p of her true character."

His greedy eyes sparkled with self-complacency. He tapped his forehead
and cried, "Trust to this. There is mind behind this surface. Your plan
for releasing the schooner is great; mine for preserving the treasure is
great too. You are the sailor, I the strategist; by combining our
genius, we shall oppose an invulnerable front to adversity, and must end
our days as Princes. Your hand, Paul!"

I laughed and gave him my hand, which he squeezed with many contortions
of face and figure; but though I laughed I don't know that I ever so
much disliked and distrusted and feared the old leering rogue as at that
moment.

"Come!" cried I, jumping up, "let's get about our work." And with that I
pulled open a bag of matches, and fell to testing them. They burnt well.
The fire ate into them as smoothly as if they had been prepared the day
before. They were all of one thickness. I cut them to equal lengths, and
fired them and waited watch in hand; one was burnt out two minutes
before the other, and each length took about ten minutes to consume.
This was good enough to base my calculations upon.

CHAPTER XXI.

WE EXPLODE THE MINES.

I don't design to weary you with a close account of our proceedings. How
we opened the main-deck hatch, rigged up tackles, clapping purchases on
to the falls, as the capstan was hard frozen and immovable; how we
hoisted the powder-barrels on deck and then, by tackles on the foreyard,
lowered them over the side; how we filled a number of bags which we
found in the forecastle with powder; how we measured the cracks in the
ice and sawed a couple of spare studding-sail booms into lengths to
serve as beams whereby to poise the barrels and bags; would make but
sailor's talk, half of which would be unintelligible and the rest
wearisome.

The Frenchman worked hard, and we snatched only half an hour for our
dinner. The split that had happened in the ice during the night showed
by daylight as a gulf betwixt eight and ten feet wide at the seawards
end, thinning to a width of three feet, never less, to where it ended,
ahead of the ship, in a hundred cracks in the ice that showed as if a
thunderbolt had fallen just there. I looked into this rent, but it was
as black as a well past a certain depth, and there was no gleam of
water. When we went over the side to roll our first barrel of powder to
the spot where we meant to lower it, the Frenchman marched up to the
figure of Trenta