Tom would have gone, but I felt that it was my turn; and after divesting myself of my clothing I lowered myself over the side of the raft, waded a little, and then, after a few tries, succeeded in bringing up, one at a time, the whole of the treasure. Then, with a little contriving, I once more obtained a place upon the heavily-weighted raft, dressed, and we floated back in triumph to where, torch in hand, stood Lilla gazing anxiously along the dark tunnel, and ready to give a joyous cry as she saw our safe return.
I sent Tom to relieve my uncle’s guard, and he hurried excitedly to my side and helped me to unload.
“Harry, my boy,” he exclaimed huskily as we lifted the packages on to the rocks, “I can hardly believe it. Is it true?”
I smiled in his face, and then with more rope we bound the packages securely before leaving them to drain off the water.
Our next act was to carefully take the raft to pieces and save the bands by which it was secured. This was no easy task, for the water had saturated and tightened the fastenings, which we did not cut, because they would be extremely valuable in fastening it together again.
It proved to be a very, very long job, but we worked at it with all our might, knowing as we did that our future depended upon our getting the pieces of our pontoon safely with us to some stream, where we could fit it once more together and use it to help in floating down to a place of refuge.
“It’s a rum job, Mas’r Harry,” said Tom. “My word, if these knots weren’t well tied! I never thought about having to undo it over again.”
“Never mind, Tom; work away,” I cried.
“Oh! Ah! I’ll work away,” he replied. “That’s better! That’s one of ’em. They won’t bear the lot, Mas’r Harry, when we fits it together again?”
“If the raft is not strong enough, Tom, we must make it stronger,” I said; and he gave a grunt and worked away, tugging at the knots and very often using his teeth.