And by this time breakfast was ready. Then, upon the conclusion of the meal, all hands adjourned once more to the yard, Flora being attired for the occasion in a complete suit of dainty white, topped off with a broad-brimmed flower-bedecked hat that, under other circumstances, would doubtless have graced some Valparaiso belle. Dick carried two bottles of champagne—the last of their scanty stock—in his hand, one of them being devoted to the christening ceremony, while the other was to be consumed in drinking success to the little boat.
Arrived alongside, Nicholls nipped up the ladder that gave access to the little craft’s deck, and attached the bottle of champagne to the stem-head by a line long enough to reach down to within about six inches of her keel. Then he went aft and lashed the tiller amidships, which done, he announced that all was ready. Upon hearing this Dick placed the bottle of wine in Flora’s hand, and, telling her when to act and what to say, stationed himself, with a heavy sledge-hammer in his hand, at one of the spur-shores, Simpson, similarly provided, going to the other. Then—
“Are you all ready?” shouted Dick.
“Ay, ay, sir, all ready!” answered Simpson, swaying up the heavy hammer over his shoulder.
“Then strike!” yelled Dick; and crash fell the two hammers simultaneously; down dropped the spur-shores, and a tremor appeared to thrill the little craft throughout her entire fabric.
For a single moment she seemed to hang—to Dick’s unmitigated consternation, but the next second he saw her begin to move with an almost imperceptible gliding motion toward the water. Flora saw it too, and raising the bottle of wine in her hand, dashed it against the little craft’s bows, shattering the glass to pieces and causing the wine to cream over the brightly burnished copper as she cried—
“God bless the Flora and grant her success!”
The speed of the handsome little clipper rapidly increased, and presently she entered the water with a headlong rush, curtseying as gracefully as though she had learned the trick from her namesake, ere she recovered herself and floated lightly as a soap-bubble on the water. (For although Dick had found an entire outfit of lead ballast for her, already cast to the shape of her hull, he had only put part of it aboard her, leaving out about six tons, in place of which he intended to stow the gold from the treasure-cave.) The little craft held her way for quite an extraordinary distance—showing thereby in the most practical of all ways the excellence and beauty of her lines—and when at length she came to rest Nicholls let go her anchor and waved his hand by way of a signal that all was well. Whereupon Dick and Simpson jumped into the canoe and paddled off to fetch him ashore.
The moment had now arrived when it became necessary for Leslie to come to some definite conclusion as to how far he would take these two men into his confidence. He had watched them both with the utmost keenness from the first moment of his connection with them, and everything that he had seen in their speech and behaviour had led him to the conviction that they were absolutely honest, loyal, and trustworthy. On the other hand, he had heard of cases wherein men even as trustworthy as he believed these two to be had succumbed to the influence of some sudden, over-powering temptation; and there could be no question that a treasure of such enormous value as that lying hidden in the cave constituted a temptation sufficient to strain to its utmost limit the honesty of any but the most thoroughly conscientious man. He therefore finally settled the matter with himself by determining upon a compromise; he would take Nicholls and Simpson into his confidence just so far as was absolutely necessary, and no farther.
Therefore, when they all landed on the beach, after taking Nicholls off the cutter, Leslie invited the two men to accompany him to the tent, there to empty their last bottle of champagne in drinking to the success of the new craft. And when this ceremony had been duly performed, Leslie turned to the two men, and said—