“You mean, you mean—” he stammered and stopped, his brain whirling with the tumultuous thoughts that surged through it.
“The old pirate ship!” gasped Tom, who had caught Phil’s meaning.
“By ginger, that’s what it is,” cried Benton excitedly. “See,” he went on, pointing to a piece of hatch. “Look at that splintered piece that has been torn off. See how new the broken place looks compared to the old. That’s where it was torn apart by our charge of dynamite.”
They stood for a moment as if stunned. There was something awe-inspiring in the sight of the remnants of the old ship that had come again into the sunlight after its two-hundred years’ sleep on the ocean bed.
Phil was the first to break the silence.
“How could it have happened?” he asked in bewilderment.
“I think I understand,” said Benton. “It’s all bound up with the volcano and the earthquake. The same forces have caused an upheaval in the bed of the sea. The old ship has been close to the center of disturbance, the timbers already shattered by the dynamite have been further wrenched apart and the entire mass thrown up to the surface of the sea.”
“Then that puts an end to our treasure hunting,” said Phil, voicing the thought that came in the minds of all.
“It sure does,” replied Benton. “Even the log that marked the position of the ship has disappeared,” pointing out to the unbroken surface of the sea. “We might hunt now for a hundred years and not locate the spot. And even if we did, the treasure would have been scattered all over the sand of the ocean bed. No, the game is up. We can thank our stars that we got what we did. That is enough to make the expedition a glorious success. Perhaps after all, it’s better that nature took a hand, or we might have stayed on here so long as to end in our destruction. Now let’s get back to the cave and figure out our next move, for we’ll have to do some quick thinking.”
They retraced their steps, Bimbo keeping well abreast of them and occasionally casting frightened glances back at the fragments of the pirate ship.