arth retreated towards the cliff. The tide was still rising, and the
beach afforded but partial shelter from the fury of the billows.

"This is no place for us," said Wallbridge, gloomily.

"I don't think it is," drawled Harvey. "We can't stand it here a great
while."

"But I will make sure of one thing," added the late passenger of the
Waldo. "I have twelve hundred dollars in gold in my hand, and it may be
the means of drowning me."

"Gold isn't of much use to us just now," sighed Harvey, indifferently,
as he glanced around him to ascertain if there were any means of escape
to the high rocks above; but no man could climb the steep cliff beside
him.

"I worked two years in Cuba for this money, and I don't like to lose
it," said Wallbridge. "But I don't mean to be drowned on account of it."

As he spoke he kneeled down on the beach, and scooped out of the sand
and gravel a hole about a foot deep, into which he dropped the bag of
gold.

"Under that overhanging rock," said he, fixing in his mind the locality
of his "hidden treasure;" "I shall be able to find it again when I want
it."

"I hope you will," answered Harvey Barth, looking up at the mark
indicated by his companion.

It was little he cared for gold then, and leaving the owner of the
treasure to consider more particularly the place where he had buried it,
he walked along under the cliff in search of some shelter from the
billows, which every moment drenched him in their spray. He moved on
some distance, till an angle in the cliff carried it out into the deep
water. He had come to the end of the beach, and he halted there in
despair. He felt that there was no alternative but to lie down and die
in the angry waves, for it was better to be drowned than to be dashed to
pieces on the jagged rocks. A bright flash of lightning, followed by a
fearful crash of thunder, as though the bolt had struck upon the land
near him, illuminated the scene for an instant. That flash, which might
have carried death and destruction in its path on the land, kindled a
new hope in the bosom of Harvey Barth, for it revealed to him an opening
in the angle of the rock. The cliff seemed to have been rent asunder,
and a torrent of fresh water was pouring down through it from the high
land above.

Harvey entered the opening, walking with difficulty over the large,
loose stones, rounded by the flow of the stream. The ascent was steep,
and the torrent of water that poured down through