“It’s that hurricane we had a month agone,” explained Joyce. “It isn’t often they come here, but when they do, faith it’s the foine mix-up they make! I moind one of thim ten years agone! It split the pack for miles back, and filled the hole up again with wrecks that would have made the fortune of a dime-museum man, so they would. The most of them were fair rotten with age, and sank as soon as they began to rub up against the strong new ships. The last storm wasn’t so bad, and, belike, it only split the pack here and there.”
Howard nodded. The explanation seemed very probable, as in no other way could he account for the open channel in the midst of the vessel-wrecks. Mere mutual attraction ought to have closed it up years before. It made him anxious, for the channel had already led him a mile deeper into the pack than he had intended to go, and still showed no signs of ending.
It might go on even to the heart of the wreckage, where lay the ancient ships on which all food had rotted away centuries before. If a former storm had opened up a channel that far, so might a later one.
That the cases were parallel was soon exhibited with startling proof. For some moments Howard had been noticing a great grey hull, banded with tarnished gold, that loomed across the pack two or three ships ahead. As he drew nearer, he saw, with wonder, its strange architecture. Huge, round-bellied, with castle-like structures reared at stem and stern, it rose about the other wrecks, tier above tier, with lines of frowning ports from which protruded the mouths of old fashioned cannon. No such ship had sailed the ocean for years—not since the days when Spain was in her glory and her rich fleets bore the riches of America to fill her already overflowing coffers. It must have lain screened in the heart of the ship-continent for at least two centuries, to be at last spewed forth in time to meet the curious gaze of an alien race.
From the topgallant poop of a modern sailing-ship, Howard studied it curiously, while behind him the rest of the party looked on with amazement.
“Sure, and that’s the very spirit and image of them I was spakin’ about,” remarked Joyce, triumphantly. “An’ what sort of a ship do you suppose she is, sor?”
“She’s a Spanish galleon, beyond doubt,” rejoined Howard. “She’s the very type of those old treasure-ships. And there are more of the same kind behind her. Look!”
Along the open channel, far away to the sunset, stretched a file of ancient vessels, now in single file, now in double. Not all were galleons, but all plainly belonged to dead and gone ages. While the others of their kind had long ago perished from human sight, here, in this lost corner of the world, these had lingered on, slowly decaying, like the once mighty nation that sent them forth. Howard stared at them in wondering amaze.
But Joyce recalled him to himself. “Did you say treasure, sor?” he insinuated.
Howard laughed. “Oh, yes,” he answered, indifferently. “She’s a treasure-ship, all right, though that isn’t to say that she has treasure aboard. Still, it’s not unlikely. There may be a million apiece for all of us on her—if we could only carry it away. Hold on! Where are you going?”