sadly and shrugged his shoulders, looking pityingly at Rajah,
who was playing at some sort of a game with grains of rice in a pannikin.
We went up the ladder again to see what the pirates were about, for it
was quite still in the hold, and silence seemed more ominous than a
telltale clatter.

Buckrow and Long Jim came up with a bulging sack slung in a rope. Thirkle
gave them a hand up the ladder to the boat-deck, but he let them do the
hard work.

Petrak slipped a lashing over the wheel and leaned over the bridge-rail,
grinning down at them, and made some remark which caused Buckrow to laugh
so inordinately that he dropped his end of the rope, and the sack fell on
the head of the ladder. He pulled it up on the deck, and, thrusting his
hand into his trousers-pocket, drew out a handful of gold coins and
hurled them up at Petrak.

They struck the remnant of the storm-apron and rattled to the fore-deck,
some of the glittering disks pelting Thirkle, who was halfway up the
ladder. Petrak threw out his hand to catch the coins, and I saw that his
wrists were still encircled by steel bands.

Thirkle reprimanded them, and Petrak went back to the wheel, and Buckrow
and Long Jim hoisted the sack into the boat and stowed it. While Petrak
held the spoke of the wheel with one hand, he rasped at the iron upon it
with a file, cutting away the heavy manacle.

Riggs and I took turns at the scuttle, and saw Thirkle and Buckrow and
Long Jim carry up a dozen or more sacks. Some were put in the second
boat, farther aft and out of the range of our vision, hidden as it was
from us by the corner of the superstructure.

During the time they were below we could hear them smashing the
treasure-chests. While they were busy in the storeroom I hacked away at
the scuttle-board, which was thick and of hard wood, well seasoned by
continual wetting and drying in the tropic sun.

To make matters worse, I found that it was full of brass nails driven in
from the outside, and Riggs told me some sailor had put a border of nails
round the board and made a crude nameplate by spelling out the name of
the vessel with nail-heads. The blade of my knife encountered these
nails, and I made slow work of cutting a hole large enough to admit the
muzzle of our pistol.

When they had all the gold up they stowed the boats with tinned goods and
casks of water. Then they opened a bottle of wine and drank its contents,
and Thirkle hurled it toward the forecastle, and