No doubt it contained the “petite fees,” whatever they were; but to our astonishment it was so heavy we could not move it.  We therefore set to work, and cleared away the surrounding earth, and by dint of hard tugging in the confined space, we at length drew it from its hiding place into the centre of the pit.  It was securely locked with two huge padlocks.

We concluded we would hoist it out of its bed and examine it at our leisure above ground.  To compass this we had to erect a kind of tripod of three long pieces of deal, which had evidently at some time been top-sail yards of some vessel probably wrecked on rocky Jethou.  From this we suspended a block and fall, and soon had our iron chest safely above ground.

About this time an unaccountable feeling seized us both; I know not what it was, but it appeared to us that we were doing something wrong, violating the grave of the dead man near us, or something of the kind.

We seemed to feel that the bones should again be buried as quickly as possible, for fear someone should see us at our task.  Why this feeling came over us I know not, but it did, so we fastened the rope attached to the block round the waist of the grinning skeleton, and commenced to lower him into his last home again; but he saved us further trouble by breaking in two just above the hips and falling into the bottom of the well-like hole.  We quickly covered him with old clothes and hid him from view.

It was a work of some difficulty to get the iron chest to the house, but this we accomplished at last with the donkey’s help, and having brought in the other goods, we cleared up for the day, completely tired out.

At nine o’clock, an hour after supper, we retired to bed, each of us fancying we should have our rest stopped by hideous dreams; but we were mistaken, for we slept like the dead in the pit till six o’clock, when we arose much refreshed by our long night’s rest.

It was raining fast, and as the drops pattered on the window pane, they seemed like tears for the poor fellow lying unburied in the hole yonder; but we let him lie unburied, as we knew he was past all harm from catarrh or rheumatism, and every other ailment of this world.

We did not go out all day, but devoted our time to examining the great find.  The keys (as we suspected) which depended from the neck of the skeleton, belonged to the iron chest; but as they were rusty, we had to clean the wards with oil and ashes, but even then we could not shoot the bolts in the locks, as probably they were rusty.  There was but one way left, and that was to raise the lid by force; but even this we did in a gentle manner by filing through the hinges and finishing with a few taps from a heavy hammer.

No wonder the chest was so heavy, for the bottom of it was covered with seventeen leather bags, each containing one hundred Spanish coins, called doubloons, which I believe are worth for the mere intrinsic value of the metal, about ten shillings each, but their monetary value was about twelve shillings and sixpence each.  This was something like a find.