“Ah, if I had been dead you would have waked me up,” I told her.
“I’ve a blamed good mind to kiss you myself!” roared old Holstrom from somewhere behind me. Then he let out a whoop and came and capered in front of me.
“You’ve brought up twenty thousand dollars’ worth of gold!” he informed me. “Five ingots, with the assay mark on ’em, and each worth four thousand dollars. That’s the kind of a diver you are, Sidney! All together, men! Three cheers for the greatest sea diver that ever wore lead shoes!” And the men gave the cheers while he pounded his fists on my back.
I got a view of Marcena Keedy when I turned my head around. Mr. Keedy was not showing any interest in my condition—not he. He was sitting on deck with the open box hugged between his knees, and he was feeling over those bars of gold like a lover fondling his lady’s cheek.
“I can’t say I’m stuck on the style of that critter,” mumbled Shank in my ear. “He yanked that box away from you before we had fairly swung you inboard and before anybody knew you was alive. He pried it open, and has set there making love to it ever since.”
Old Ike was squatting in front of Keedy on his haunches, and was drooling like a hound watching a butcher.
“It’s there! I’ve always said it was there. It’s there all bright and shining. They all have hooted at me because I have said it was there. Now what do you think?”
“Nobody has been a game sport in this thing except you and me,” said Keedy, sticking an ingot up under Ike’s nose. “Nobody would back your hand till I came along. I’ve had to talk everybody over before anybody would do anything. I know how to play a hand with a buried card in it. I’ve played that hand to the limit, and now see what has happened. When you fellows are passing cheers around you’d better hooray for the man who has turned the trick—for the man who kept at it till he got you down here.”
He gave me a nasty side-glance and snuggled the box under his legs just as though he had recovered property which belonged to him.
“Where there’s one there’s the rest of ’em, eh, Sidney? You have found the nest of the beauties, eh? Well, do we get another nice little box to-day? We may as well open the game with forty thousand while we’re about it.”