Chapter Thirteen.
Jan Steenbock gets Confidential.
“My stars, Chips!” exclaimed Hiram, who was standing near by when Tom Bullover held up his treasure-trove to view. “What hev ye got thaar, ship met?”
“Sorry o’ me knows,” returned the other, examining the object closely. “Seems like one o’ them blessed saints they has in the cathedral at Lima, which I went over one day last v’y’ge I took this side, when I sailed from Shields to Valparaiso, and arterwards come up the coast, our skipper looking out for a cargy, instead o’ going back home in ballast. It seems a pretty sort o’ himage, too, bo, and I’m hanged if I don’t think it’s gold, for it’s precious heavy for its size, I can tell you!”
“Chuck it over hyar an’ let’s see what it’s like,” said Hiram, his curiosity at once roused. “I’ll soon tell ye if it’s hunkydory ez soon ez I hev the handlin’ on it; fur I ken smell the reel sort, I guess, an’ knows it likewise by the feel it kinder hez about it.”
“Right you are, bo,” sang out Tom Bullover, pitching it towards him. “Catch!”
“Bully far yer!” cried Hiram, putting up his hands and clutching hold of the figure as, well thrown by the other, it came tumbling into his ready grasp. “I’ll soon tell ye what it’s made on, I reckon!”
He thereupon proceeded to inspect the object carefully, giving it a lick of his tongue and rough polish with his palms, to remove the dirt and dust with which it was partly encrusted, sniffing at it and handling it as if it were a piece of putty.
“Well, bo,” asked Tom at length, tired of waiting and eager to learn the result of the other’s examination; “is it all right?”
“You bet,” responded Hiram, tossing up the image in the air and catching it again, and raising a triumphant shout that at once attracted the attention of the other hands, who dropped their pickaxes and shovels instanter and came clustering round. “I’m jiggered if it ain’t gold, an’ durned good metal, too, with nary a bit o’ bogus stuff about it. Hooray!”