``And then you headed Granville Prior's expedition for buried treasure off the island of Cocos, didn't you?'' said Clay.``Go on, tell them about it.Be sociable.You ought to write a book about your different business ventures, Burke, indeed you ought;but then,'' Clay added, smiling, ``nobody would believe you.''
Burke rubbed his chin, thoughtfully, with his fingers, and looked modestly at the ceiling, and the two younger boys gazed at him with open-mouthed interest.
``There ain't anything in buried treasure,'' he said, after a pause, ``except the money that's sunk in the fitting out.It sounds good, but it's all foolishness.''
``All foolishness, eh?'' said Clay, encouragingly.``And what did you do after Balmaceda was beaten?--after I last saw you?''
``Crespo,'' Burke replied, after a pause, during which he pulled gently on his pipe.`` `Caroline Brewer'--cleared from Key West for Curacao, with cargo of sewing-machines and ploughs--beached below Maracaibo--thirty-five thousand rounds and two thousand rifles--at twenty bolivars apiece.''
``Of course,'' said Clay, in a tone of genuine appreciation.``Imight have known you'd be in that.He says,'' he explained, ``that he assisted General Crespo in Venezuela during his revolution against Guzman Blanco's party, and loaded a tramp steamer called the `Caroline Brewer' at Key West with arms, which he landed safely at a place for which he had no clearance papers, and he received forty thousand dollars in our money for the job--and very good pay, too, I should think,'' commented Clay.
``Well, I don't know,'' Burke demurred.``You take in the cost of leasing the boat and provisioning her, and the crew's wages, and the cost of the cargo; that cuts into profits.Then I had to stand off shore between Trinidad and Curacao for over three weeks before I got the signal to run in, and after that I was chased by a gun-boat for three days, and the crazy fool put a shot clean through my engine-room.Cost me about twelve hundred dollars in repairs.''