with awe from hand to hand.
Yesterday's discovery in the cave had rounded out the history of
Peter to a melancholy completion. But though we knew the end we
guessed in vain at the beginning, at Peter's name, at that of the
old grandfather whose thrifty piety had brought him to Havana and
to the acquaintance of the dying mate of the _Bonny Lass_, at the
whereabouts of the old New England farm which had been mortgaged to
buy the _Island Queen_, at the identity of Helen, who waited still,
perhaps, for the lover who never would return.

But even our regrets for Peter did not chill the exultation with
which we thought of the treasure-chest waiting there under the sand
in the cabin of the _Island Queen_.

All afternoon we talked of it. That, for the present, was all we
could do. There were the two prisoners in camp to be guarded--and
they had presently awakened and made remarks of a strongly personal
and unpleasant trend on discovering their situation. There was
Crusoe invalided, and needing petting, and getting it from
everybody on the score of his romantic past as _Benjy_ as well as
of his present virtues. The broken leg had been cleverly set by
Dugald--somehow in the late upheaval _Miss_ and _Mister_ had
dropped quite out of our vocabularies--with Cuthbert as surgeon's
assistant and me holding the chloroform to the patient's nose.
There was the fatigue and reaction from excitement which everybody
felt, and Peter's diary to be read, and golden dreams to be
indulged. And there was the delicate question to be discussed, of
how the treasure should be divided.

"Why, it all belongs to Virginia, of course," said Cuthbert,
opening his eyes at the thought of any other view being taken but
this obvious one.

"Nonsense!" I hastily interposed. "My finding the diary was just
an accident; I'll take a share of it--no more."

Here Miss Browne murmured something half inaudible about
"--confined to members of the Expedition--" but subsided for lack
of encouragement.

"I suggest," said Dugald, "that our numbers having most fortunately
diminished and there being, on the basis of Peter's calculations,
enough to enrich us all, that we should share and share alike."
And this proposal was received with acclamations, as was a second
from the same source, devoting a certain percentage of each share
to Cookie, to whom the news of his good fortune was to come later
as a great surprise.

As an earnest of our riches, we had the two