One and all they echoed it.
“Gold—gold—gold!” shrilled Nicky.
Down again plunged Mr. Coleson, to emerge above the surface with a second bar which was eagerly grasped by Tom. It weighed, he guessed, about ten pounds, and was, when examined, what appeared to be pure gold of very fine quality, not very large, for gold is heavy metal.
“The Spaniards used to melt down the Inca images and ornaments,” Cliff recalled. “Then they would ship them to Spain in galleons. There must be a lot of this gold—isn’t there, Mr. Coleson?”
“Yes—a lot!” he answered.
All resentment vanished from the hearts of these strangely united enemies under the impulse of a common gold madness. Mr. Coleson dived under, several times, bringing up bars similar to those already found. Then it was decided that they had better take what they had, go to the Libertad, and wait till daylight for full boatloads.
“People have been lost in these islands—among the twisting, blind channels,” observed Mr. Coleson. “We laid down markers on the islands as we came in, each time, and we had better row out before it gets too dark to see them.”
So they all returned to El Libertad and spent an excited evening, hardly daring to sleep for fear they would wake up to discover that their treasure was only dream-gold. But it was solid, in the morning light, gleaming with its yellow luster when they scraped the surface. They had found a treasure for which men might easily struggle and battle, kill and be killed.
The next few days were full of hard work; nevertheless, it was work that brought no complaints.
The recovery of the golden bars was necessarily somewhat slow because only one man could work in the pit at a time. Mr. Coleson, Jim and Senor Ortiga took turns, but most of the diving fell to Mr. Coleson, for as they brought up more bars the level of the bottom fell lower by their removal, and the shorter people were totally under water when they tried to secure the bars, and had to dive, grab a bar, thrust themselves upward and be caught by those who waited.