This is what was scratched on the broad surface, in characters quite fresh and distinct: “Mas distante occidente.”
“Further west,” said Hawkins, behind me.
“Is that what it means in English?”
He nodded, and I turned to find the palm, which should be only a short way to the left.
Could this be it—this blasted trunk, looking as though lightning had struck it? Judging from its position it must be, and making a sign to Seth, we fell to with pick and spade.
We worked until I thought my back would break, and must have dug down more than three feet in the rich soil, when the spade struck an obstruction, and we heard the muffled grating of metal. Then the top of what seemed a small zinc box was uncovered.
Silently we toiled away, and within ten minutes more were able to drag forth the box from its resting place.
It was perhaps a foot square, and weighed so much that Seth and I took turns in lugging it along the beach towards the boat. Upon arriving there, I wrapped the box in a piece of tarpaulin, that the men might not see what it was, and placed it in the boat.
We saw nothing of our crew, but the sight of nearly a dozen immense water-melons laid on the beach proved that they had not been idle.
“Great Scott! I s’pose they’d bring melons for a week if I didn’t yell ‘Belay!’” ejaculated Seth; “how many do they think the boat can hold? I’ve got to hunt them up, for Captain Spencer wants no time wasted.”