was wet and clinging to his hard old head from diving to superintend.
"Le's not be a-wastin' time, boys."

"I would bring up everything there is in the way of wreckage," added the
gentleman; "it may help to identify the guns."

But nothing that was ever said or found threw any light. The fragments
of worm-eaten timber which they brought up seemed to have been rudely
hewn, and riveted with wooden pegs for bolts. It was old, old, old--and
there the story ended.

On the day that they were raising the sixth gun, the last they ever
found, Bascom and Narcisse went down as usual. Bascom had been under
longer, and was just about to rise when the hook under the lifted end of
the cannon was repelled by something hard. He dug down, and his hand
felt what was unmistakably the corner of a chest. Narcisse caught sight
of the motion and put his hand in too, then he sprang up, pushing Bascom
down with his foot while he rose.

"I foun' a chest!" he gasped, coming up. "I foun' the treasure!"

"Wheah? How big?" cried Lazare, and they crowded round the boy. But some
one noticed the blank water and raised another cry,

"Where's Bascom?"

Captain Tony drew one deep breath, thrust his hands above his head, and
sprang into the water. Narcisse stood still a moment, big eyes big with
horror, then he followed overboard.

[Illustration: THE CAPTAIN REAPPEARED AND LIFTED BASCOM'S HEAD ABOVE
WATER.]

It seemed a breathless age before the Captain reappeared and lifted
Bascom's limp head above water. A dozen hands pulled them on deck and
fell to work on Bascom.

"He'll come out," prayed the Captain through his teeth; "he got to come
out. My boy--Bascom--"

Narcisse climbed up the schooner's side, but no one noticed him, and he
hung in torture outside the group surrounding Bascom.

"He'd run his arm under de end of de cannon and de grapplin'-hook,"
Captain Tony was saying, "an' dey had settle back onto him, an' he had
not the strength lef' to pull out. I doan' understan' how it could have
settle on him like dat; but he will come out. He got to come out."

Narcisse, hearing all this, sneaked away into the cabin. He had had no
wish to hurt Bascom even when he pushed him down; it was just the
temptation to be ahead for once.

At last there was a step down the ladder. Captain Tony came and sank
onto the bench opposite. He did not see Narcisse; he was talking to
himself, and his voice trembled. "My little pa'dnah," he said; "he was
so wil'