But to hurry on. All the time we were filling up the hold of our little vessel with old bones, etc., we knew perfectly well where the pirate’s gold lay, and at last, choosing a time when the moon was at its full, we commenced this last excavation. We discharged one man now, saying our labours were nearly over. Pity we hadn’t discharged Winkey, as the sequel will show.
I must confess that I had grave doubts concerning the finding of that gold. Nay, more, I felt almost positive that the whole thing was a myth; or that if any gold had ever been buried at the foot of this old, old tree, it must have been found long, long ago.
But I would not say so to Miguel; I would not shatter his splendid hopes and his happiness. Nevertheless to Captain Reeves I did say one morning,—
“It will be very pitiful, my friend, but at the same time somewhat laughable, if, after all our trouble and outlay, we have to leave the coast with only a cargo of defunct Indians’ decayed skeletons!”
Reeves laughed, but at the same time he looked somewhat serious.
Both he and Miguel seemed extra hopeful, however, on the morning when Winkey turned the first sod. We allowed him to do the heaviest of the work, and get well down, severing the hard, entangled branches of the trees with the axe. When these were all out, and a very large hole made, we found the ground softer.
It was eventide now.
“We shan’t do more to-night, Winkey,” Reeves said; “but meet us on the beach to-morrow at eight, and we shall commence filling up this most unpromising hole again. Good-night.”
Away went Winkey, but I think he gave Captain Reeves a strange sort of look before he started, and that he smiled satirically, if I may so word it.
Miguel himself went with him fully a mile, quite into Ocean City in fact, where the young man dwelt. It was his pay-night, and he went under pretence of getting change. Miguel paid him in an inn, and made him drink several glasses of old rye whisky, leaving him apparently very happy and careless while discussing a fourth tumbler.