gh which the Spaniard had
penetrated to the innermost recesses of the ship. A great deal of sand
still remained to be cleared away, however, before we could get at the
gold; and my father and I were on the point of relieving the two mates,
when the natives, who had looked on at the operations with a great deal
of interest and intelligence, stepped forward, and said, "No, no; now me
work." And though they had probably never seen shovels in their lives
before, and were a little awkward at first in the handling of them, they
soon got into the swing of it, and did their work as well as either of
the others. And so they kept on, spell and spell, the mates and the
"niggers," neither party seeming willing that my father or I should
share in the hard work; and in about an hour and a half, Bob's shovel
suddenly struck sharply upon something harder than wood. He and Winter
were both working under the influence of powerful excitement, so it was
not long before they had cleared away the sand sufficiently to enable
them to lay hold of and drag forth an ingot, black and discoloured
almost as rusty iron, but heavy enough to prove most satisfactorily that
it was not that metal. It was handed up, and I at once proceeded to
scrape away with my strong clasp knife upon its surface, quickly
establishing the fact that it was indeed the precious metal.

This I considered sufficient for one day, especially as it had been
agreed that it should be a holiday. So, with considerable difficulty, I
at length persuaded the two mates to come out of their hole, and rest
after their violent exertions; and shortly afterwards our goods and
chattels were packed up and put on board one of the canoes, in charge of
the two natives, and the remainder of the party embarked in the tube-
boat with the gold--thirteen ingots in all--that had been brought to
light, the sails were hoisted, and we ran down to the anchorage in the
bay with both canoes in tow.

It would be difficult to express the satisfaction which all felt at this
important discovery, but to Bob and me the satisfaction was peculiarly
great, for we had now accomplished all that our most sanguine
expectations had led us to hope for in projecting this adventurous
voyage--more, indeed; for, as the reader is aware, when the subject was
first mooted we had no hope of finding my father, having quite given him
up as dead.

The next day saw us hard at work again, and, not to dwell too long upon
matters