“No, sir—better than mines; for the gold and silver are gathered and smelted—cast into ingots.”
“Buried treasure, eh? Not in my way, sir—not in my way.”
“Yes, buried treasure, Mr Parkley; but buried in the bright, clear sea, where the sun lights up the sand and rocks below.”
“Sea, eh? Well, that is more in our way. Eh, Pugh?”
“Read the old chronicles of the time, sir, two or three hundred years ago,” said the Cuban, rising, with his eyes flashing, and his handsome face lit up by his glowing excitement, “and you shall find that gold ships and plate-ships—ships laden with the treasures of Mexico and Peru, taken by the Spaniards, were sunk here and there upon those wondrous coasts.”
“Old women’s tales,” said Mr Parkley, abruptly. “Cock-and-bull stories.”
“I do not quite understand,” said the Cuban, haughtily, “except that you doubt me. Sir, these are truths. I doubted first; but for five years in a small vessel I have searched the Carib Sea, and I can take you to where three ships have been wrecked and sunk—ships whose existence is only known to me.”
“Very likely,” said Mr Parkley; “but that don’t prove that they were laden with gold.”
“Look,” said the Cuban, taking from a pocket in his cloak a packet, and, opening it out, he unwrapped two papers, in one of which was a small ingot of gold, in the other a bar of silver. They were cast in a very rough fashion, and the peculiarity that gave strength to the Cuban’s story was that each bar of about six inches long was for the most part encrusted with barnacle-like shells and other peculiar sea growths.
“Hum! Could this have been stuck on, Pugh?” said Mr Parkley, curiously examining each bar in turn.