If Ned had been more experienced in such matters he would have understood that the vessel unquestionably came ashore many years before, when the coral island was much smaller, and the work of the minute creatures which have formed the fringe of keys or reefs around the Florida coast had gradually built under her, until now she was twenty or thirty feet from the water’s edge.
Even to Ned’s inexperienced eyes the marks of great age could be seen; therefore he had no hope of finding anything amid the timbers which could serve him in the slightest degree, except in the way of materials for a hut.
“I don’t fancy there’ll be much of any trouble in knockin’ the timbers apart,” he said as he went slowly toward the place he was beginning to call “home.” “By to-morrow night I ought to have a couple of pieces loose, an’ I’ll set them up outside my shanty. I can build around it, an’ when the wooden house is done it will only be necessary to pull the camp of leaves out.”
A supper of fish seasoned with salt gave him a most appetizing meal, and when he lay down to sleep his eyes were soon closed in blissful unconsciousness because of the weariness of body.
On the following morning but little time was spent in the preparation for breakfast, and he began once more the task of unearthing the wreck.
Having simply been pushing the sand up, quite a high bank was formed, and it became necessary to level this before the work could be continued.
By noon he found a prize in the shape of a short piece of plank, perfectly dry despite the length of time it had been covered by the sand, and an hour’s labor with his knife served to convert it into a rude shovel, with which he could do twice as much as when the stakes were his only tools.
The outside of several timbers were laid bare, and then, preparatory to wrenching them from their fastenings, he shoveled from the inside near the fragments of the stern-post.
About half an hour before sunset the wooden scoop struck against a hard substance which he knew could not be the “skin” of the vessel, since it was much too high up from the keel.
Merely from curiosity, and not with any idea that he might be making a valuable discovery, Ned labored only to ascertain what was concealed beneath the sand, and before the night had fully come, he was gazing in surprise at a small box covered with rawhide and bound with iron.