"

"And here's another!" cried Ailie, with a little scream of delight, as
she observed the rim of a small keg just peeping out above the sand.

"Well done, Ailie," cried Glynn, as he ran to the spot and quickly dug
up the keg in question, which, however, proved to be full of nails, to
Ailie's great disappointment, for she expected it to have turned out a
keg of biscuits.

"How many casks did you bury?" inquired the captain.

"It's meself can't tell," replied Briant; "d'ye know, Tim?"

"Three, I think; but we was in sich a hurry that I ain't sartin
exactly."

"Well, then, boys, look here!" continued the captain, drawing a pretty
large circle on the sand, "set to work like a band of moles an' dig up
every inch o' that till you come to the water."

"That's your sort," cried Rokens, plunging elbow-deep into the sand at
once.

"Arrah! then, here's at ye; a fair field an' no favour at any price,"
shouted Briant, baring his arms, straddling his legs, and sending a
shower of sand behind him that almost overwhelmed Gurney, before that
stout little individual could get out of the way.

The spirits of the men were farther rejoiced by the coming up of the
other party, bearing the good news that the keel of the boat was safe,
as well as all her planking and the carpenter's tools, which fortunately
happened to have been secured in a sheltered spot. From the depths of
despair they were all suddenly raised to renewed and sanguine hope, so
that they wrought with the energy of gold-diggers, and soon their toil
was rewarded by the discovery of that which, in their circumstances,
they would not have exchanged for all the golden nuggets that ever were
or will be dug up from the prolific mines of Australia, California, or
British Columbia, namely, three casks of biscuit, a small keg of wine, a
cask of fresh water, a roll of tobacco, and a barrel of salt junk.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

PREPARATIONS FOR A LONG VOYAGE--BRIANT PROVES THAT GHOSTS CAN DRINK--
JACKO ASTONISHES HIS FRIENDS, AND SADDENS HIS ADOPTED MOTHER.

"Wot _I_ say is one thing; wot _you_ say is another--so it is. I dun
know w'ich is right, or w'ich is wrong--no more do you. P'raps you is,
p'raps I is; anywise we can't both on us be right or both on us be
wrong--that's a comfort, if it's nothin' else. Wot _you_ say is--that
it's morally imposs'ble for a crew sich as us to travel over two
thousand miles of ocean on three casks o' biscuit and a barrel o' salt
junk.