had
little doubt that the other also contained money. They, neither of
them, had ever seen so much gold before.

"What shall we do with it?" cried Jack. "There's enough here to let
mother live like a lady till the end of her days, without going to sell
fish at the market."

"It is not ours, it belongs to somebody," said Bill.

"That somebody will never come to claim it," answered Jack. "Depend on
it, he's gone to the bottom, or ended his days somehow long ago, or he
would have come back before this. These goods have been here for
months, or years maybe, by the look of the packages; and depend on it
the owners would not have let them stay where they are, if they could
have come back to fetch them away."

"But gold pieces won't help us to buy food while we are shut up in the
cavern. A few Dutch cheeses, with a cask of biscuits, would have been
of more value," observed Bill.

"You are right," said Jack. "Still, I vote that we fill our pockets, so
that if we have to hurry away, and have no time to came back here, we
may carry some of the gold with us."

Bill could not make up his mind to do this. The gold was not theirs, of
that he felt sure, and Jack could not persuade him to overcome the
principle he had always stuck to, of not taking, under any
circumstances, what was not lawfully his own. If the owners were dead,
it belonged to their heirs.

Jack did not see this so clearly. The money had been lost, and they had
found it, and having found it, they had a right to it.

They must not, however, lose time by arguing the point. Jack put a
handful or two of the money into his pocket.

Bill kept his fingers out of the box; he did not want the money, and he
had no right to it.

There were several other articles they had not examined, among which
were some small casks. Jack, finding that his torch was almost burning
his fingers, was obliged to let it drop. Before he lighted another,
however, Bill's torch affording sufficient light for the purpose, he
managed to knock in the head of one of the small casks, which he found
filled with little black grains. He tasted them.

"Keep away, Bill--keep away!" he shouted, in an agitated tone, "This is
gunpowder!"

Had Jack held his torch a few seconds longer in his hand, he and Bill
would have been blown to atoms--the very cavern itself would have been
shattered, to the great astonishment of the neighbouring population, who
would, however, never have discovered t