There were many bales of linen and cloth. One of the cases which they forced open contained cutlery, and another was full of pistols; and from the weight of several which they did not attempt to open, they judged that they also contained firearms.
There were two small chests placed on the top of the others. They were strongly secured; but by means of a sharp stone, which served as a chisel, and another as a hammer, they managed to break one of them open. What was their surprise to find the case full of gold pieces! They had little doubt that the other also contained money. They, neither of them, had ever seen so much gold before.
“What shall we do with it?” cried Jack. “There’s enough here to let mother live like a lady till the end of her days, without going to sell fish at the market.”
“It is not ours, it belongs to somebody,” said Bill.
“That somebody will never come to claim it,” answered Jack. “Depend on it, he’s gone to the bottom, or ended his days somehow long ago, or he would have come back before this. These goods have been here for months, or years maybe, by the look of the packages; and depend on it the owners would not have let them stay where they are, if they could have come back to fetch them away.”
“But gold pieces won’t help us to buy food while we are shut up in the cavern. A few Dutch cheeses, with a cask of biscuits, would have been of more value,” observed Bill.
“You are right,” said Jack. “Still, I vote that we fill our pockets, so that if we have to hurry away, and have no time to came back here, we may carry some of the gold with us.”
Bill could not make up his mind to do this. The gold was not theirs, of that he felt sure, and Jack could not persuade him to overcome the principle he had always stuck to, of not taking, under any circumstances, what was not lawfully his own. If the owners were dead, it belonged to their heirs.
Jack did not see this so clearly. The money had been lost, and they had found it, and having found it, they had a right to it.
They must not, however, lose time by arguing the point. Jack put a handful or two of the money into his pocket.