The Secret of the Sands; Or, The 'Water Lily' and her Crew - Harry Collingwood

Little now remains to be told. We succeeded, after a vast amount of hard work and difficulty, in turning our gold into cash and the proceeds were equally divided among us five whites; the result being, as I suppose, I need hardly say, a magnificent fortune to each. Winter, like the honest fellow that he was, immediately married the girl who had consented to share his uncertain fortune as a seaman and the two blacks attached themselves, as a matter of course, to my father’s establishment. As for Bob, he asserted roundly that his gold would be of no use or value to him if I “turned him adrift,” so he became, I need scarcely say with my hearty good-will, a fixture in my establishment; and his whole thoughts are now set on being made sailing-master of a fine schooner yacht which is building for me.

I found out Ella’s relations, and communicated the fact of her rescue from the wreck, and of her having become my wife; but I said nothing respecting our immense wealth, merely stating that I was possessed of a comfortable independency, as I wished to ascertain whether they were willing to receive her as a relative, on her own and her mother’s account. I regret, for the sake of human nature, to say that the interview was eminently unsatisfactory; and I left their house with a mental resolve that my wife should never, with my consent, enter the doors of such unnatural relatives.

The End.