“I wonder who put them in this little hole?” said Eric.
Fritz did not answer this query for the moment; but, almost at the same instant, there flashed across his recollection a curious story which an old man at Tristan d’Acunha had told him—at the time when he and Eric were inspecting the settlement on that island, before coming over to their own little colony—concerning an old pirate who had buried a lot of treasure either there or on Inaccessible Island.
After the brothers had gazed to their hearts’ fill at the precious hoard which had so suddenly been, revealed to them, the next thought was how to remove it to their hut below.
“We’ll roll up the lot in a blanket,” said Eric, who as usual was always to the fore when anything had to be planned out. “Tie up the gold securely; and then chuck the bundle containing it down below, along with the poor pigs we have slaughtered! There’s no fear of anybody making off with our doubloons before we accomplish the swim round the headland back home.”
“Yes, that will be the wisest course,” acquiesced Fritz; “but, talking of swimming round the headland, the sooner we’re off the better. Those clouds look very threatening.”
“Only rain, I think,” replied Eric, looking up at the sky.
“Good, that will not make us very wet when we are in the water, with our bare skins,” said Fritz quizzingly.
“No,” replied Eric, laughing. “But, the sooner we are now off the better, as you say; for, even if the weather holds up, there are a lot of things for us to do when we get home. We have the pigs to skin, as well as cut up and salt; and, besides, there’s all our money to count over.”
“We can do that now, as we roll it up in the blanket,” replied Fritz, proceeding to suit the action to the word.
To their high delight, they found that there were nearly two thousand separate gold coins, apart from the solid lump fused together, the whole being probably worth some three thousand pounds, or thereabouts.