“Fine. I guess the lime hereabouts attended to that. Anyhow, I carried in a blazing stick, and it burned all right.”
“Skeletons on board?”
“Not a bone that I could see.”
“What are you keeping back, then? You can’t humbug me, C. K. There’s something on your chest. Get it off!”
Sturgess craned his neck over the edge of the channel to make sure that neither of the girls was near.
“From hints I’ve picked up now and then, when Madge felt she must either talk or bust, I’ve come to the conclusion that old man Gray’s death means poverty to that small bunch,” he said. “Now, I’m pretty well fixed, and I guess you’ll never be hard pushed to buy a food ticket, so I want your brainy assistance to arrange things for the girls’ benefit. See? It should—kind of—make matters easy—when it comes to a show-down.”
“What have you come across? Spanish treasure?”
Maseden peered into the dimly lighted interior of the wreck. Apparently the inverted deck was about four feet below the level of the opening, and Sturgess had broken into the after part of the hull.
“Let me go ahead and pass out the boodle,” said Sturgess. “I found it in a wooden box, which is clamped with iron, but it has nearly fallen to pieces.”
He lowered himself to what had been the ceiling of a cabin, and moved cautiously among a litter of rotting wood, evidently the furniture which had once rendered the tiny apartment habitable. He came back with laden hands, and passed out a curiously shaped jug, or flagon.