 sailor's story he is
represented as an unmitigated rascal, a small cheat, stupidly ferocious, morose,
of mean appearance, and altogether unworthy of the greatness this opportunity
had thrust upon him. What was interesting was that he would boast of it openly.
    He used to say: »People think I make a lot of money in this schooner of
mine. But that is nothing. I don't care for that. Now and then I go away quietly
and lift a bar of silver. I must get rich slowly - you understand.«
    There was also another curious point about the man. Once in the course of
some quarrel the sailor threatened him: »What's to prevent me reporting ashore
what you have told me about that silver?«
    The cynical ruffian was not alarmed in the least. He actually laughed. »You
fool, if you dare talk like that on shore about me you will get a knife stuck in
your back. Every man, woman, and child in that port is my friend. And who's to
prove the lighter wasn't sunk? I didn't show you where the silver is hidden. Did
I? So you know nothing. And suppose I lied? Eh?«
    Ultimately the sailor, disgusted with the sordid meanness of that impenitent
thief, deserted from the schooner. The whole episode takes about three pages of
his autobiography. Nothing to speak of; but as I looked them over, the curious
confirmation of the few casual words heard in my early youth evoked the memories
of that distant time when everything was so fresh, so surprising, so
venturesome, so interesting; bits of strange coasts under the stars, shadows of
hills in the sunshine, men's passions in the dusk, gossip half-forgotten, faces
grown dim. ... Perhaps, perhaps, there still was in the world something to write
about. Yet I did not see anything at first in the mere story. A rascal steals a
large parcel of a valuable commodity - so people say. It's either true or
untrue; and in any case it has no value in itself. To invent a circumstantial
account of the robbery did not appeal to me, because my talents not running that
way I did not think that the game was worth the candle. It was only when it
dawned upon me that the purloiner of the treasure need not necessarily be a
confirmed rogue, that he could be even a man of character, an actor and possibly
a victim in the changing scenes of a revolution, it was only then that I
