We pulled out the box, and emptied the coins still remaining in it into a heap on the ground, and added to them those which had fallen out, and to our eyes the pile of gold and silver seemed a mound of inexhaustible wealth.
However, we had divided the gold from the silver, and counted it out as nearly as we were able, for there were coins of various nations mixed up with the guineas of which Bill had spoken. We found that there was about twelve hundred pounds—a sum far larger than could have been expected to be found on board a trader in the South Seas.
As soon as we had counted out our money, we began to talk of how we could stow it away; and after much discussion we decided on carrying it to the hut where we were living, and putting it in the dead seaman’s chest.
As we were on our way back with it, just before we came to the fence, we saw some of the pigs of which Bill had told us, and I managed to catch a little squeaker to carry it back for our dinner; but its cries alarmed the mother, who came after us in hot haste, and if we had not been on the fence when she came up she would doubtless have made us pay for kidnapping her offspring. As it was, she caught hold of my trousers in her mouth, and would have hauled me back on top of her if, luckily, they had not been rather rotten and given way, Mrs. Pig falling back with a piece of tarry trousers in her mouth, while I tumbled over on the other side of the fence, by no means sorry to get off so cheaply.
The pigling I had caught I had chucked over before, so all the efforts of the old sow to rescue her darling child from its fate were fruitless, and we soon had him stewing in the iron pot.
Whilst he was cooking, we spoke of the money we had found, and what we should do with it, and puzzled our heads to know where the schooner had come from, and what nation she belonged to.
We thought she was English by the Bible and chart, but the money puzzled us more than enough; so at last we agreed not to bother ourselves about where it came from any more, and began to build castles in the air of buying or building a ship, of which Tom Arbor should be captain, and Bill Seaman and myself the two mates.
Whilst we were yarning away, Bill suddenly said, “I forgot something I found by the box the money was in. Look here!” and he pulled out of the breast of his shirt a small leather bag tied up carefully. “See,” he said, as he undid it and poured out the contents; “there’s a lot of pretty beads; pity they haven’t holes in ’em, or we might string ’em.”
“Well, they are pretty,” said both Tom and myself, as we eagerly bent over the little heap of shining balls; “but ’tis a pity they’re not of a size and true shaped. I suppose they’re some of the beads the natives wouldn’t have to do with. Never mind, we can keep them; there were none like them among the trade aboard of the Golden Fleece.”
The little bag had its contents restored to it, and was stowed away in the chest with our money, and we then all concluded it was time for bed.