The three inseparables were snugly rolled up in their blankets, Bill loudly snoring in his bunk, when the distant booming of a gun caused Walter to raise his head and say drowsily, "Hello! a steamer's in."
"I don't care if there's twenty steamers," Charley yawned, at the same time burying his nose still deeper under his blanket; "I was almost gone and now you've made me begin all over again. All ashore that's goin' ashore."
[XIX]
HEARTS OF GOLD
Mr. Bright came in that steamer. As Walter's letter seemed to hold out fair hopes of recovering some part of the Southern Cross and her cargo, the merchant had decided to look into the matter himself, though in truth both he and his partners had long regarded the venture as a dead loss.
Had he suddenly dropped from the clouds, the Argonaut's little company could not have been more astonished than when the merchant stepped on deck, smiling benignantly at the evident consternation he thus created.
After a hearty greeting all round, though poor Walter turned all colors at the remembrance of how and where they had last met, Mr. Bright began by explaining that he had found them out through the consignee of the Southern Cross. "But where in the world is the Southern Cross?" he asked. "Here has the boatman been rowing me around for the last hour, trying to find her. Nothing has happened to her, I hope," he hastily added, observing the friends exchanging sly glances.
This question, of course, led to an explanation from Walter, during which the old merchant's face was a study. His first look of annoyance soon changed to one of blank amazement, finally settling down into a broad smile of complete satisfaction when the story was all told. Then he shook his gray head as if the problem was quite too knotty for him to solve, how these boys, hardly out of their teens, should have dared, first to engage in such a brilliant transaction, and then have succeeded in carrying it through to the end without a hitch.
"Pretty well for beginners, I must say," he finally declared. "Taken altogether that's about the boldest operation I ever heard of, and I've known a few in my experience as a business man. But," looking at Walter, "where's all this money? Quite safe, I hope."