“We haven’t won yet. They may have come and gone,” Hawke interposed; and at this reminder every one became nervously silent, gazing ahead. After twenty minutes a whiter spot began to appear upon the blue sea-line.
As the island was gradually lifted, it appeared, as Bennett had described it, to be a good-sized and absolutely barren patch of sand and shingle. It seemed about half a mile long, and a couple of hundred yards wide at the widest point, with a single eminence rising to a height of perhaps a hundred feet near the eastward end. All around it to windward a line of foam and spray marked the dangerous reefs, and a cloud of sea-birds wheeled flashing in the sun overhead. But the gaze of the adventurers was not fixed upon the island, but upon a great heterogeneous mass that stood up among the breakers, white with the droppings of the birds, but still showing the red of rusty iron, a battered skeleton, having no longer any resemblance to a ship, but nevertheless all that was left of the unlucky Clara McClay.
CHAPTER XVII. THE TREASURE
The gold-seekers gazed eagerly, and, as regards Elliott at least, with strange emotions of excitement, at the ruins of the vessel they had come so far to see, whose name had been familiar so long, but which none but Bennett had ever seen. But it was not all of the treasure-ship that lay staked upon the reef. She had evidently broken in two, and the forward and larger portion had been swept into the lagoon-like space beyond the rocks, where it could just be made out as a shapeless bulge of iron scarce showing above the surface. In reply to a question from Henninger, Bennett stated that the gold-chests had been in the forehold, and must be, consequently, submerged. Even if they had been in the after portion they must surely have been shaken out of the wretched tangle of plates and rods that formed the relics of that half of the vessel.
The dhow was brought up cautiously, with the lead constantly going, and in eight fathoms the reis gave the order to anchor by Henninger’s direction.
“We’ll find a better anchorage on the lee side of the island,” remarked the chief, “but it’ll be dark in an hour and we’d better lie here for the present”
“Why, aren’t you going to look over the wreck right away?” demanded Hawke, in surprise.
“What’s the use? We can’t do anything to-night.”
“Then I’ll row over there alone. Hanged if I can stay here all night with maybe a fortune within a couple of hundred yards and not go to see if it’s there,” said Hawke.
This speech found an answer in the hearts of all, and Henninger, outvoted, ordered the dhow’s small boat over the side. Margaret’s desire to visit the wreck was overruled, and Sullivan preferred also to remain behind, but the rest of the adventurers rowed themselves toward the reef.