nts of
which were afterward caulked and well paid with pitch, the boxes finally
being thickly coated all over with pitch. Then, on top of and all round
the gold and the boxes of gems, a sufficient quantity of sand to ensure
ample stability was placed; and on top of that again the water and
provisions were stowed. To do all this to Dick's satisfaction demanded
nearly a month's strenuous labour; but when it was all finished and the
little craft--re-christened _Elisabeth_--was finally ready for sea, Dick
pronounced her fit to face the heaviest weather and the longest voyage.
As she was only a small craft, the pair decided that twenty of the forty
Peruvian volunteers would suffice as a crew, and these twenty were
selected because of their superior fitness for the work of sailors, as
exemplified during the preparation of the little ship for sea.

At length, everything being ready, the little craft hove up her anchor
and sailed out of the bay on her long voyage round the southern
extremity of America and up through the vast Atlantic ocean. To say
that this voyage, undertaken in so small a vessel, and with a crew of
men who had never before looked upon the sea, was an adventurous one,
full of peril, and marked by countless hairbreadth escapes from capture
and shipwreck, seems superfluous; indeed so full of adventure was it
that a detailed description of what the little vessel and her crew went
through would require a larger volume than the present for its adequate
recital. It must suffice therefore to state that the adventurers
ultimately arrived safely and with their precious cargo intact in
Plymouth Sound, some six months after her departure from the Peruvian
fishing village, to the unbounded astonishment and delight of those who
had long given up Phil and Dick for dead. The meeting with old
friends--and relatives, so far as Dick was concerned--the landing and
eventual disposal of the gems and gold, with every necessary precaution,
must be left for the reader to picture in detail; but it may be
mentioned that while Dick purchased a big estate and built himself
thereon a magnificent mansion not far from Plymouth, speedily becoming
one of Plymouth's most important citizens, using his enormous wealth
wisely and well, and ultimately earning his knighthood for his valiant
conduct in assisting to disperse the Spanish Armada, Phil Stukely was so
enamoured of the idea of returning to Peru, becoming its Inca, and
driving out the