“Bennett, please row back to the dhow and bring an axe and a lantern,” Henninger ordered, coolly. “We’ll see what’s in that box. And don’t say anything to them aboard. We don’t want to raise their expectations.”
Bennett must have rowed at racing speed, though the fifteen minutes of his absence seemed an hour to those who awaited him. All four men then descended upon the pile of unsteady freight, where the lantern light showed that the case in question was indeed marked with a stencil that Bennett remembered. But this time the box might really contain corned beef.
The steel would show, and Hawke attacked the case with the axe. It was strongly made and bound with iron, while its water-soaked condition made it the more difficult to cut, but he presently succeeded in wrenching off a couple of boards. The interior was stuffed with hay.
Hawke thrust his arm into the wet packing, and burrowed furiously about. Presently he withdrew it—and hesitated before he exposed his discovery to the light of the lantern. He held an oblong block of yellow metal.
“God!” said Bennett.
They all stared as if hypnotized by the small shining brick that shone dully in the unsteady light. Then Bennett flung himself upon the case and began to rip out the hay in armfuls, swearing savagely when it resisted.
“Here, stop that! Stop it, I say!” cried Henninger. “We don’t want that case gutted—not now.”
He put a powerful hand on Bennett’s shoulder, and dragged him back. Bennett wheeled with a furious glare, that slowly cooled as it met Henninger’s steady gaze. Elliott was reminded of the end of the roulette game at Nashville.
“We must leave it packed,” the chief continued. “We don’t want to go back to the dhow with a lot of loose gold bricks for all the crew to see. We’ll have to trans-ship the cases whole. Is this the only corned beef box?”
They found another heavy case bearing the same stencil and half-buried among the freight under a foot of water. There were no more in sight, though others might have been invisible among the débris. Apparently only a small portion of the treasure had been shipped in the after-hold, but the discovery of any of it proved conclusively that no man had visited the wreck before them. As they rowed back to the dhow they were strangely silent, and Elliott, feeling slightly dazed and drunken, understood their taciturnity.