86“When they missed it, they were panic-stricken. They didn’t know what to do with the gold. If it had been in small bills that couldn’t have been traced, the matter would have been easy enough. But they feared that if Mr. Montgomery escaped and recovered there would be a regular hue and cry, and a close watch kept for any one who was spending gold pieces, which is rather an unusual thing to do in these days of paper money. Of course, professional sharpers would have found some way out, but these men were not that, and now that they had taken part in a crime they were in deadly fear of detection.
“They concluded at last that the best thing they could do for the present was to leave the gold in its chest carefully concealed in that lonely place, sail their ship to some harbor where they could sell it for what it would bring, and then ship together on a long voyage that would keep them out of the country until the storm blew over. Thus each could watch the others and when they got back they could get the chest and divide the gold among them.
“Tom told me that when Dick got to this point, he couldn’t hold in any longer but asked him point blank where it was that he had buried the treasure chest.
“‘We didn’t bury it,’ Dick answered. ‘We hid it in––’
87“Just then the skipper called Tom and he had to leave Dick, but promised to come back as soon as he could.
“But one duty after another kept him busy, and he wasn’t able to go back to Dick for some time. Then he found that a great change had taken place. Dick’s fever had gone down, he had a little appetite, and it was clear that he was on the mend. Perhaps the relieving of his conscience by telling of the crime had helped him get better.
“However that might have been, he was a very different Dick from the night before. His mouth was shut as tight as an oyster, and Tom couldn’t get another word out of him. When he reminded him that he hadn’t finished his confession of the night before, Dick stared at him coldly and asked him what confession he was talking about. Tom told him, and Dick said that was the first he had heard of anything of the kind. Said he must have been out of his mind, if he’d gotten off any nonsense like that. And he gave Tom a hint that it wouldn’t be healthy for him, if he spread the report among the rest of the crew.
“He didn’t need to do that, for Tom had no idea of talking. He knew that if he did, it would be a very easy thing for one of the half dozen confederates to knock him senseless and heave him overboard some dark night. So he kept a quiet tongue in his head, and neither he nor Dick ever 88 referred to the matter again as long as Tom was on board.
“As luck would have it, they soon after fell in with another ship of the same line that was on its way back home. Some of her crew had been swept overboard in a cyclone, and she was short-handed. Her skipper asked the captain of Tom’s craft to let him have a couple of men and he consented. Tom and one other sailor volunteered, and they were transferred to the other ship. It was a lucky thing for Tom, because his old ship went down in a hurricane off Cape Horn and every soul on board was lost.”
“Is that certain?” asked Bill.