' year ago, or
thaarabouts, hez the power to kinder hurt airy a livin' soul now?"

"I beliefs it," returned Jan, doggedly; adding, much to the skipper's
discomfiture and banishing his merriment in a moment. "Dere vas sdrange
zings habben zometimes. I vas hear ze mans zay dat ze ghost of ze cook
dat you shoots vas hoont dees very sheeps!"

Captain Snaggs made no reply to this crushing rejoinder: but a sort of
murmur of assent came from the others, while I caught Hiram's voice
saying, "Thet's so; right enuff!"

"And zo, cap'en," went on the Dane, perceiving that he had scored a
point, and that the laugh was no longer against him, "I van hab nuzzing
vor to do mit ze dreazure of ze boocaneer, and I vas hopes not vor to
zee it a gains. It vas accurst, as I vas zay, vor ze boocaneer
zemselves vas not able vor to vind it after zay vas burit it; and den,
ven Cap'en Shackzon vinds it, he vas also murter't, as the schlave vas,
and his crew vas murter't zemselves! Ze boocaneer dreazure vas accurst
and bringt goot to no beebles. And zo, cap'en, I zays; zays I, let us
not mindt it at all, mit its bat look, but go on vor to dig oot ze dock
for ze sheep. We vas vaste ze time for nuzzin', if we hoonts vor ze
dreazure; and if we vinds it, we vas nevaire get no goot vrom it--
nevaire, nozzing but bat!"

"Wa-all, thet's good advice, anyhow," said the skipper, thinking the
palaver had lasted long enough. "Guess ye chaps bed better sot to work
agen, ez Mister Steenbock sez. If we shu'd light on this air treesor,
well enuff, but our fust job, I reckon, 's to get the shep afloat agen;
an' we won't do thet, ye bet, by standin' hyar listenin' to ghost yarns
an' sichlike! Now, ye jokers, let me see ye handlin' them picks agen.
P'r'aps ye'll dig up another gold figger o' two; who knows?"

This set all hands busy, the men excavating the sand and hard lava from
under the bilge of the vessel with an alacrity they had not displayed
before; and, each man putting his heart to the job, the broad trench in
which they were working was soon dug down considerably deeper than the
level of the sea. To prevent the encroach of this latter all the stuff
taken out was thrown up alongside, forming a sort of steep embankment on
either hand, so that the _Denver City_ looked by-and-by as if she had
run her head into a railroad cutting, the coffer-dam fixed across the
beach, right under her keel, by the mizzen-chains, where the water just
came up to, bl