“Some speed boys,” smiled Benton, “but that’s the way to go at it. Either it’s worth nothing at all, or it’s worth every ounce of speed and energy we can put in it. What were some of the objections that your folks put up.”
“Well, there were a good many of them,” replied Phil. “First of course was the danger. They conjured up all sorts of horrible things, sudden tropical storms, drowning, sharks and things like that. Then too, they thought that it was in the nature of a wild goose chase. If the ship had been sunken recently, they’d have thought we had more of a chance. But two centuries ago seems a long while. They thought the ship might have broken up, sunk in the sand, wholly disappeared.”
“There’s something of course in that,” Benton admitted. “And yet treasure has been brought up from the ships of the Spanish Armada that sank over three hundred years ago. What has happened once may happen again. As for the danger, of course there is some. But nothing venture nothing have, and if we are successful the rewards will be great enough to compensate for the risk.”
“Just what we argued,” replied Phil. “And then who can tell where danger lies? A man may sail the seas for forty years without a scratch, and then come home to be drowned in a cistern. After all, life itself is just taking a chance.”
“Right you are,” put in Dick. “If this venture goes through, we’ll have pulled off a big thing. But even suppose it doesn’t go through. We’ll have seen a new part of the world, will have had lots of fun and adventure and the game will have been worth the candle.”
“And just think what it means if we put it over,” added Tom. “Just think of pulling up those ducats and doubloons and louis d’or and all the rest of them from the bottom of the sea. It seems a shame to have all that money doing no one any good, when it might be put into circulation.”
“Old ocean sure is greedy,” replied Benton. “Think of the hundreds of millions, probably billions, that have been engulfed at some time or other. Probably ten millions went down on the Lusitania, the Titanic and the Arabic. Then there’s the Laurentic that went down in 1917 with from ten to fifteen millions on board. They’ve already brought up about three millions of that though. Then there was the fleet of Spanish ships that sank in the harbor of Vigo, Spain, in 1702 carrying down $37,000,000. There’s the San Pedro de Alcantara that sank in Margarita Channel near Caracas in 1812 with $32,000,000 in gold doubloons on board. You’ve read perhaps of the American ship Phantom that was wrecked in 1862 with $10,000,000 in California gold. The George Sand sank in the China Sea in 1863 carrying down $13,000,000 in bullion. And those are only a few of the hundreds of ships that have carried down hundreds of thousands or millions. There’s probably enough gold under the waves to make a solid golden pathway a good many feet wide over the whole of the ocean bed.”
“Well, here’s hoping that there’ll be less of it under water when we get through,” laughed Tom.
“Let’s hope so,” smiled Benton, “but now let’s shift for a little while to another metal and get right down to brass tacks.”