Why had Sagesse abandoned the boat and the valuable diving apparatus? Sagesse of all men in the world, Sagesse, who turned over a half-penny twice before he parted with it! The boat and gear were worth a very considerable sum, and here they were—thrown away.
He turned from the beach and began to re-cross the islet.
Halfway across, at the spot where yesterday he had shewn Sagesse the skull of Serpente, he stopped dead, flung up his arms, and cried out as though he had been shot.
The little mound beside which Yves had found the bones of Serpente and the pouch of gold was no longer there; in its place there was a cavity about six feet long and four wide and five deep.
He saw it all at once in one blinding flash. Serpente’s treasure had never been on board that ship. It had been here safely cached, and Serpente had died and left his bones beside it.
It was obvious now; the mound of earth, the ship sunk in the lagoon, the bones bleaching beside the mound; yet he had never seen a glimpse of it at all, whereas Sagesse, at the first sight of the ship, had smelt the truth; Sagesse at sight of the mound had known almost as a fact that the treasure of Serpente lay there. He recalled how Sagesse had laughed as he flung the skull away into the bushes; he recalled how last night he had demanded thirty per cent. of the findings, and how Sagesse had given in and agreed to his demand. Then, while he, Gaspard, drugged and asleep, lay snoring in his tent, Sagesse, with Jules perhaps to help him, came here, dug, found what they sought, collected their men, collected their stores, rowed to La Belle Arlésienne, up-anchored, and sailed away north for the American coast.
The blood rushed to Gaspard’s face as he thought of this, Sagesse’s words, spoken in the café of the Rue Victor Hugo, came back to him. “It is men like you who fill stokeholds.” Yes, he belonged to the race of men who cannot see, the inefficient men who fill stokeholds, the men without worldly wisdom and insight, who do the work of the world with their hands, while the sharpers and scoundrels and business men take the profits.
He flung himself on his knees by the hole and looked into it. At the bottom something caught his eye, and, leaping down, he picked it up. It was a coin, heavy, battered, and almost soot-black. He bit it, and the tiny dint of the toothmark showed yellow. It was gold.
He dragged himself up amid the bushes, and with the coin in his hand stood looking away at the sea, where La Belle Arlésienne lay becalmed.
A wild idea occurred to him of trying to reach her with the quarterboat that was lying in the lagoon. Impossible. There were no oars, the heavy diving pump was fixed on board her firmly, he had no tools to remove it with, and even at high tide, when the sea edge of the reef was submerged, he doubted if she could be got across it.