"We have the trunk with the gold all safe—now, what have you to say?" I said.
"Indeed?" asked the doctor, in surprise.
"Not really, say not so," remarked the younger man, in mock alarm. "Why, then you seem to have what you've been after, what you are looking for. If that is all, you better let us turn the ship about and continue our journey. Why didn't you say you were looking for that trunk?"
A yell from the deck told me something was not right. I came up the companion, and looked out, holding my pistol ready for trouble. The messenger was standing at the side of the trunk. So also was Smith.
Two men had just opened it, and had dumped a lot of old iron and bolts onto the deck, where they lay in a pile of rusty, wet junk.
For a moment I gazed in amazement at the littered deck. Then I smiled.
"Do you suppose we could have made a mistake by any possible means?" I asked the express messenger.
"Not by any chance, not a chance. This is a plant—why should they sink this trunk with a line and buoy to it? It proves beyond all doubt they have got the stuff somewhere. They dropped it, hoping we would stop and haul it up, and they'd gain just so much time by the device."
"Then where in Davy Jones is the swag? Where could they have hidden it?"