AND now a little more than a week had passed since the great hurricane of which I have just told you fell upon them. I recollect that it was a Sunday morning. Sundays were generally spent in doing no work, and in taking a stroll around the island. But they had had no rest since the day of the storm, for the time between then and now had all been spent in repairing the damages that had been wrought. Now they were pretty comfortably settled again, and the day being bright and fair, they had fixed that it should be spent in taking a look about them.

It was cool and pleasant, and they strolled leisurely up the western side of the island, skirting the belt of Mangrove bushes, around the northern end, past the barren sand flat, and so down the Atlantic beach again. By the middle of the afternoon they had come back to the lower end of the island, and had gone out on to the spit.

The water that had washed over this place on the day of the storm had carried away a great deal of the sand. The surf ran much farther up the beach, and Tom noticed that the ribs of the wreck stood higher out of the sand than he had ever seen them. They did not go farther than the wreck, but laid themselves down close to it, looking out across the water toward the distant island that was then looming to the southward, talking about it and about their chances of getting to it.

Jack was in a more than usually downhearted state as to their not being able to get away from the place that they were on. He said that so far as he could see, they might have to live there all their lives and then die, and no one be the wiser of it. Tom was feeling gloomy himself on this particular day, and he felt very impatient at poor Jack when he began his complaining. He felt that if complaints were to be made, it was he that should make them, and not Jack, for had he not much more to lose by staying where he was than the other? I know how selfish this was, but there are times when we are given over to spells of selfishness, and, though such a state may be very wrong, it is yet very natural.

“You might just as well have patience, Jack,” said he, “We’ve tried to get away already, and you know what came of it. We certainly can’t live here forever without sighting a vessel of some sort at some time or other.”

“We haven’t seen a sign of a ship up to this time,” said Jack, gloomily.

“That’s very true, and maybe we’ll have to wait till the war’s over before one comes along. You know very well that there’s no shipping being done nowadays.”

“Wait till the war’s over!” cried Jack, raising himself suddenly on his elbow; “why, heavens and earth, man, it may be half a dozen years to come, before the war’s over!”

“Perhaps it may be a dozen years, for all that I know,” said Tom, “but all the same you’ll have to wait, so you may just as well keep your tongue still between your teeth, and be patient about it!”

“Wait?” cried Jack, and he thumped his clenched fist down on the sand. “By G—I’ll not wait! I’ll do something; see if I don’t! I’ll not let any twenty miles of water keep me tied up in this God-forsaken place! Why don’t you do something? You’re so full of your d—d contrivances for making us comfortable; why don’t you puzzle out some plan for getting us off altogether?”

Tom was lying on the sand, his hands under his head, and one leg crossed comfortably over the other. He did not move while Jack was talking, and he made a point of seeming to be very easy under it, but he was getting more and more angry all the time. He did not answer Jack immediately, but after a while he spoke as quietly as he could.

“You’re unreasonable, Jack,” said he. “Haven’t I done everything that I could do to get us away; haven’t I built a raft and put up signals on the sand hills; haven’t I set a dozen or more bladder-bags adrift? The chances are that some of them’ll be picked up, and in good time a ship’ll come to us. I don’t see that you have any reason to complain, and if you have reason, you’d better try to do something yourself;—you’re welcome to it. As for our getting away;—we’ve tried to get away already, and you know what came of it. In my opinion we came so devilish near getting away, that we liked never to have got back to this or to any other island.”

“Do you mean to say that you’re so scared at a little risk that you’re afraid to try it over again?”

“I don’t know about being scared, but I certainly ain’t going to try it over again.”

“You ain’t?”

“No.”

Jack did not say a word for a little while, but Tom felt that he was looking at him very hard. At last he spoke again.

“It’s my belief, Tom Granger,” said he, “that you haven’t got an ounce of pluck left about you. I believe that you’re that dull that you’d be content to live here forever, if you could get enough to fill your belly!”

This was too much for Tom. He sat up suddenly, facing the other. “Jack Baldwin,” said he, and his voice trembled with his anger, “understand me, once for all. If we’re to live together, or to talk together, or to have anything to do with one another, I never want to hear such speech from your mouth as you’ve just given me; do you understand me?”

