Joyce and Jackson hurried away, and soon the sound of dull hammering and the tear of rending wood came to the ears of the others, followed a moment later by a series of triumphant yells. Then Joyce appeared, fairly mad with excitement.
“Hurroush! Hurroush!” he screamed. “We’ve found it! We’ve found it! Tons and tons of solid gold! Kathleen, mavourneen, we’re rich—we’re rich! We’ll go back to Galway and buy the little place beyant the hill, and——”
“Whist! Whist! Tim, man! An’ will you first be tellin’ me how you’re going to get yerself away, let alone your tons of gold?”
So absorbed was the party in the discovery of the gold that they forgot everything else—the danger from Forbes, the utter uselessness of the treasure, the necessity of crossing the channel and making their way to the southern coast. Even Dorothy, used to wealth as she was, caught the infection, and babbled away as excitedly as a child.
Howard was the first to recover his poise and to plan for the future. It was, he knew, utterly hopeless to try to tear Joyce and Jackson, or even the missionary away from the galleon until their excitement had spent itself. Indeed, he himself felt positively ill at thought of abandoning the gold, unavoidable as such action undoubtedly was. By rough calculation, he estimated that there were twelve tons of the treasure, worth about six million dollars, under their very feet, free for them to carry away, and yet as utterly unavailable as so much sand. Indeed, in so far as unwillingness to leave it should delay movements of the party, it was a positive detriment.
He turned and looked at the others. Joyce, Jackson, the missionary, and even Mother Joyce, were working as they had never worked before, taking from the hold the golden bars, each a load for a strong man, and staggering on deck with them in their arms. In vain, Howard tried to check them; they only glared at him, cursed, and hurried back for another load. Joyce and his wife, too old for such labor, soon had to give way, crying like children as they did so; but the others toiled on, hot, black with the grime of ages, half ill from the smells of the shut, musty hold. Their muscles cracked; their backs ached; the sweat streamed down their faces, but still they kept on.
Sick at heart, Howard turned from the scene and wandered to the side of the galleon, where he stood, looking east, hoping the end of the zigzag channel might be somewhere in sight. In vain! As far as his eyes could serve, it stretched away.
Disappointed, his glance dropped to the open water of the channel close at hand, and he stood transfixed. Close beside the galleon, moored strongly fore and aft, lay a slender, queer-shaped boat about sixty feet long. It needed not the trained knowledge of the naval officer to tell that it was a submarine.
Intensely modern in its lines, it was as much out of place in that ancient company as would be a rifle in the hands of Cæsar’s legionaries. Howard’s mouth fairly dropped open as he gazed at it.
But in a moment understanding came. This was the means of escape that Forbes had spoken of: safe, quick, and easy for one with the necessary technical knowledge; the gold on the galleon was part of the fortune that he wanted to get home in safety. No wonder he had been eager to enlist Howard’s aid; and he could have had it—had it all, if he had not presumed on his power to grasp the girl, too! Now he would lose all.