I
felt in no hurry to get away. At length, whilst walking along the beach
one evening, my attention was attracted to three or four pieces of old,
worm-eaten, weather-worn timber, which I had often noticed before,
projecting above the sand; and curiosity now impelled me to walk up to
and examine them. A careful scrutiny revealed to me that they formed
part of the framework of a ship; and I resolved that I would return the
next day and ascertain whether what I saw was merely a detached piece of
wreck, or whether the entire hull lay there embedded in the sand.

"The next morning I repaired to the spot, armed with a primitive
substitute for a shovel, which I had contrived to manufacture, and an
iron bolt, to serve the purpose of a crow-bar, which I had procured the
previous night by burning it out of a piece of wreck. I had worked for
perhaps an hour, when I reached some planking, which I immediately
recognised as the deck of the ship. This I proceeded to clear of sand,
uncovering the deck in an extending circle from the spot where I had
first encountered it, until I had an area of about fifteen or sixteen
feet laid bare. And now I met with a breach in the deck; so instead of
clearing away further, I began to dig down again. I toiled thus for
four days, senor; by which time I had discovered that the wreck was that
of a small vessel, of perhaps one hundred and thirty tons (though, small
as she was, she had been built with a full poop); that she was a very
ancient craft indeed; and that her cargo consisted of nothing but
_gold_, senor, that is, with the solitary exception of a strong wooden
box (which, even after so long an interment, offered considerable
resistance to my efforts to open it), containing an assortment of what I
took to be pebbles of different kinds, but which I afterwards found were
unpolished gems. Yes, senor; there lay the gold in ingots, each wrapped
in matting, and each ingot as much in weight as I could well lift. The
matting was decayed in the first three or four tiers, and the metal
discoloured almost to blackness; but towards the centre of the cargo
(which is, probably, not more than twelve tiers deep altogether), the
matting, though so rotten that it crumbled to dust as I touched it, had
preserved the colour of the metal; and there it lay, bar after bar,
gleaming with the dull yellow lustre peculiar to virgin gold.

"I ballasted my boat entirely with ingots; selecting the most
discoloured I