er.

"Thanks be to God!" then cries Captain Phips "We shall every man of us
make our fortunes!"

Hereupon the captain and all the crew set to work, with iron rakes and
great hooks and lines, fishing for gold and silver at the bottom of the
sea. Up came the treasure in abundance. Now they beheld a table of solid
silver, once the property of an old Spanish grandee. Now they found a
sacramental vessel, which had been destined as a gift to some Catholic
church. Now they drew up a golden cup, fit for the King of Spain to
drink his wine out of. Perhaps the bony hand of its former owner had
been grasping the precious cup, and was drawn up along with it. Now
their rakes or fishing-lines were loaded with masses of silver bullion.
There were also precious stones among the treasure, glittering and
sparkling, so that it is a wonder how their radiance could have been
concealed.

There is something sad and terrible in the idea of snatching all this
wealth from the devouring ocean, which had possessed it for such a
length of years. It seems as if men had no right to make themselves rich
with it. It ought to have been left with the skeletons of the ancient
Spaniards, who had been drowned when the ship was wrecked, and whose
bones were now scattered among the gold and silver.

But Captain Phips and his crew were troubled with no such thoughts as
these. After a day or two they lighted on another part of the wreck,
where they found a great many bags of silver dollars. But nobody could
have guessed that these were money-bags. By remaining so long in the
salt water, they had become covered over with a crust which had the
appearance of stone, so that it was necessary to break them in pieces
with hammers and axes. When this was done, a stream of silver dollars
gushed out upon the deck of the vessel.

The whole value of the recovered treasure, plate, bullion, precious
stones, and all, was estimated at more than two millions of dollars.
It was dangerous even to look at such a vast amount of wealth. A
sea-captain, who had assisted Phips in the enterprise, utterly lost his
reason at the sight of it. He died two years afterwards, still raving
about the treasures that lie at the bottom of the sea. It would have
been better for this man if he had left the skeletons of the shipwrecked
Spaniards in quiet possession of their wealth.

Captain Phips and his men continued to fish up plate, bullion, and
dollars, as plentifully as ever, till their pr