When they finally came around to it, Dick grabbed the chisel—with which they had pried off the cover of the first chest—from Phil’s hand, going to work on the second chest himself.
“You’re getting stingy,” he said, in reply to Phil’s look of surprise. “You opened the first chest. Now it’s my turn.”
“Why care who opens it,” retorted Phil, “as long as it gets opened. Only, hurry up, you old snail, or I may be tempted to give you some help, anyway.”
As a matter of fact it did take some time to get the cover off for Dick was so excited his hands trembled and he seemed to lack his usual amount of strength.
However, although the impatient boys offered insistently to help him, he kept them off, offering to “lay them out” with the chisel if they got too “fresh.”
At last the cover gave and they found themselves staring fascinated into a chest whose contents seemed at first glance to fully equal in value the contents of the first one.
Without stopping for a closer look, they opened the third box, Steve officiating this time and Tom grumbling because there wasn’t a fourth chest—to which Phil replied that if Tom would wait till the next day he would try to oblige him—and this one also, was heaped to the brim with shining gold pieces, interspersed with jewels of rare beauty and value.
The boys, feeling as though they were living through an amazing dream, took out handful after handful of the gold pieces and here and there a precious jewel, examining them closely beneath the light of their electric torches.
Like the samples which Phil had first brought to them, they found that the coins were of English and French and Spanish origin, all very old and bearing dates that thrilled the boys with the romance of those old days.
“Say, what would you give to have been able to live in those times,” said Tom softly, his eyes gleaming as he turned a gold piece over and over in his fingers.