41 Lure O Gold 1904

The Steam Collier
This was rather a disheartening circumstance, for
had the gold been hidden near the place where their
berths had been, they would surely
have burrowed
about that quarter. I had toiled hard, despite the
fact that my axe-handle had become splintered a little
and was hurting my hand at every stroke.
I paid closer
attention to the two pirates and became at last thor
oughly convinced, by the way they worked and by the
looks in their faces, that they had not the slightest no
tion of the actual whereabouts of the treasure.
Like
myself and the others aboard, they knew that the gold
was in the ship, but where to find it was another matter.
Relaxing my vigilance for a while from sheer weari
ness, I asked Mr. Nason to excuse me, and went up on
the hurricane deck, where I lay for a moment near the
great naked square in the painted canvas, where the
after staterooms, the smoking-room
and rear house
had stood. The debris that littered the deck had be
come a general mass that lay helter-skelter, its fag-ends
of canvas and cordage whipped by the winds and twisted
fantastically.
I
stretched out for a quiet hour of rest
near a little knot of passengers, and was lying flat on
my back looking up into the blue tenuity of the sky,
when the breeze shifted a bit, bringing down some of
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