That night there came a south-east storm that did great damage. It had been brewing all of the afternoon, but Tom and Jack had not seen it, or, if they had seen it, had thought nothing of it, for heretofore the wash of the surf had never run as far up as the wreck, even in the heaviest weather. But so much of the sand had been carried away that the surf came a great deal higher than it had done before. It was blowing quite heavily when Tom and Jack went over to the sand-spit the next morning, and a part of the wash of the breakers had found its way into the place that they had been digging, so that the sand had caved in here and there. They tried to do all that they could to protect their work, but it was no good, for, by the time that evening had come, the place that they had dug out was half full of sand, and by the next morning it was nearly levelled over, and all of their labor was to be done again. As soon as the storm was over they set to work, and in a week’s time had the sand nearly all dug out. Then came another blow, and the same thing happened as before.
After this they set about the work with more system. They built a breakwater of stakes, between which they wove twigs and grass. This was Tom’s plan, and they found that it kept the sea back completely, for, as I have said, it was only the wash of the breakers that ran over the place that they were at work. It never filled up again as long as Tom and Jack were engaged upon it.
But all this cost a great deal of time and labor, and I doubt very much if they had not found the box of money whether they would ever have struck a shovel into the sand again after the first storm came upon them; so that it was a lucky thing that they found the box when they did, and that the southeaster did not come a day sooner.
For three or four months they worked as never men worked before. It is strange to think of how men will labor and toil for money, even when money will do them as little good as it did Jack and Tom on this lonely island. It is a wonder that they did not kill themselves with the work and the hardships that they went through during that time. However, the excitement that they were living under kept them up to a great degree.
During all these months they lived upon little else than fish. Now and then they would gather a few mussels or catch a crab or two, but their chief living was fish—broiled fish for breakfast, dinner and supper, until they both grew to loathe the very sight of it. Tom got such a surfeit of them in that time that he could never bear the smell of a frying fish from that day to this.
Upon the first of September they counted over the money that they had unearthed, and they found that they had over eight thousand dollars in all. It was made up of silver coins of all sizes, large and small.
They only had three days more of work on the island, and, as two of those days were blank, they did not add very much to the sum that they had already gathered.