“Never mind about all that,” he said; “let’s get back and see if you are right, and that it is not a solitary chest which the Frenchmen have left us.”
“No fear of that, sir,” cried Bigley. “I was down long enough to see that there was quite a lot of them.”
“Or of pieces of rock,” said my father smiling. “I’m older than you are, my lad, and not so sanguine.”
“But I feel so sure, sir,” cried Bigley.
“That’s right, my lad. I’m glad you do; but you have seen them, I have not.”
“But Sep saw them too.”
“I saw the box we hauled up,” I said; “but I could not be sure about what was at the bottom amongst the rocks and weeds.”
Bigley looked so disappointed that my father smiled.
“Come,” he cried; “you think I am ungrateful, and throwing cold water upon your discovery, when there is plenty over it as it is. So come, let us assume that the treasure is there, and begin to make our plans about how to recover it.”
At the last moment we had been obliged to leave the pony at the little inn, and we were walking steadily back as this conversation went on.