"Ideals change into realities and will is way. Commander William bethought him of a new plan of gaining the needed intelligence. Might not some very old person know the place where the ship was wrecked? The thought was light. He found an old Indian on a near island who remembered the wreck, and who said he could pilot him to the very spot where the ship had gone down.
"Captain William's heart was light again. With the Indian on board he drifted to the rippling waters over the reef.
"Below was a coral world in a sea as clear as the sky. Out of it flying-fish leaped, and through it dolphins swam in pairs, and over it sargasso drifted like cloud shadows.
"Captain William looked down. Was it over these placid waters that the storm had made wreckage many years ago? Was it here that the exultant Spanish sailors had felt the shock that turned joy into terror, and sent the ship reeling down, with the spoils of Indian caciques, or of Incarial temples, or of Andean treasures?
"The old Indian pointed to a sunken, ribbed wall in the clear sea. The hearts of the sailors thrilled as they stood there under the fiery noonday sky.
"Down went the divers—down!
"Up came one presently with the news—'The wreck is there; we have found it!'
"'Search!' cried Captain William, with a glad wife and a gable house in Boston town before his eyes. 'Down!'
"Another diver came up bringing a bag. It looked like a salt bag.
"An officer took an axe and severed the bag. The salt flew; the sailors threw up their hands with a cry—out of the bag poured a glittering stream of gold!