At this we held a hurried consultation over the disposition of the discovery, with Madeleine insisting that we two ought at least to share the miraculous treasure with her.
"Dick hates money, and I have too much of it, as it is," was the manner in which Bonteck disposed of the sharing suggestion; and then we decided hastily upon two reasonable immediacies; we would rebury the gold, replace the coral boulder, and leave things as nearly as might be as we had found them. And for the second reasonable conclusion it was agreed that we should say nothing to any of the other castaways at present. It could do no good to tell them; and, as Bonteck sagely argued, it might do a good bit of harm by stirring up things at a time when we all needed to sit tight in the boat.
We were working by starlight by the time we got the hole filled up and the chunk of coral rolled back into place, and we could hardly see well enough to be certain that we had removed all traces of our late activities. Hoping that we had, and promising ourselves that we would return in daylight to make sure, we set out upon the shortest way back to the camp, which was along the north beach.
Madeleine hadn't said anything more about the ownership of the treasure while we were reinterring it, but now she began again.
"I hope you're not sweeping me off my feet—you two," she said. "I still can't make myself believe that I have any better right to that gold than you have—or as much."
"Of course you have," Bonteck insisted. "Didn't you point out the stone to us, I'd like to know?"
"But I should never have been there to point it out if you hadn't shown the way," she asserted.
"We needn't split hairs over that part of it," I put in. "And your argument doesn't hold, at that. It was your suggestion that we follow the trail, or the imaginary trail, from the old wreck to the—also imaginary—place where the Spaniards would be likely to hide their gold. Don't you remember?"
"Oh," she laughed; "if I'm to be held accountable for every silly thing I say——"
Once more Bonteck went over the equities patiently and painstakingly. We, he and I, were only bystanders. In no possible viewing of the circumstances could either of us lay claim to any essential part in the miraculous discovery. Waxing eloquently argumentative, he made the establishment of her right and title to the gold fill up the entire time of our return, and if he didn't succeed in fully convincing her, he was at least able to talk her down and silence her.