“I’m afraid not,” Ned replied. “You see, Captain Bragg most likely set me ashore in a place where there wasn’t much chance anything like that would happen, otherwise I might have told my story before he had an opportunity to collect the insurance.”
“That’s true,” Vance replied sleepily. “I’ll venture to say, though, that we shall come out all right in a few days, even if it is necessary to take to a raft. So let’s go to sleep now. I feel as if I hadn’t closed my eyes for a week.”
Roy was quite willing to act upon this suggestion, and in a very short time the two were sleeping soundly; but Ned could not compose himself for slumber so readily.
The question of the treasure troubled him considerably.
If he should reveal the secret the boys would most likely claim their share, and although he now had very much more than he had ever expected to own, it was hard to part with a single piece.
In case he did not tell them, how could he take it away?
If any craft came along and they had an opportunity of leaving the key, he could not carry the treasure with him unknown to his companions, and would also be debarred from searching for more.
“I shall have to let them into the snap,” he said, with a sigh. “It’s too bad, but I don’t see how it can be helped. In the morning I’ll show what I found, an’ we’ll begin work on the wreck.”
With this resolve his mind was freed from the greater portion of the trouble which had weighed heavily upon it, and he fell asleep.
When the boys awakened on the following morning the scene which met their gaze was really a cheerful one, save for the disabled steamer lying half-submerged on the shore.