Mrs. Curtis walked away deeply offended. Philip Holt, however, was too fully occupied with his own disappointment to note this. A sudden daring idea had taken possession of him. Perhaps Madge Morton was not so lucky after all. Finding a treasure did not necessarily mean keeping it.
CHAPTER XVIII
MISSING, A FAIRY GODMOTHER
Several days after the finding of the treasure-chest experts came down from Philadelphia to appraise its value. It was not easy to decide, immediately, what market price the old jewels, set in quaintly chased gold, would bring. But the least that the coins and stones would be worth was ten thousand dollars! It might be more. An extra thousand dollars or so was hardly worth considering, when ten thousand would make things turn out so beautifully even.
Madge and Captain Jules, Miss Jenny Ann and the other houseboat girls had many discussions about Madge’s discovery of the iron safe.
The little captain was entirely alone on one side of the argument. The others were all against her. Yet she won her point. She continued to insist that her wonderful find was purely an accident. How could she ever have unearthed a box, lost from a sunken ship, that had probably been buried for centuries, if Captain Jules Fontaine had not listened to her pleadings and taken her on the wonderful diving trip with him? Though she had actually struck the first blow on the piece of iron embedded in the bay, she could never have dragged the safe out of the mud, or been able to carry it up to the surface, without Captain Jules’s assistance.
Madge and the old sailor started their discussion alone. The captain had come over to the houseboat, bringing the iron safe with him so that the girls might have a better view of its wonders. He had firmly made up his mind that Madge must be made to understand that the money the treasure would bring was to be all hers. He would not accept one cent of it. Fate had been kinder to him than he had hoped in allowing him to guide Madge to the discovery of her fortune.
“Ten thousand dollars!” exclaimed Madge ecstatically, when the old sailor reported the news to her. “It’s the most wonderful thing I ever heard of in my life. I didn’t dream it was worth so much money. Will you please lend me a piece of paper and a pencil, Captain Jules. I never have been clever at arithmetic.” Madge knitted her brows thoughtfully. “Ten thousand dollars divided by two means five thousand dollars for you and the same sum for us.”