“That’s all right,” replied Bee doggedly, “but when I find hidden treasure I have a look at it, no matter whose it is! And I mean to open that chest and see what’s inside! It’s Bill Glass’s, but we found it and we ought at least to have a look at it.”
Jack perhaps felt that Bee’s reasoning was faulty, but his own curiosity was too strong to allow of much conviction in his tones when he replied, “Well, we haven’t any business to open it, Bee, but—”
“Never mind the ‘buts’,” said Bee. “Where’s that pick? We’ll open it right here and have a look. Then we’ll put it in the launch and hand it over to Bill. Do you suppose there are jewels there, Jack? There must be gold, because it’s so heavy!”
The point of the pick solved the locks in a twinkling. Hal and Jack bent forward and Bee, after a moment of breathless hesitation, raised the lid.
The first thing that met their eyes was a layer or covering of yellow-brown material that turned out to be canvas, stained and rotted. It fell to pieces as Bee tried to lift it aside, revealing a strange hodge-podge of silver and silver-plate; oldfashioned butter-dishes, castors, spoon-holders, sugar-bowls, knives, forks, spoons!
“What do you think of that!” gasped Hal.
Bee delved into the mass, scattering the things to the ground. A watch-case minus the works—it might have been gold or only gold-plate—rewarded his search, as did a gold brooch set with coral. Then a small leather pouch, white with mold, secured with a leather thong that broke when Bee strove to loosen it, tumbled out of a sugar-bowl. Bee peered into the pouch and then inverted it. A number of coins fell out.
“That’s more like it!” Bee muttered.
They were all of silver, dollars and fifty-cent pieces, and when they were counted summed up to exactly twenty dollars. Bee tossed them back into the pouch disappointedly and proceeded to empty the chest. A ship’s clock was near the bottom, its brass green with verdigris, its dial chipped and cracked, its old hands pointing to fourteen minutes after seven.
“Now,” exclaimed Jack, “I’ll bet I know where Bill Glass got all those things he has on his walls! He dug them up here on the island!”