“But that explains nothing, Robbie,” I argued.  “However, we ken well enough that those Spanish ships were aye loaded with gold and precious stones.  And then, d’ye not mind of hearing about the Spanish Armada ships that were wrecked on the Orkneys?  Now, I wouldn’t be surprised though the gear we have gotten was nothing else than the wreckage of an Armada ship.  Even the skull that Willie found, maybe belonged to one of the soldier chaps that came to fight the English.  But what is your opinion, Willie?  You should know, for it was you who found the treasure.”

“Well, Ericson,” said he wisely, “I just think it was most extraordinary to see the heaps of siller come out of the very sands of the seashore, and in such a desolate place; and beyond that, it was a most providential thing that the dog ran after yon wee rat.  What most gets over me, though, is to think of the rat making its nest in the dead man’s skull.  Man! what a fright I had when the beast jumped out!  As for how the siller came there, I canna just say; but, you mind, the dominie told us in the school that, lang syne, some of those viking lads used to cruise hereabout.  Now, I’m thinking that it’s just possible one of them had maybe left the siller for safety in the Kierfiold Cave where I—­where we found it, and clean forgotten to go back for it; just as old Betsy Matthew forgot the guineas she hid under the floor in the heel of a stocking.”

“Ay, I dinna doubt it may be so, Willie,” observed Rosson.  “But then, what about the dead man’s head?”

“’Deed I canna say what way that could be there.  I’m thinking we must e’en refer it to the dominie.  He kens all about these things,” said Hercus; and then he turned to Kinlay, who hitherto had expressed no conjecture.

“But what think you of it all, Tom?”

“What do I think!” said Kinlay in a tone of indifference.  “I care not what way the silver came there.  What does it matter?  I’m only thinking what I’ll do with my own share of it.”

Now I confess that I had not before thought anything at all about what we should do with the silver.  I was so much interested in the circumstance of our curious discovery of the hidden treasure that the thought of its market value, or of our means of disposing of it, had never entered my head; and I believe Hercus and Rosson were totally ignorant of the fact that our find was really worth more than the mere interest we naturally attached to the articles as curious antiquities.  Had I been asked as to the disposal of them, I believe I would have proposed that the whole treasure should be handed over to the care of our schoolmaster, who would doubtless see that we did not lose by any sale he might effect.

Tom Kinlay was the first to suggest the sharing of the silver pieces.  We could offer no reasonable objection to a plan which seemed so fair to all of us, and we agreed that before we parted an equal division should be made.