, yet
now that it was really found, the news seemed too good to be true. He
could not believe it till the sailors showed him the lump of silver.

"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 p