“What’s that?” exclaimed several of the men eagerly, catching at their comrade’s words as drowning men are said to catch at straws.
“Briant an’ me buried some o’ the things, by good luck, when we were sent to make all snug here, an’ I’m of opinion they’ll be here yet, if we could only find the place. Let me see.”
Rokens glanced round at the rocks beside which their hut had found shelter, and at the reef where the ship had been wrecked, in order to find the “bearin’s o’ the spot,” as he expressed it. Then walking a few yards to one side, he struck his foot on the sand and said, “It should be hereabouts.”
The blow of his heel returned a peculiar hollow sound, very unlike that produced by stamping on the mere sand.
“Shure ye’ve hit the very spot, ye have,” cried Briant, falling on his knees beside the place; and scraping up the sand with both hands. “It sounds uncommon like a bread-cask. Here it is. Hurrah! boys, lind a hand, will ye. There now, heave away; but trate it tinderly! Shure it’s the only friend we’ve got in the wide world.”
“You’re all wrong, Phil,” cried Gurney, who almost at the same moment began to scrape another hole close by. “It’s not our only one; here’s another friend o’ the same family. Bear a hand, lads!”
“And here’s another!” cried Ailie, with a little scream of delight, as she observed the rim of a small keg just peeping out above the sand.
“Well done, Ailie,” cried Glynn, as he ran to the spot and quickly dug up the keg in question, which, however, proved to be full of nails, to Ailie’s great disappointment, for she expected it to have turned out a keg of biscuits.
“How many casks did you bury?” inquired the captain.
“It’s meself can’t tell,” replied Briant; “d’ye know, Tim?”