Then the corner of the sack in which the money had been placed caught his eye, and he unfastened the iron bars and moved them to one side.  His breath came quick and heavy.  He had found the money!

So intent was he in his searching that he had not noticed that the door had closed in the cabin floor.  In fact, the rattle of the iron bars as he moved them had drowned the noise of its fall.

His greedy eyes devoured the pile of gold exposed to view, and his hands trembled, and a feeling of suffocation came over him, as he strove to put the sack in condition for removal.

This was finally accomplished, but his arms had grown so weak and nerveless that he could not raise it.  In striving to do so, he slipped and crushed his little lantern, leaving himself in total darkness.

CHAPTER XIX.

Captain Dilke’s Fate—­A Happy Wind-Up.

The days had dragged by on leaden wings to the parents of Jason Dilke.  The mother was nearly bereft of reason, but the father, spite of grief for his son and anxiety for his wife, gained in strength day by day.

Every effort to find the boy in the vicinity of Old Orchard and to the southward had been made.  Liberal rewards were offered and advertisements inserted in papers far and near.

Jacob, the faithful old servitor, had been continually on the go, but all without success.

And yet the strength of Allan Dilke did not succumb.  His face was white and thin, but his eyes shone with a determined light.

“We will hear from Arnold to-morrow,” he would say, hopefully, at night.  “I know he is doing his utmost.”

But the morrow came, and still no word from the absent ones.  The heart of the mother had lost all hope, when one night there came a summons at the door after the bereaved parents had retired.

“It is Jason,” said Allan Dilke, rising hastily and dressing, when the servant had tapped upon the door and announced that visitors desired to see him.

“Show them into the drawing-room,” he said, as he came forth in dressing-gown and slippers.

“But they are rough, sea-faring men, sir,” replied the domestic.  “Shall I—­”

“Do as I bid you!” interrupted the master of the house, sternly.  “No room is too good for those who bring tidings of my son.”

A moment later two men stood before him in rough sailor garb.

“We come to inform you that—­” began one of them, who was no other than Shaky, when Allan Dilke interrupted him.

“If my son is with you,” he said, firmly, “bring him to me.  If he is dead, tell me so!”

Shaky at once left the room, and soon a little procession came slowly in.  Two men were carrying a helpless body, while a woman and boy followed.

A wail of anguish sounded.  A woman with white face and streaming hair knelt beside the slight figure which lay upon a sofa.