them.  They went to the spot, and found that these shoes belonged to a man who was entirely covered by sand, with the exception of his feet, and dead, of course.  They got the sand off of him, and found he was a white man, in sailor’s clothes.  First they had thought he might be one of our party, but they soon perceived that this was a mistake, for they had never seen the man before.  He was dried up until he was nothing but a skeleton with skin over it, but they could have recognized him if they had known him before.  From what they had heard of the rainless climate of the Peruvian coast, and the way it had of drying up dead animals of all sorts, they imagined that this man might have been there for years.  He was lying on his back, with his arms folded around a bundle, and when they tried to move this bundle, they found it was very heavy.  It was something wrapped up in a blanket and tied with a cord, and when they opened the bundle, they were pretty nearly struck dumb; for they saw it held, as Shirley expressed it, about a peck of little hunks of gold.

“’They were utterly astounded by this discovery, and utterly unable to make head or tail of it.  What that man, apparently an English sailor, had been doing out in the middle of this desert with a bundle of gold, and where he got it, and who he was, and where he was going to, and how long he had been dead, were things beyond their guessing.  They dragged the body out of its burrow in the sand, and examined the pockets, but there was nothing in the trousers but an old knife.  In the pocket of the shirt, however, were about a dozen matches, wrapped up in an old envelope.  This was addressed, in a very bad hand, to A. McLeish, Callao, Peru, but they could not make out the date of the postmark.  These things were all there was about the man that could possibly identify him, for his few clothes were such as any sailor would wear, and were very old and dirty.

“’But the gold was there.  They examined it and scraped it, and they were sure it was pure gold.  There was no doubt in their minds as to what they would do about this.  They would certainly carry it away with them.  But before they did so, Burke wanted to hunt around and see if they could not find more of it, for the mass of metal was so heavy he did not believe the sailor could have carried it very far.  But after examining the country as far as the eye could reach, Shirley would not agree to this.  They could see nothing but wide-stretching sands, and no place where it seemed worth while to risk their lives hunting for treasure.  Their best plan was to get away with what they had found, and now the point was whether or not they should press on to the coast or go back; but as they could see no signs of the sea, they soon came to the conclusion that the best thing to do if they wanted to save their lives and their treasure was to get back to the mountains.