Here he paused for a moment, and then he burst out passionately: “What do you know how much I want to get away? Do you suppose that I don’t want to get away because I don’t keep up an everlasting whimpering and whining about it, as you do? What do you want to get away for, anyhow? Is the only woman that you love in all the world waiting at home for you, looking for you, and praying for you, and wondering why she don’t hear from you—thinking, maybe, that you’re dead. God help her! I wish that I was dead, and that she knew it. It would be better for us both, I guess!” Then he rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands, rocking his body to and fro as he sat.

Jack did not say another word, and in a few moments Tom heard him get up and walk away. After a little while Tom got a grip on himself and looked up again.

Jack was standing just below the wreck and over toward the ocean. He had gathered what seemed to be a handful of small, black, flat shells, and he was busy in skimming them out across the surf. Presently Tom got up and walked slowly over to where he was standing. He was heartily ashamed of the way in which he had spoken to the other, and would have given a great deal if he could only have recalled his words; but that is a thing that can never be done. He stood a little behind Jack, with his hands in his breeches pockets, looking down at the sand the while. After a while Jack spoke, without looking around.

“Look’ee, Tom Granger,” said he, doggedly, “I’m sorry I spoke to you the way that I did. I didn’t know that you had a sweetheart at home,—you ought to ha’ told me before. I’ll never say any more about getting away, if I have to stay on this d—d island to the crack of doom, and that I promise you.”

“That’s all right,” muttered Tom; “don’t let’s say any more about it.”

One of the round black things that Jack was skimming out to sea, lay at his feet, and without knowing what he did, he stooped and picked it up as he was speaking. He turned it over and over in his palm in an absent sort of a way, for he was feeling very uncomfortable at the time.

He turned it over and over, until, after a while, it worked through his sight into his mind; then he looked more closely at it, for he had never seen the like of it before. It was not a shell, neither was it a pebble, for there were no pebbles on the island. It was thin and perfectly round, and as black as ink. On one side of it was a raised surface that bore a faint likeness to the rude image of a head; below this was something that looked like a row of small figures. He brushed it smooth with the palm of his hand, and then looked more closely at it, turning it around and around, and this way and that. All of a sudden a thought struck him, and I cannot describe the thrill that went through him as he looked at that which he held. As this thought went through his mind, he closed his hand and looked slowly around him, as though he was in a dream. I can distinctly recollect that that singular feeling which we all have felt at times passed over him;—a feeling as though all this had happened before, but as though it had happened in a dream. Then he looked at the object once more, and could just make out the figures;—they were 1, 7, 9 and 2. He picked at the edge of the disk, and a white sparkle followed the scratching of his thumb nail.

“Good Lord, Jack!” cried he, “look! look!”

There was a ring in his voice that made Jack jump as though he had been struck. “Look at what, Tom?” said he, in a half-frightened voice.

“Look at this!” said Tom, and he held out that which he had picked up a minute before. “What do you think it is?”

Jack had three or four of them in his own hand. “I don’t know,” said he, turning them over and over. Suddenly he too began to look more closely at them. “Why, Tom—Tom—” he began, “is it—is it—”

“It’s money;—it’s silver money, Jack, as sure as I am a living sinner!”

“Why, so it is!” cried Jack, “why, so it is, Tom! This is a half a dollar, and so is this, and this, and this! Why, Tom, here’s another, and another! Great heavens, Tom! the sand’s covered with them!”

And so it was. Here and there would be two or three lying together, but in most cases they were scattered about like shells at high water mark. Jack sat down quite overcome, and then began laughing in a foolish sort of a way, but there was a catch in his laugh that sounded mightily like crying. “Tom,” said he, “we’re rich men! Tom, did you ever see or hear of the like? Why, Tom—”

Then he stopped all of a sudden, and, scrambling to his feet, fell to gathering up the money as though he had been crazy.

For an hour or more they hunted up and down, picking up silver pieces as children pick up chestnuts under a chestnut tree. After a while they only found a few stray coins here and there, and finally they cleared the beach of them altogether. Then they sat down to count them. Tom had about two hundred dollars; Jack had gathered more nearly three hundred than two. Altogether they had a little less than five hundred dollars between them.

