He bent down and picked it up. It was the skull which was unlike any other skull, either of man or beast.
Sagesse held the thing in his hand for a moment as he glanced round him. At his feet, dimly through the branches of the bay-cedar bushes, he could see the bones of Serpente shining white, half revealed, half hidden.
Then, flinging the skull into the air and catching it again, he burst into a fit of laughter. In a trice his depression had vanished.
“Mordieu!” said Gaspard, “you seem pleased.” “Perhaps. It is as if this thing had said to me, ‘You are wrong. The treasure is on board the ship. Stretch out your hand, my friend, and take it.’”
He cast the skull amidst the bushes and turned to superintend the negroes hauling the boat to the northern beach.
CHAPTER XXXVII
SAGESSE IS CORNERED
That night, as they sat in the tent smoking, Gaspard approached the object of his grievance.
“Look here,” he said, “we have got the boat across the island and afloat in the lagoon. We have got the diving apparatus in her ready for working. Nothing remains to be done but start work to-morrow morning.”