CHAPTER IV.
_In Which Tom Catches an Enchanted Fish, and Discourses of the Dangers of Treasure Hunting._ The morning was a little overcast, but a brisk northeast wind soon set the clouds moving as it went humming in our sails, and the sun, coming out in its glory over the crystalline waters, made a fine flashing world of it, full of exhilaration and the very breath of youth and adventure, very uplifting to the heart.

My spirits, that had been momentarily dashed by my unwelcome passenger, rose again, and I felt kindly to all the earth, and glad to be alive.
I called to Tom for breakfast.
"And you, boys, there; haven't you got a song you can put up?
How about 'The _John B._ sails ?'" And I led them off, the hiss and swirl of the sea, and the wind making a brisk undertone as we sang one of the quaint Nassau ditties: Come on the sloop _John B._ My grandfather and me, Round Nassau town we did roam; Drinking all night, ve got in a fight, Ve feel so break-up, ve vant to go home.
_Chorus_ So h'ist up the _John B._ sails, See how the mainsail set, Send for the captain--shore, let us go home, Let me go home, let me go home, I feel so break-up, I vant to go home.
The first mate he got drunk, Break up the people trunk, Constable come aboard, take him away; Mr.John--stone, leave us alone, I feel so break-up, I vant to go home.
_Chorus_ So h'ist up the _John B._ sails, _etc.,_ _etc._ Nassau looked very pretty in the morning sunlight, with its pink and white houses nestling among palm trees and the masts of its sponging schooners, and soon we were abreast of the picturesque low-lying fort, Fort Montague, that Major Bruce, nearly two hundred years ago, had had such a time building as a protection against pirates entering from the east end of the harbour.

It looked like a veritable piece of the past, and set the imagination dreaming of those old days of Spanish galleons and the black flag, and brought my thoughts eagerly back to the object of my trip, those doubloons and pieces of eight that lay in glittering heaps somewhere out in those island wildernesses.
We were passing cays of jagged cinder-coloured rock covered with low bushes and occasional palms, very savage and impenetrable.

Miles of such ferocious vegetation separated me from the spot where my treasure was lying.

Certainly it was tough-looking stuff to fight one's way through; but those sumptuous words of Henry P.Tobias's narrative kept on making a glorious glitter in my mind: "_The first is a sum of one million and one half dollars....