All the negroes now spoke and understood a little English.  They might think that those bags were filled with gold, or they might think that they contained a mineral substance, useful for fertilizer; but if by questioning or by accidental information they found out what was the load under which they toiled along the beach, the captain was content.  There was no reason why he should fear these men more than he feared Burke and Shirley.  All of them were necessary to him, and he must trust them.  Several times when he was crouched down in the interior of the mound, filling a bag with gold, he thought how easy it would be for one of the sailors to shoot him from above, and for them, or perhaps only one of them, to become the owner of all that treasure.  But then, he could be shot in one place almost as well as in another, and if the negroes should be seized with the gold fever, and try to cut white throats at midnight, they would be more likely to attempt it after the treasure had been secured and the ship had sailed than now.  In any case, nothing could be gained by making them feel that they were suspected and distrusted.  Therefore it was that when, one day, Maka said to the captain that the little stones in the bags had begun to make his shoulder tender, the captain showed him how to fold an empty sack and put it between the bags and his back, and then also told him that what he carried was not stones, but lumps of gold.

“All yourn, cap’n!” asked Maka.

“Yes, all mine,” was the reply.

That night Maka told his comrades that when the captain got to the end of this voyage, he would be able to buy a ship bigger than the Castor, and that they would not have to sail in that little brig any more, and that he expected to be cook on the new vessel, and have a fine suit of clothes in which to go on shore.

For nearly a month the work went on, but the contents of the mound diminished so slowly that the captain, and, in fact, the two sailors, also, became very impatient.  Only about forty pounds could be carried by each man on a trip, and the captain saw plainly that it would not do to urge greater rapidity or more frequent trips, for in that case there would be sure to be breakdowns.  The walk from the cove to the caves was a long one, and rocky barriers had to be climbed, and although now but one man was left on board the vessel, only thirty bags a day were stored in its hold.  This was very slow work.  Consultations were held, and it was determined that some quicker method of transportation must be adopted.  The idea that they could be satisfied with what they already had seemed to enter the mind of none of them.  It was a foregone conclusion that their business there was to carry away all the gold that was in the mound.