It was little Tania who danced up to it and tried to lift it.
“Show us the pearls you found, Madge,” Eleanor begged her cousin at this instant, her brown eyes twinkling.
The little captain looked crestfallen. “I am afraid we didn’t find anything of value,” she said, trying to pretend that she was not disappointed. “I have only some pretty shells and stones that I gathered on the bottom of the bay for Tania.”
She pulled her sea treasures out of her netted diving bag. Sure enough, the water had dried on them and the shells and stones appeared quite dull and ugly. There were almost as pretty shells and pebbles to be picked up at any place along the Cape May beach.
“Why, Madge!” exclaimed Lillian, before she realized what she was saying, “surely, you didn’t waste your time in bringing up such silly trifles as these?”
Madge shook her head humbly. “We didn’t find anything else but this old iron chest. Captain Jules, may I take it back to the houseboat with me as a souvenir, or do you wish it? Tania, child, you can’t lift it, it is too heavy.”
Tom Curtis brought the chest to Captain Jules. Some of the crowd had moved away, now that the diving was over. But a dozen or more strangers pressed about the girls and their friends.
“There is something in this little chest, Captain,” declared Tom Curtis quietly, as he set it down before the captain and Madge. “I could feel something roll around in the box as I lifted it.”
Captain Jules shook the heavy safe. Something certainly rattled on the inside.
There were bits of moss and tiny shells and stones encrusted on the upper lid of the box. Deliberately Captain Jules scraped them off with a stick. The houseboat party and Tom were beginning to grow impatient. What made Captain Jules so slow? Philip Holt, who was standing by Mrs. Curtis’s side, gazed sneeringly at the operations. He was glad, indeed, that he had not risked his life in descending to the bottom of the bay in search for pearls, only to bring up a rusty chest.