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"Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two inches and a
half in the 'shot'--that is to say, in the position of the peg nearest
the tree; and had the treasure been beneath the 'shot,' the error would
have been of little moment; but 'the shot,' together with the nearest
point of the tree, were merely two points for the establishment of
a line of direction; of course the error, however trivial in the
beginning, increased as we proceeded with the line, and by the time
we had gone fifty feet, threw us quite off the scent. But for my
deep-seated impressions that treasure was here somewhere actually
buried, we might have had all our labor in vain."
"But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle--how
excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did you insist upon
letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, from the skull?"
"Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident suspicions
touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you quietly, in my own
way, by a little bit of sober mystification. For this reason I swung
the beetle, and for this reason I let it fall it from the tree. An
observation of yours about its great weight suggested the latter idea."
"Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles me. What
are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?"
"That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself. There
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