l. When I was in London I saw five men carted to
the gallows; one had forged, one was a highwayman--I forget the others'
businesses; but I recollect on inquiring the value of their
baggings--that for which they were hanged--it did not amount to four
guineas a man. Look at this!" He swept his great hand again over the
chests. "Is not here something worth going to the scaffold for?"

His bosom swelled, his eyes sparkled, and he made as if to strike a
heroic posture, but this he could not contrive on his hams.

I was thunder-struck, as you will suppose, by the sight of all this
treasure, and looked and stared like a fool, as if I was in a dream. I
had never seen so many fine things before, and indulged in the most
extravagant fancies of their worth. Here and there in the glittering
huddle my eye lighted on an object that was a hundred, perhaps two
hundred, years old: a cup very choicely wrought, that may have been in a
family for several generations; a watch of a curious figure, and the
like. There might have been the pickings of the cabins, trunks, and
portmanteaux of a hundred opulent men and women in this chest, and, so
far as I could judge from what lay atop, the people plundered
represented several nationalities.

But there were other chests and cases to explore--ten in all: two of
these were filled with silver money, a third with plate, a fourth with
English, French, Spanish, and Portugal coins in gold; but the one over
which Tassard hung longest in a transport that held him dumb, was the
smallest of all, and this was packed with gold in bars. The stuff had
the appearance of mouldy yellow soap, and having no sparkle nor variety
did not affect me as the jewellery had, though in value this chest came
near to being worth as much as all the others put together. The fixed
transported posture of the pirate, his little shining eyes intent upon
the bars, his form in the candle-light looking like a sketch of a
strange, wildly-apparelled man done in phosphorus, coupled with the loom
of the black chests, the sense of our desolation, the folly of our
enjoyment of the sight of the treasure in the face of our pitiable and
dismal plight, the melancholy storming of the wind, moaning like the
rumble of thunder heard in a vault, and above all the feeling of
unreality inspired by the thought of my companion having lain for
eight-and-forty years as good as dead, combined to render the scene so
startlingly impressive that it remains at