“Where do you suppose they came from, Tom?” said Jack, after a while. He was sitting on the sand when he spoke, holding a lot of the coins in his hand and turning them over with his fingers.

Tom shook his head. This was the same thought that had been puzzling him for some time past, and, as yet, he had not been able to answer it.

After a while they went back to their hut, carrying their money with them. Jack was very talkative and excited, but Tom was as silent as the other was noisy, for he was pondering over the matter of Jack’s question—Where did they all come from?

Where did they all come from? He thought and thought till his brain was muddled with his thinking. Could there have been a treasure buried here by the buccaneers in times past? It was a wild thought, but Tom was ready for any kind of wild thought at the time. But then the date of the coin that he had found—1792—that was long after the time of the buccaneers. He picked up another piece and looked at it; it also bore the same date, 1792, and so did another and another; they were all of the same mintage. He did not know what to think of it.

Jack must have had a notion that Tom was puzzling his wits over this, for he sat beside the fire all of the evening without saying a word. Every now and then he arose and threw some more brushwood on the flames; beyond that he hardly moved, but sat in silence, watching Tom furtively.

“Tom,” said he, at last.

“Well, Jack.”

“Do you suppose that it could rain money?”

“Stuff and nonsense!”

“I don’t see any stuff and nonsense about it. I’ve heard of it raining stones, and why shouldn’t it rain money as well? We never found any before that hurricane came on us.”

“That’s true enough, Jack,” said Tom, “I hadn’t thought of that.” For the finding of this money had driven all thought of the hurricane out of his head.

“Then you think it might have rained money, after all?”

“No; I don’t think that.”

“Humph! Well, what do you think about it?”

“I don’t know what to think about it; but you’ve put a new idea into my head.”

It was later than usual when they went to rest that night. Tom laid awake hour after hour, his thoughts as busy as bees. Where had the money come from? This was the question that ran through his brain unceasingly, keeping him awake as the silent night moved along. And then, why should all the coins bear the same date of 1792?

Suddenly the whole thing opened before him, and he saw it all as clearly as I see the hand before my face. He could hardly help shouting aloud, but he bethought him that Jack might be asleep, and that it would be a pity to awaken him.

“Jack,” whispered he, in a low voice.

“Helloa!” said the other, quickly, for he was wide awake.

“I think I’ve found it out!”

“Found out what?”

“Found where the money came from.”

“Well, where did it come from?” said Jack, and Tom could see in the gloom that he sat up in his excitement.

“Did you notice that all the money bore the same date, 1792?” said Tom.

“No; I didn’t notice that.”

“Well, it did, and, what’s more, it’s all Spanish money.”

“But where did it come from?” said Jack.

“Jack,” said Tom, slowly, “as sure as I’m lying here, that wreck on the sand-spit is the wreck of a Spanish treasure ship.”

“Tom!” shouted Jack, “you’re right! What a fool I was not to think of that! Why, it’s as plain as the nose on your face!”

No doubt you who read this have guessed the matter long ago, and have wondered that Tom and Jack were so dull of wits as not to have thought of it before. But the idea never entered their heads that a fortune was lying buried in the sand that covered the poor old wreck that had been so constantly before their eyes for almost a year, and when they found money like pebbles along the beach, it never struck them that it could have been washed out of those crumbling ribs, whose only value had been that they gave them a rusty spike every now and then.

Jack was wild to go out into the night, and to hunt for money there and then, and it was as much as Tom could do to quiet him and make him lie down and try to get a little sleep. Of course, neither of them caught a wink, and both were stirring at the dawn of day.

They hardly ate a bite of food before they set to work.

By noontide Tom had made a couple of rude shovels, the blades of which were of the plankings of the cutter over their heads, and the handles of which were two straight limbs, cut from the neighboring thicket. It was a long tedious piece of work to make these shovels, for Tom had no tools to work with but Jack’s knife, and only half of the blade of that was left. Tom labored steadily at the shovels, but Jack was very impatient at the slowness of the work, and was continually urging him to hurry matters. I suppose that he was back and forth from the hut to the wreck a dozen times in the course of the morning.

