The excitement had now risen to fever heat. The men would have filled their pockets with the gold, there and then, had not Job Seal drawn a revolver and in a roaring voice threatened to shoot the first man dead who touched a coin.
But the gluttony of gold was upon them, and they attacked the third box with such violence that it was open in a jiffy.
No gold was, however, within—only a big bag of thick hide heavily riveted with copper, and securely fastened with bolt and lock.
“Bank-notes in that, perhaps!” remarked the skipper excitedly, ignorant of the fact that there were no bank-notes in the days when that curious craft had sailed the ocean. “Break it open, boys. Look alive!”
“Be-low!” cried old Dicky Dunn, and as his shipmates drew aside he raised his axe and with one well-directed blow broke off the rusted bolt and in an instant half-a-dozen hands were plunged into the leathern sack.
What they brought forth was certainly disappointing—merely two folded pieces of yellow, time-stained parchment, one having a big seal of lead hanging to it by a cord, and the other a small seal of yellow wax attached to a strip of the parchment itself.
The skipper glanced at them in disgust, and then handed them to me, as a man of some book-learning, to decipher.
I had steadied myself with my back fixed to the panelling and was examining the first of the documents, when of a sudden we were all of us startled by hearing a weird sound which sent through us a thrill of alarm.
It was plain and unmistakable—a deep, cavernous human voice!
Every man of us stood silent, looked at each other, and held his breath.