"Yes," said Tony; "I been down. Us'es was sayin', Bascom an' me, dat maybe yo'-all like to go in wid us raisin' dose cannon." Bascom pulled his sleeve, but he went right on. "Dere may be a little money in sellin' 'em faw a show, an' den Bascom he say he want one on de Mystery."
Bascom looked relieved, and Narcisse disgusted, but there was nothing to gather from Captain Lazaré's face.
"Dat was w'at I t'ought," he said. "Dere ain't nosing goin' on, an' anysing we can make is dat much ahead."
It was in this spirit that work was begun the next day. Not a word was said about the possibility of treasure, yet everyone knew that they were treasure-hunting. In these haunts of the old pirates children were brought up on legends of buried gold. But Bascom became perfectly absorbed in the guns. They could not be accounted for. No one in all the country remembered seeing or hearing of the wreck of a war-vessel in the bay. Nothing like that had happened during the war; the bay was too shallow for any modern ships. Its shoals were what had made it so attractive to the pirates, but the fate of all the pirate boats was known, and none had ever been lost there, nor had they ever sunk a victim inside the islands. Everything pointed to the old discoverers, the Spaniards and the Frenchmen. Bascom, who had taken small interest in the history of that or any other region, began to cram his mind eagerly with everything in the shape of legend or record or theory until the early days of the coast were at his fingers' ends.
The bay was thick with boats to watch the raising of the first gun. It had taken a long time to get the grappling-irons fastened. There was not a suit of diving armor to be had, and the men were obliged to go down again and again before they could pry the gun far enough out of its hard bed of shells to be grasped. When at last they felt it yielding to the windlass there was a big cheer, and then a breathless pause. The gun came on deck coated with shells and almost choked with barnacles and rust. Bascom flung himself atop of it and began to scrape. The others crowded over him. But there were no distinguishing marks. What he could disclose of the gun's surface showed it to be of some alloy similar to bronze. It was simply formed, and though not like any modern gun, neither Bascom with his new knowledge, nor anyone else who saw it, could find anything by which to guess its age. Of all the queer things that from time to time had made their appearance in Pontomoc Bay it was the most mysterious.
"You should sell it to some big museum," said a New Orleans man who had come aboard from his row-boat.
"They'll have to pay us'es our price before they gets it," Bascom said; "things don't come so cheap that have been laid by and saved so keerful for hundreds and hundreds of years."
"They are mo' of them down there," began Captain Lazaré, whose gray hair was wet and clinging to his hard old head from diving to superintend. "Le's not be a-wastin' time, boys."
"I would bring up everything there is in the way of wreckage," added the gentleman; "it may help to identify the guns."
But nothing that was ever said or found threw any light. The fragments of worm-eaten timber which they brought up seemed to have been rudely hewn, and riveted with wooden pegs for bolts. It was old, old, old—and there the story ended.