nosing goin' on, an'
anysing we can make is dat much ahead."

It was in this spirit that work was begun the next day. Not a word was
said about the possibility of treasure, yet everyone knew that they were
treasure-hunting. In these haunts of the old pirates children were
brought up on legends of buried gold. But Bascom became perfectly
absorbed in the guns. They could not be accounted for. No one in all the
country remembered seeing or hearing of the wreck of a war-vessel in the
bay. Nothing like that had happened during the war; the bay was too
shallow for any modern ships. Its shoals were what had made it so
attractive to the pirates, but the fate of all the pirate boats was
known, and none had ever been lost there, nor had they ever sunk a
victim inside the islands. Everything pointed to the old discoverers,
the Spaniards and the Frenchmen. Bascom, who had taken small interest in
the history of that or any other region, began to cram his mind eagerly
with everything in the shape of legend or record or theory until the
early days of the coast were at his fingers' ends.

The bay was thick with boats to watch the raising of the first gun. It
had taken a long time to get the grappling-irons fastened. There was not
a suit of diving armor to be had, and the men were obliged to go down
again and again before they could pry the gun far enough out of its hard
bed of shells to be grasped. When at last they felt it yielding to the
windlass there was a big cheer, and then a breathless pause. The gun
came on deck coated with shells and almost choked with barnacles and
rust. Bascom flung himself atop of it and began to scrape. The others
crowded over him. But there were no distinguishing marks. What he could
disclose of the gun's surface showed it to be of some alloy similar to
bronze. It was simply formed, and though not like any modern gun,
neither Bascom with his new knowledge, nor anyone else who saw it, could
find anything by which to guess its age. Of all the queer things that
from time to time had made their appearance in Pontomoc Bay it was the
most mysterious.

"You should sell it to some big museum," said a New Orleans man who had
come aboard from his row-boat.

"They'll have to pay us'es our price before they gets it," Bascom said;
"things don't come so cheap that have been laid by and saved so keerful
for hundreds and hundreds of years."

"They are mo' of them down there," began Captain Lazare, whose gray hair