled.
"We earned a living at this time by my exhibiting poor Tonga at
fairs and other such places as the black cannibal. He would eat raw
meat and dance his wardance: so we always had a hateful of pennies
after a day's work. I still heard all the news from Pondicherry Lodge,
and for some years there was no news to hear, except that they were
hunting for the treasure. At last, however, came what we had waited
for so long. The treasure had been found. It was up at the top of
the house in Mr. Bartholomew Sholto's chemical laboratory. I came at
once and had a look at the place, but I could not see how, with my
wooden leg, I was to make my way up to it. I learned, however, about a
trapdoor in the roof, and also about Mr. Sholto's supper-hour. It
seemed to me that I could manage the thing easily through Tonga. I
brought him out with me with a long rope wound round his waist. He
could climb like a cat, and he soon made his way through the roof, but
as ill luck would have it, Bartholomew Sholto was still in the room,
to his cost. Tonga thought he had done something very clever in
killing him, for when I came up by the rope I found him strutting
about as proud as a peacock. Very much surprised was he when I made at
him with the rope's end and cursed him for a little bloodthirsty
imp. I took the treasure box and let it down, and then slid down
myself, having first left the sign of the four upon the table to
show that the jewels had come back at last to those who had most right
to them. Tonga then pulled up the rope, closed the window, and made
off the way that he had come.
"I don't know that I have anything else to tell you. I had heard a
waterman speak of the speed of Smith's launch, the Aurora, so I
thought she would be a handy craft for our escape. I engaged with
old Smith, and was to give him a big sum if he got us safe to our
ship. He knew, no doubt, that there was some screw loose, but he was
not in our secrets. All this is the truth, and if I tell it to you,
gentlemen, it is not to amuse you- for you have not done me a very
