As we raised these above our heads, and peered into the darkness, we both gave a laugh.
"'Yo—ho—ho—and a bottle of rum,'" sang the "King."
For all along the walls stood, or lay prone on trestles, a silent company of hogsheads, festooned with cobwebs, like huge black wings. It was the pirate's wine cellar!
Such was our discovery for that day, but there is another matter which I must mention—the fact that, somehow, the news of our excavation seemed to have got down to the settlement. It is a curious fact, as the "King" observed, that if a man should start to dig for gold in the centre of Sahara, with no possible means of communicating with his fellows, on the third day, there would not fail to be some one to drop in and remark on the fineness of the weather. So it was with us. As a general thing, not once in a month did a human being wander into that wilderness where the "King" had made his home. There was nothing to bring them there, and, as I have made clear, the way was not easy. Yet we had hardly begun work when one and another idle nigger strolled in from the settlement, and stood grinning his curiosity at our labours.
"I believe it's them black parrots has told them," said old Tom, pointing to a bird common in the islands—something like a small crow with a parrot's beak. "They're very knowing birds."
I saw that Tom was serious. So I tried to draw him out.
"What language do they speak, Tom?" I asked.
"Them, sar? They speak Egyptian," he answered, with perfect solemnity.
"Egyptian!"