"Ten shares!"
"Ten shares!" nodded Cochrane. "Good! Now keep still. I need quiet."
They were mute; not a breath was drawn; they scarcely dared move their eyes lest he should be disturbed. Cochrane touched the lock lightly and then rubbed his fingertips vigorously back and forth on the carpet— anything to stimulate those fine nerves which are as valuable to some criminals as eyes are to normal people.
With ear pressed close to the combination, he turned it slowly, by delicate degrees, waiting for the telltale click. They saw him set his teeth and grow eager as a hound on a scent of blood; they saw the fingers move rapidly and nervously, and then came a click which was audible through the entire room, and the door of the safe swung open. Still no one stirred, no one breathed. He took out a small canvas bag, he untied the top, he spilled the contents out, and then they saw bright gold, gold which inspires, and gold which destroys, gold the tempter and the murderer.
A wild scramble followed. They swept the gold up in handfuls and tossed it into the air, laughing like madmen as the light gleamed on the yellow surfaces. And at length when they were wearied of touching it and caressing it, Hovey apportioned the spoils: to Cochrane, by common assent, the ten shares, a fortune; to Sam Hall, Kyle, and Flint, two shares each, for they had been leaders in the fight; to himself ten shares, also by universal voice, and to each of the others, forty in all, his portion.
There was no fighting or complaint over the division of the spoils. What difference did a few hundred pieces here or there matter? Gold in floods, gold in oceans, was before them, and each man gathered his own share close.
But where there is gold there is death. One of the firemen said in the ear of Hovey: "The second assistant—Fritz Klopp—he is dying."
It was upon Klopp that they depended for the running of the Heron. Hovey merely laughed: "Carry him in here. He'll come to life when he sees this!"
They had left Klopp lying on the deck. He had been one of the first to leap at White Henshaw, and a bullet from the captain's revolver had torn its way through his lungs; his eyes were glazing fast when two of the firemen carried him into the outer cabin of White Henshaw and placed him in an armchair beside the desk.
"How are you, Klopp?" asked Hovey.