“Yes, safe! We got a message from them only yesterday. They were picked up by a vessel bound for Spain, and they are now on their way home.”
“Hurrah! This is the best yet!” cried Andy, and tried to do a jig in spite of his hurt ankle. Later on the poor fellow had to go to a hospital to have the ankle readjusted. But the operation was not a severe one, and soon his ankle was as well as ever.
The old sailor went home with the boys and was warmly thanked for all the assistance he had given the lads during their perilous days on the ocean and on the island.
The contents of the pirates’ chest was gone over carefully, and then Dick Rover advised that a well known numismatist be called in.
“What in the world is a numismicks?” demanded Ira Small, and when he was told what was meant, he agreed at once that what Dick Rover had suggested be done.
The numismatist went over all of the coins carefully and declared many of them valuable, not only intrinsically, but on account of their age and rarity. He took charge of the whole affair, and in the end the treasure brought in twenty-four thousand dollars.
“An’ half of it goes to the boys. I won’t have it no other way,” declared the lanky sailor. And so each of the boys was able to place three thousand dollars to his own bank account.
“Well, we certainly had great times on that trip!” declared Randy. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever have such strenuous times again.” But Randy could not look into the future. Strenuous days were still to come for the boys, and what some of them were will be related in another volume, to be entitled “The Rover Boys on Sunset Trail; or, The Old Miner’s Mysterious Message.”
It was not until later that the boys learned that the two scientists from Baltimore who owned the Coryanda had been saved along with all but two of those who had been aboard the ill-fated steam yacht. About the Hildegarde they heard nothing for many months, but one day Ira Small turned up with the information that the rum-runner had been lost in the hurricane and not a soul had been saved.
“Oh, Jack, I’m so glad you got back safe and sound,” said Ruth Stevenson, when she met the young major. “You can’t imagine how worried all of us were!”