But at last the shovels were finished. Tom tried to persuade Jack to eat a bite before he went to work, but Jack would have nothing to do with food; he shouldered the two shovels and started away to the sand-spit, leaving Tom to cook and eat his dinner by himself. When Tom went over to the wreck a half an hour later, he found Jack busily at work, and a great hole already scooped out in the sand,—but Jack had not yet found a cent of money.

I do not think that they had any idea of what they were undertaking, and what a tremendous piece of work it was that lay before them. I confess that Tom was as foolish as Jack, in having a notion that all they would have to do would be to scoop away a little sand, and pick up money by the handful; but they found nothing either on that day or the next, or the next, or for a week or more to come. Jack began to be very much discouraged, and said more than once that he was certain that Tom had been mistaken in his notion that the wreck was that of a treasure ship.

Tom himself began to be a little down-hearted, and more than once suspected that he had made a wrong guess. But when he brought to mind that the money was of one mintage, and, from the way in which it lay, that it was plainly washed out of the wreck by the water that had flowed over the sand-spit at the time of the hurricane, he would feel reassured that he was right, though he could not account for the reason why a part of it should have been washed up, while the rest seemed to lie so deeply beneath the surface. So he managed to keep Jack pretty steadily to his work, though, as the days dragged along and nothing came of their labor, it became a great task to do so.

But on the tenth day they made a find. They were just about to give up their work for the evening, when Tom unearthed a small, wooden box. It was about a foot long, six inches wide, and three or four inches deep. It was very rotten, and fell to pieces as Jack tried to pick it up. It was full of money, which tumbled all in a heap as the box crumbled in Jack’s hand. The money must have been in rolls when it was put into the case, for there were scraps of mouldy paper mixed with it, and some of the coins had bits of paper glued to them by the black rust that had gathered upon them.

This was the first money that they found by digging, and Jack nearly went crazy over it. Tom himself was very much excited, but he did not act as absurdly as Jack, who danced, and laughed, and shouted like one possessed. It was their first gleam of good luck, and it was a good thing that it came when it did, for it was speedily followed by the worst of ill fortune.

That night there came a south-east storm that did great damage. It had been brewing all of the afternoon, but Tom and Jack had not seen it, or, if they had seen it, had thought nothing of it, for heretofore the wash of the surf had never run as far up as the wreck, even in the heaviest weather. But so much of the sand had been carried away that the surf came a great deal higher than it had done before. It was blowing quite heavily when Tom and Jack went over to the sand-spit the next morning, and a part of the wash of the breakers had found its way into the place that they had been digging, so that the sand had caved in here and there. They tried to do all that they could to protect their work, but it was no good, for, by the time that evening had come, the place that they had dug out was half full of sand, and by the next morning it was nearly levelled over, and all of their labor was to be done again. As soon as the storm was over they set to work, and in a week’s time had the sand nearly all dug out. Then came another blow, and the same thing happened as before.

After this they set about the work with more system. They built a breakwater of stakes, between which they wove twigs and grass. This was Tom’s plan, and they found that it kept the sea back completely, for, as I have said, it was only the wash of the breakers that ran over the place that they were at work. It never filled up again as long as Tom and Jack were engaged upon it.

But all this cost a great deal of time and labor, and I doubt very much if they had not found the box of money whether they would ever have struck a shovel into the sand again after the first storm came upon them; so that it was a lucky thing that they found the box when they did, and that the southeaster did not come a day sooner.

For three or four months they worked as never men worked before. It is strange to think of how men will labor and toil for money, even when money will do them as little good as it did Jack and Tom on this lonely island. It is a wonder that they did not kill themselves with the work and the hardships that they went through during that time. However, the excitement that they were living under kept them up to a great degree.

During all these months they lived upon little else than fish. Now and then they would gather a few mussels or catch a crab or two, but their chief living was fish—broiled fish for breakfast, dinner and supper, until they both grew to loathe the very sight of it. Tom got such a surfeit of them in that time that he could never bear the smell of a frying fish from that day to this.

Upon the first of September they counted over the money that they had unearthed, and they found that they had over eight thousand dollars in all. It was made up of silver coins of all sizes, large and small.

They only had three days more of work on the island, and, as two of those days were blank, they did not add very much to the sum that they had already gathered.