‘Every ounce of it, sir. Look at her beam.’
‘Well, here is a ship that was bound to or from some South American port. She’s too far afield for considerations of the Spanish Main and the towns of the Panama coast. Was treasure carried to or from the cities of the eastern American seaboard? I cannot say. But if she was from round the Horn—which I don’t think likely, for the Manilla galleons clung to the Pacific, and transhipments came to old Spain by way of the Cape—then I should say there may be treasure aboard of her.’
‘Well, I’m going to overhaul her, if I’m here for a twelvemonth,’ cried Dowling.
‘So says I,’ exclaimed Head.
‘Would she float, I wonder,’ said Cutbill, ‘when the water’s gone out of her?’
‘I’ll offer no opinion on that,’ said I, laughing. ‘I hope I may not be on board should it come to a trial.’
‘If she was full up with cargo it must have wasted a vast,’ remarked Head.
‘Where did these here Spaniards keep their bullion?’ exclaimed Finn, stroking down his long cheek-bones.
‘Why down aft under the capt’n’s cabin. They was leary old chaps; they wouldn’t stow it forrads or amidships,’ exclaimed Cutbill.
‘All the water will have run out of her by to-morrow morning, I allow,’ said Finn; ‘but there’s no sarching of her with it up over a man’s head.’