himself would ever be able to lay hands upon it. Whereupon George
locked the door again, slipped the key in his pocket, and sent for the
carpenter and carpenter's mate of the _Nonsuch_, with instructions to
come aboard the prize forthwith, bringing with them their tools.

George had a very shrewd suspicion that the money was concealed
somewhere down in the run of the ship, that being the part of a vessel
where treasure was usually stored, because there it would be under the
immediate care of the officers and quite out of reach of the crew; as
soon, therefore, as the carpenter and his mate joined them, the search
party entered the ship's lazarette and completely cleared it, sending
all the stores up on deck. Then, not finding any traces of the money,
they tore up the temporary decking, and not to dwell unduly upon this
incident, at length found the treasure, in ten stout, iron-bound cases,
very cunningly stowed away in a secret chamber constructed right down
alongside the ship's keelson. It was a difficult job to get the cases
on deck, they being heavy, and the space in which they were stowed very
confined; but, of course, they managed it at last, and late in the
afternoon the whole was transferred to the _Nonsuch_ and safely stowed
away in her treasure-room. Meanwhile, Dyer had not been idle; and when
the transfer of the treasure had been effected, and George was free to
attend to other matters, the pilot reported that all the arms,
ammunition, and certain pieces of ordnance, had been removed from the
_Santa Maria_, as well as the large quantity of wine, provisions, rope,
canvas, and other matters that might possibly prove useful in the
future, and that--subject of course to George's approval--the prize
might now be abandoned. Whereupon, after carefully perusing Dyer's
detailed list of the matters transferred, George issued orders that the
boats of both ships were to be lowered and the prisoners, wounded and
unwounded, sent down into them, after which the flotilla proceeded,
under a flag of truce, to the settlement, some two miles to windward,
where the Spaniards were landed. There was a tense moment when, as the
flotilla approached the wharf, a body of armed men, numbering about a
hundred, suddenly swung into view from behind a cluster of buildings and
marched down toward the wharf as though intending to dispute the
landing. But when George, in his gig, pulled fearlessly ahead until he
arrived within hail--and wi