me that before I could do
anything else I must wash and bind up a bit.

"One of my hands was terribly crippled from my hurt, but I managed to
bind a couple of paddles together; and then, rowing slowly on, I was
thinking that my labour had been all in vain unless I could manage still
to save the gold, when, happening one day to turn round to look
upstream, I saw that, Mas'r Harry, as seemed to give me life, and hope,
and strength all in a moment; and you know the rest."

CHAPTER FIFTY.

THE USE OF THE TREASURE.

It is one thing being possessed of a treasure and another knowing what
to do with it. Here was I with the fortune, as my uncle called it, of a
prince, found, as I had found it, and to which some people may say I had
no right, and I often thought so myself. But on the other hand I felt
that I could do more good with it than it would do left there in the bed
of that stream--so many relics of a superstition--of a pagan idolatry
carried on three hundred years ago. The traditions of its being hidden
there had of course been handed down, but it had never been seen since
it was buried at the time of the conquest, and all who had a right to it
had been dead for ages.

So I comforted myself that I was only the one who had brought it to
light, and that it was my duty to put it to as good a purpose as
possible, and that I meant to do.

Well, here I had the treasure; but the next thing was, should I be able
to keep it?

If the Indians could trace me and dared to come across the river all
this distance down and into the civilised region, I knew that my life
would not be safe, and that they would have the treasure back at any
cost.

But then it was not likely that the simple savages would venture after
me even if they could find out where I had come.

Then there were the Spaniards about us. If they knew of the wealth we
had in the ordinary house of which we had taken possession they would
either get it away by legal means, claiming it as belonging to one or
the other government, or else make a regular filibustering descent upon
us and secure it by violence, even taking our lives as well.

Secrecy, then, seemed to be the only thing possible; and after a good
deal of thinking and planning, my uncle, Tom, and I constructed a little
furnace in a corner of the house, after boarding up the window and
covering it with blankets as well. Here we purposed to melt down the
treasure into long ingots, which we hoped t