The lady was now wrapped up in shawls, and her face was heavily veiled. The clergyman himself seemed a bit nervous, but they finally went over the side with their luggage all right.
What he had told about that steamer trunk was no joke. Two assistant stewards could hardly lift it.
Bound with iron and stoutly strapped, it seemed as though it would burst of its own weight before it was placed in the lugger that would take it ashore or rather to the small schooner that lay a few miles distant and which the doctor had pointed out as the vessel he had chartered as a yacht to take them on their summer cruise to the beautiful Mediterranean.
I waved my hand, and then went below to turn in, for the last night is always a bad one for the chief mate when making the land.
"Bang, bang, bang," came blows upon my door, followed by a yell from without. I expected to find the ship in collision, and leaped from my bunk half asleep. The express messenger stood without, accompanied by four assistants and the steward, the purser, and the second officer.
"Safe blown, sir!" yelled the messenger. "It's bloomin' well half empty, sir! Nearly a quarter of a million gone. Party from above—you knew them, the steward says!"
I ran with them to Room Sixty-two, and burst in where the captain stood gazing at a hole in the deck. He turned to me, but said nothing. The rug which had been placed over the opening was thrown aside, and there lay a hole eighteen inches wide right in the floor.
Upon the sides the charred wood told of some fierce heat to which it had been exposed. The heavy steel plate beneath had been melted and burned as if the blast of a volcano had seared it.
Ragged-edged, melted, and bent lay the plate, and beneath it again lay the hole in the express safe right in the treasure room beneath. Down and through all led the seared hole. Some mighty heat had melted, burned, and blown away the plates of hard steel.
I leaned over, and gazed down into the room where the gold had been packed in the short, stout boxes of the bank. It was scattered about, thrown all around in confusion as though the robbers had at last given up all hope of getting more out.