"——And treasure trove?"
The Fleet Surgeon looked a little bewildered. "What are you all talking about? Porte des Reines? Yes, I've been there. I don't know about the cemeteries, but I've got some photographs of the place, if you're all so anxious to see it—they're in my cabin."
He left the Mess, and the storm of conjecture and speculation broke out afresh.
"I shall chuck the Service and buy a farm," said the First Lieutenant, "with my share."
"S-sh! Don't make such a row! One of the Servants will hear, and we don't want it to get all over the ship! These things are much better kept quiet. If there's anything in it, the fewer——"
The A.P.'s voice rose above the turmoil: "An' I shall buy a cycle-car ... and a split-cane, steel-centred grilse-rod ... and go to Switzerland next winter—I——"
The Fleet Surgeon reappeared with a bulky album under his arm; he laid it on the card-table and turned the pages. "Now—there's Port des Reines: what's left of it after the earthquake."
"Earthquake!" The Mess gathered round and leaned breathlessly over the table.
"Yes; two years ago they had that awful earthquake, and the mountain shifted almost bodily; there's a million tons of rock on top of—well, you can see!"
They scanned the scene of desolation in silence. "It swallowed the whole town," said some one in awestruck tones. The magnitude of a calamity had somehow never come home to them before quite so forcibly.