these dismal remains of lost men, and Elsa
could look about her without shuddering. Now they were in fleet water,
and in among the islands whereon the lush summer growth of weeds and the
beautiful marsh flowers grew as greenly and bloomed as bright as though
no Spaniard had trampled their roots under foot during all those winter
months of siege and death. These islets, scores and hundreds of them,
appeared on every side, but between them all Martha steered an unerring
path. As the sun rose she stood up in the boat, and shading her eyes
with her hand to shut out its level rays, looked before her.

"There is the place," she said, pointing to a little bulrush-clad isle,
from which a kind of natural causeway, not more than six feet wide,
projected like a tongue among muddy shallows peopled by coots and
water-hens with their red-beaked young.

Martin rose too. Then he looked back behind him and said;

"I see the cap of a sail upon the skyline. It is Ramiro."

"Without doubt," answered Martha calmly. "Well, we have the half of an
hour to work in. Pull, bow oar, pull, we will go round the island and
beach her in the mud on the further side. They will be less likely to
see us there, and I know a place whence we can push off in a hurry."

CHAPTER XXIX

ADRIAN COMES HOME AGAIN

They landed on the island, wading to it through the mud, which at this
spot had a gravelly bottom; all of them except Elsa, who remained on the
boat to keep watch. Following otter-paths through the thick rushes they
came to the centre of the islet, some thirty yards away. Here, at a spot
which Martha ascertained by a few hurried pacings, grew a dense tuft of
reeds. In the midst of these reeds was a duck's nest with the young just
hatching out, off which the old bird flew with terrified quackings.

Beneath this nest lay the treasure, if it were still there.

"At any rate the place has not been disturbed lately," said Foy. Then,
even in his frantic haste, lifting the little fledglings--for he
loved all things that had life, and did not wish to see them hurt--he
deposited them where they might be found again by the mother.

"Nothing to dig with," muttered Martin, "not even a stone." Thereon
Martha pushed her way to a willow bush that grew near, and with the
smaller of the two axes, which she held in her hand, cut down the
thickest of its stems and ran back with them. By the help of these
sharpened stakes, and with their axes, they began to dig f