o pull in a fresh direction.

As soon as I had done he took hold of the loop that was round the stone,
drew a long breath, and asked me to lift it over into the water.

This I did, and he went down head-first, while I again watched him below
among the waving weeds all indistinct in the troubled sea.

He was down for a full minute as I crouched there with my head over the
side. He seemed to be so long that I began to grow alarmed lest he had
become entangled, and I was about to haul up the line attached to the
stone. I looked down anxiously with my face closer to the surface, but
only to make him out in a bleared indistinct manner, and then he shot up
like a line of light and swam to the side and held on.

"Thought I shouldn't be able to do it," he said; "but I've got the line
round."

"Well, what next?" I said. "But I say, is a grapnel worth all this
trouble?"

"A grapnel?" he said with a peculiar smile.

"Yes."

"Wait a minute till I am in the boat."

He climbed in, and came to my side.

"Now," he said; "haul up steadily. I think she'll come."

I tightened the line, and for a moment or two there was a dead
resistance. Then something heavy began to stir, and I hauled away
steadily, hand over hand.

"I've got it," I said as I gazed down. "It was right in amongst some
strong weed. Here it comes."

I pulled away till I had nearly got it to the top, and then Bigley came
to my help, reached over, and the object I was dragging up bumped
against the boat, slipped out of the noose, and went down rapidly just
like a mass of stone.

"What did you fasten the line to that for?" I said.

"What did I do it for, Sep?" he panted. "Didn't you see what it was?"

"No," I said bluntly.

"What did it look like?"

"Box covered with sea-weed," I replied.

"Well, don't you see now?"

"No," I replied.

"Why, Sep, how dull you are this morning!" he cried. "Didn't you see
that you had hold of one of your father's silver chests?"

"_One of my father's what_?" I roared.

"One of the silver chests. Sep, it was over these rocks, against that
one, I suppose," he cried, pointing to a huge block just below the
surface, and a favourite haunt of conger, "that the Frenchman's boat
capsized."

"What, the one with the silver?" I cried.

"Yes, and I believe all the chests are at the bottom there."

"And they were coming back to try for them when the frigate came in
sight!" I shouted.

"Yes, yes, yes."

"Hu