“Four bells was right,” said Ricardo. “The camp is blown to glory. And a big piece of the hill is dumped on top of it. This Don Miguel was a poor loser. I wish I had killed him with his machine gun. It’s easy enough to figure how the trick was done. He had a lot of dynamite left, so he told his gang to mine the camp. They cut the fuse long enough to burn several hours. I stumbled over one of his iron pipes. They ran the fuse through it, I suppose. An excellent joke, said Don Miguel, eh, Papa Ramon? ‘Perhaps you will find something to-night,’ said he. He has a sense of humor.”
“He couldn’t forgive you for whipping him,” feebly piped the old man. “Four Bells, Ricardo! Now I do not have to die.”
“I should say not. Now you can live to be a hundred. And we’ll have to give you a vote of thanks for putting the galleon bell on the steamer. Not that I am convinced, but it was a most extraordinary coincidence.”
“You are a fool, Ricardo,” snapped Papa Ramon, with a flash of the old temper. “And Teresa would call you worse names than that. It was the intercession of the Blessed Lady of Rosario for whom the galleon was named.”
A sailor exploring the débris with a lantern suddenly went insane, or so it appeared. He screeched, slid into a hole on his stomach, and wildly waved his legs. His comrades scampered to haul him out. Instantly they, too, became afflicted with violent dementia. Cary went to investigate. He caught up a lantern and peered into this fresh excavation torn by the explosive. A frenzied sailor was filling his straw hat with tarnished coins. Another was struggling to lift a heavy lump of metal, but had to drop it for lack of elbow room. Cary reached down and jerked the two men out of the hole. They danced around him, spilling Spanish dollars from their hats and shirts. He slid down and tossed out the weighty lump which looked like bullion fused and roughened by heat.
He ran to fetch Papa Ramon and to spread his blanket close to this miraculous gravel pit. The sailors darted off to search for bits of board to dig with. One of them was lucky enough to find a broken shovel. By the light of the lanterns they made the gravel fly like infuriated terriers. They turned up more coins, hundreds of them, and a closely packed heap of those roughened lumps of bullion. They discovered rotten pieces of plank studded with iron bolts and braces. They piled the booty upon Señor Bazán’s blanket. He let the blackened Spanish dollars clink through his fingers. He fondled the shapeless lumps of bullion.
He was a supremely happy old man, nor was his emotion altogether sordid. He was happy for Ricardo and Teresa. And the spirit of romance, the enchantment of adventure had renewed, for this transient hour, the bright aspects of his youth.
“We have found it,” he gasped, his voice almost failing him.
“Don Miguel found it for us,” replied Ricardo. “The laugh is on him, after all. I wish I could send him the news. It would make this the end of a perfect day.”
Ramon Bazán chuckled and tried to say something. After a thickened, stammering word or two, his voice died in his throat. He swayed forward, his hands filled with Spanish dollars. They slid from his helpless fingers. Ricardo caught him in his arms and gently laid him down. The wizened brown face had turned ashen. It was pinched and very old.