“By Jove!” Mr. Morgan exclaimed again. “We shall get our hooks, after all! The whole thing’s coming up.”
Slowly the rope came in foot after foot. The object, whatever it was, was heavy, and it was all they could do to raise it. Mr. Morgan pulled in sudden heaves, while Evan took a turn with the line round a thwart, so as to hold the weight while his father rested.
At last the end of the rope was reached and the shank of the grappling appeared. Then dimly beneath the surface Mr. Morgan was able to see the object hooked. It was a large wooden packing case or crate.
Round the sides were cross-pieces, holding the sheeting boards in place. Two of the sharp flukes of the grappling had caught beneath one of these, and of course, the greater the pull on them, the more firmly they became fixed.
To raise the crate while submerged and displacing its own volume of water had been just possible. To lift it aboard was out of the question. For a time the two considered the problem of getting it ashore, then Mr. Morgan said:
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll make the rope fast and row in with the crate hanging to our stern. Then we’ll beach it on the lifeboat slip, and when the tide falls it will be left high and dry. We can examine it then and get our hooks.”
Evan approving of the plan, they proceeded to carry it out. They made the rope fast round the after thwart, then taking the oars, pulled slowly inshore. As they drew nearer, the current lessened, until off Burry Port they were almost in still water. Slowly they glided past a line of sandhills which presently gave place first to houses and works and then to a great deposit of copper slag like a stream of lava which had overflowed into the sea. Finally rounding the east mole, they entered Burry Port harbour.
Having manœuvred the boat over the lifeboat slip, they cast off the rope, and the crate settled down in five feet of water. Then with a bight of the rope they made the boat fast.
“Now for that supper,” Mr. Morgan suggested. “By the time we’ve had it our treasure trove will be high and dry and we can come down and see what it is.”
An hour later father and son were retracing their steps to the harbour. Mr. Morgan looked businesslike with a hammer, a cold chisel, and a large electric torch. It was still a lovely evening, but in a few minutes it would be dark.