Reaching the cabin, they stood around gloomily while Bobby picked up the hatchet and went carefully about the place, tapping the walls as he did so.
“It’s all off, I guess,” said Mouser, as the other boys followed Bobby’s queer actions with little interest. “Takyak fooled us; or maybe he was fooled himself. But—”
A sharp exclamation from Bobby cut him short.
“It’s hollow! The wall’s hollow here,” cried the latter, his voice low and tense with excitement. “Hold the lantern close here, somebody! That’s the way. Now, then!”
While the boys watched with an interest that revived in spite of themselves, Bobby hacked madly at the wall of the cabin.
Three blows, four, and the rotten wood gave way. Bobby, putting all his weight behind the blow, nearly pitched head first into the gaping hole disclosed by the ruined wall.
There was a gasp of surprise from those behind him. Then a wild shout of triumph. For at the same moment that Bobby saw it, they saw it, too.
A great chest, inclosed in the very body of the ship itself—a chest with heavy brass hinges, an enormous padlock adorning the face of it.
Hardly knowing what they did, half mad with excitement, they tore at the cover with their bare hands at imminent danger of losing a finger or two, for Bobby was still wildly wielding the ax.
Then the cover fell away and what was left of the boy’s sanity fell away with it. Before their unbelieving eyes lay a treasure of gold and silver coins that glittered in the yellow lamp-light.