There had been here, in Portland, for about six months, it appeared, a strange-looking, mysterious man--I give the facts, without pretending to give the words--who went by the name of Greenleaf. He was a sailor, and boarded with a man who kept a sailor boarding-house, and who, I am told, is still living here, by the name of Mellon. People had taken it into their heads that the stranger had something upon his mind, as he avoided conversation, took long walks by himself, and muttered all night long in his sleep. After a while, it began to be whispered about among the seafaring people that he was a pirate; and Mellon, his landlord, went so far as to acknowledge that he had his reasons for thinking so; although Greenleaf, on finding himself treated, and watched, and questioned more narrowly than he liked, managed to drop something about having sailed under the Brazilian flag. And, on being plied with liquor one day, with listeners about him, he went into some fuller particulars, which set them all agog. These, reaching the ears of Colonel Jones, led to an interview, from which he gathered that Greenleaf was one of a large crew commissioned by the Brazils in 1826; that, after cruising a long while in a latitude swarming with Spanish vessels of war, they got reduced to twenty-five men, all told. That one day they fell in with a large, heavily-laden ship, from which they took about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in gold and silver, and a massive gold cross, nearly two feet long, and weighing from fifteen to twenty pounds, belonging to a Spanish priest; but what they did with the crew and the passengers, or with the ship and the priest, did not appear. That, soon after getting their treasure aboard, they saw a large sail to windward, which they took to be a Spanish frigate; and, being satisfied with their booty, they altered their course, and steered for a desolate island near Guadaloupe, where, after taking out three hundred doubloons apiece, they landed, with the rest of the treasure packed in gun-cases, and hooped with iron; dug a hole in the earth and buried it; carefully removing the turf and replacing it, and carrying off all the dirt, and scattering it along the shore. That they took the bearings of certain natural objects, and marked the trees, and agreed among themselves, under oath, not to disturb the treasure till fifteen years had gone by, when it was to belong to the survivors. That, having done this, they steered for the Havana, and, after altering their craft to a fore-and-aft schooner, sold her, and shared the money. Being flush, and riotous, and quarrelsome, they soon got a-fighting among themselves; and, within a few months, by the help of the yellow fever, not less than twenty-three out of the whole twenty-five were buried, leaving only this Greenleaf and an old man, who went by the name of Thomas Taylor, and who had not been heard of for many years, and was now believed to be dead.