And we have buried enough on these islands to buy a
city. Gold lost its charms with us, and crime became an excitement and
an entertainment.
"We discovered this island while cruising from one ocean to the other,
and found on it some sailors, whose vessel had been wrecked near where
you landed. They had been seven years here, and it is to them we are
indebted for these animals and fowls. They lived contented, for they had
given up all hope of getting away, and are all dead now. We made this
place a retreat, had a settlement here, after the wreck of the Storm in
the cave, of forty men. They are all dead but me. I have been here forty
years--nine of them passed alone; and now my time has almost come. I
took the name of George Dunman because I had disgraced that of my
parents, and because I am an outlaw, and I want to die here and be
forgotten."
It was after midnight when the old man finished his story. His manner
became nervous and restless, and it was evident there was something more
he wanted to disclose, but hesitated to do.
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