Joyce was already climbing through one of the open ports of the galleon, but at Howard’s call he paused. “Sure, an’ I’m going to look after that million,” he returned, defiantly.
Howard hesitated. Then he noticed a restless movement of the missionary and eager glances by the two women and laughed. “Go ahead and look for it,” he said. “But be careful. Remember the ship must be rotten through and through; I doubt whether her decks will bear your weight.”
Joyce disappeared, but a moment later stuck his head out of the port again. “She’s better nor she looks, sor,” he averred. “The planks are rotten, but I think they’ll hold. Perhaps your good lady would like to come aboard.”
Howard glanced at Dorothy.
“His good lady certainly would,” she smiled back. A moment later all stood on one of the galleon’s many decks.
Joyce was right. The deck, though rotted, seemed to be reasonably sound, and the stairway leading upward did not give way when Jackson mounted it. As he was the heaviest in the party, the rest felt safe in following him.
Once on the upper deck, the cause of the ship’s plight was evident. All about her, tumbled in inextricable confusion, lay the bones of men mingled with the rust-eaten remains of guns and pikes and sabres. In some places, doubtless where the nameless fight had raged most fiercely, the skeletons were heaped high upon each other. Flesh and clothing alike had long since disappeared, but parts of belts and buckles and fragments of the tinsel of war remained to tell of the bitterness of the fight.
“Probably the work of buccaneers,” explained Howard. “They did not hesitate to attack ten times their number, and often won by the very fury of their assault. Evidently they did this time. Joyce, I’m afraid your million went to make a pirate holiday centuries ago.”
“Bad cess to thim, whoiver they were. But where would it be, sor, if it was on board?”
“I really don’t know. And yet—the hold under the captain’s cabin, aft there, would be a likely place. Suppose you look there.”