hinkies an' the dollars."

He vanished again with a shout, they rushed to the hatch, and there, on
the steel grating leading to the ladder, curled together like two cats
that had died in battle, lay the Chinamen, Harman kneeling beside them,
his hands at work on the neck of a tied sack that chinked as he shook
it with the glorious rich, mellow sound that gold in bulk and gold in
specie alone can give.

The lanyard came away, and Harman, plunging his big hand in, produced
it filled with British sovereigns.

Not one of them moved or said a word for a moment, then Ginnell
suddenly squatted down on the grating beside Harman, and, taking a
sovereign between finger and thumb gingerly, as though he feared it
might burn him, examined it with a laugh. Then he bit it, spun it in
the air, caught it in his left hand and brought his great right palm
down on it with a bang.

"Hids or tails!" cried Ginnell. "Hids I win, tails you lose." He gave
a coarse laugh as he opened his palm, where the coin lay tail up.

"Hids it is," he cried, then he tossed it back into the bag and rose to
his feet.

"Come on, boys," said he, "let's bring the stuff down to the saloon and
count it."

"Better get it aboard," said Blood.

Harman looked up. The grin on his face stamped by the finding of the
gold was still there, and in the light coming through the hatch his
forehead showed beaded with sweat.

"I'm with Ginnell," said he, "let's get down to the saloon for an
overhaul. I can't wait whiles we row off to the schooner. I wants to
feel the stuff and I wants to divide it, b'g-d, right off and now.
Boys, we're rich, we sure are. It's the stroke of my life, and I can't
wait for no rowin' on board no schooners before we divide up."

"Come on, then," said Blood.

The sack was much bigger than its contents, so there was plenty of grip
for him as he seized one corner. Then, Harman grasping it by the neck,
they lugged it out and along the deck and down the saloon companionway,
Ginnell following.

The Chinese had opened nearly all the cabin port-holes for the sake of
light to assist them in their plundering, and now as Blood and Harman
placed the sack on the slanting saloon table, the crying of gulls came
clearly and derisively from the cliffs outside, mixed with the hush of
the sea and the boost of the swell as it broke creaming and squattering
among the rocks. The lackadaisical ventilator cowl, which took an
occasional movement from st