"The deck and rail were a foot thick with mud, and the small, spar-deck
guns could hardly be distinguished. I saw at once that I would need
help, and signaled to be hauled up. On deck I told the news and all
hands, even the Jap, went crazy over it. We got out two more diving
suits, rigged a bulb for each, and Pango, Peters, and myself went down
again.

"Now, this isn't a yarn of the finding of that treasure. Anyone can
invent such yarns, and I've read dozens of them. They all wind up
successfully, with each man wealthy and happy. This is a yarn of the
men who found that treasure, and what happened to them. So, I'll just
say that we didn't find a skeleton or a ghost when we got below decks.
All hands were up, I suppose, when that ship went down, and the rush of
water as she plunged, washed them off. We found seven big chests in the
'tween-decks forward of the cabin, and in them all were coins, and
jewelry, and here and there in the mess, what might have been an opal,
or some kind of jewel. All the stuff was black from the action of the
salt water; but we knew we had the real thing, and hooked on tackles.
We had to come up to help each time we lifted a chest, for, after the
chest was out of water, it was too heavy for the crowd above; but at
last they were all up, and stowed snugly on the floor of the cabin.
Then, after final search for other loot worth taking, we picked up our
anchor and cleared out, not yet having decided where we were going.

"We were pirates under the law, and didn't know but what all the
revenue cutters on the coast were looking for us, for the theft of that
schooner. But with seven millions of bullion and jewels, melted down,
counted up, and translated into cash in some bank, we didn't care for
the charge of piracy. The real trouble was to get that stuff
translated, and while we argued we sailed due east, out into the broad
Atlantic. Peters, the young enthusiast, had been a jeweler, and he told
us that nothing short of a blast of air in conjunction with the heat of
a fire would melt gold and silver. Well, where could we set up a blast
furnace with not a dollar in the party? My suggestion--and I was backed
by Gleason, Peters, and old man Sullivan--was that we count out the
loot, separate every salable jewel, and make some big port like New
York, Liverpool, or Rio Janeiro, sell the jewels and get ready money
with which to plan for the disposal of the rest; but we had to deal
with men like Pango,