“Yes,” I said, my interest being keenly stirred as I guessed from the slow and almost solemn way in which she addressed me, that she had stumbled probably on some mystery of the sea—something, at any rate, unexpected and out of the way, and yet something that might touch us nearly. “Yes,” I said, watching her intently, “it is naught of evil import for us, surely?”
“That I know not as yet,” she replied. “Rather does it portend a benefit; time alone can tell. This is how we came to find the gold, and we might never have gotten it of ourselves—we were told of it.”
“How was that?”
“While our search through the galleon was being made, two men, bound in fetters and chained together, were discovered in a small, dark den, low down in the ship; a hole, indeed, so cunningly concealed from observation that even the very sailors on board the Capitana might not have known of its existence, if its being hidden from them were deemed necessary or expedient. The men were half-starved, and so utterly wretched that when they were brought into the light they were as the blind, and gibbered like idiots. What they say, now that they have come to themselves, is pitiful enough, and I believe they are telling the truth.”
“Who are they?” asked I, as she meditated on their story. “What account do they give of themselves? You have said nothing about the chest of gold.”
“One of them,” said she “tells me that he is a Geraldine, a near relative of Garrett, Earl of Desmond.”
“An Irishman!” I broke in.
“Yes, so he says, and I doubt it not,” said she. “The other is a Spaniard, Don Francisco de Vilela by name, a man of rank, if one may judge of him from his speech and carriage. But you will see them yourself shortly.”
“What is their explanation of their being prisoners on board of the galleon? Is it concerned with the chest of gold?”