“She makes but slow headway ag’in the current, sir; but a body would think she might send in her boats.”

“The boats might be glad to get back again,” muttered Spike.  “Ay, here is the door unlocked, and we can now fish for the money.”

Some object had rolled against the state-room door, when the vessel was capsized, and there was a good deal of difficulty in forcing it open.  They succeeded at last, and Spike led the way by wading into the small apartment.  Here they began to feel about beneath the water, and by a very insufficient light, in quest of the hidden treasure.  Spike and his boatswain differed as to the place which had just been described to them, as men will differ even in the account of events that pass directly before their eyes.  While thus employed, the report of a heavy gun came through the doors of the cabin, penetrating to the recess in which they were thus employed.

“Ay, that’s the beginning of it!” exclaimed Spike.  “I wonder that the fool has put it off so long.”

“That gun was a heavy fellow, Captain Spike,” returned the boatswain; “and it sounded in my ears as if’t was shotted.”

“Ay, ay, I dare say you’re right enough in both opinions.  They put such guns on board their sloops-of-war, now-adays, as a fellow used to find in the lower batteries of a two-decker only in old times; and as for shot, why Uncle Sam pays, and they think it cheaper to fire one out of a gun, than to take the trouble of drawing it.”

“I believe here’s one of the bags, Captain Spike,” said the boatswain, making a dip, and coming up with one-half of the desired treasure in his fist.  “By George, I’ve grabbed him, sir; and the other bag can’t be far off.”

“Hand that over to me,” said the captain, a little authoritatively, “and take a dive for the next.”

As the boatswain was obeying this order, a second gun was heard, and Spike thought that the noise made by the near passage of a large shot was audible also.  He called out to Ben to “bear a hand, as the ship seems in ’arnest.”  But the head of the boatswain being under water at the time, the admonition was thrown away.  The fellow soon came up, however, puffing like a porpoise that has risen to the surface to blow.

“Hand it over to me at once,” said Spike, stretching out his unoccupied hand to receive the prize; “we have little time to lose.”

“That’s sooner said than done, sir,” answered the boat-swain; “a box has driven down upon the bag, and there’s a tight jam.  I got hold of the neck of the bag, and pulled like a horse, but it wouldn’t come no how.”

“Show me the place, and let me have a drag at it.  There goes another of his bloody guns!”