One morning, instead of starting directly after breakfast for the cave, Mr. Shaw busied himself in front of the supply tent with certain explosives which were to be used in the digging operations later.  The neighborhood of these explosives was a great trial to Aunt Jane, who was constantly expecting them to go off.  I rather expected it too, and used to shudder at the thought that if we all went soaring heavenward together we might come down inextricably mixed.  Then when the Rufus Smith returned and they tried to sort us out before interment, I might have portions of Violet, for instance, attributed to me.  In that case I felt that, like Bill Halliwell, I should walk.

Having inquired of the Honorable Cuthbert and found that for an hour or two the boat would not be in requisition, I permitted the beautiful youth to understand that I would not decline an invitation to be rowed about the cove.  Mr. Shaw had left his marine glasses lying about, and I had been doing some exploring with them.  Under the great cliffs on the north shore of the bay I had seen an object that excited my curiosity.  It seemed to be the hull of a small vessel, lying on the narrow strip of rocks and sand under the cliff.  Now wreckage anywhere fills me with sad and romantic thoughts, but on the shore of a desolate island even a barrel-hoop seems to suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.  I therefore commanded the b. y. to row me over to the spot where the derelict lay.

I lay back idly in the stern as the boat skimmed over the smooth water beneath the strokes of my splendid oarsman.  More than ever he looked like the island god.  Every day he grew more brown and brawny, more superb in his physical vigor.  But his hands, once so beautiful, were getting rough and hard with toil.  There was a great raw bruise on his arm.  I exclaimed pityingly.

“Oh, it’s nothing.  We get knocked about a bit by the sea in the cave now and then.”

“You mean you are risking your lives every day for the sake of this legendary treasure that you have no reasonable reason to suppose is there.”

“Perhaps not,” he admitted, “but then it’s such good fun looking, you know.”

“That’s according to one’s idea of fun,” I said ironically.

“Oh, well, a chap can’t spend his days on flowery beds of ease, of course.  Really, I find this story-book kind of thing we’re doing is warm stuff, as you Americans say.  And then there’s Shaw—­think of the difference it will make to the dear old chap if we find the gold—­buy a ship of his own and snap his fingers at the P. & O.”

“And you’ll go along as cabin-boy or something?” “’Fraid not,” he said quite simply.  “A chap has his bit to do at home, you know.”