Spike was delighted with the success of this scheme, of which he was assured by a single experiment in heaving.  After getting the spars well planted at their heels, he even ordered the men to slacken the purchases a little, and found that he could actually relieve the brig from the strain, by causing the wreck to be supported altogether by these shores.  This was a vast relief from the cares of the approaching night, and indeed alone prevented the necessity of the work’s going on without interruption, or rest, until the end was obtained.

The people of the Swash were just assured of the comfortable fact related, as the Poughkeepsie was passing out from among the islets of the Dry Tortugas.  They imagined themselves happy in having thus made a sufficient provision against the most formidable of all the dangers that beset them, at the very moment when the best laid plan for their destruction was on the point of being executed.  In this respect, they resembled millions of others of their fellows, who hang suspended over the vast abyss of eternity, totally unconscious of the irretrievable character of the fall that is so soon to occur.  Spike, as has been just stated, was highly pleased with his own expedient, and he pointed it out with exultation to the Senor Montefalderon, as soon as it was completed.

“A nicer fit was never made by a Lunnun leg-maker, Don Wan,” the captain cried, after going over the explanations connected with the shores—­“there she stands, at an angle of fifty, with two as good limbs under her as a body could wish.  I could now cast off everything, and leave the wreck in what they call `_statu quo,_’ which, I suppose, means on its pins, like a statue.  The tafferel is not six inches below the surface of the water, and half an hour of heaving will bring the starn in sight.”

“Your work seems ingeniously contrived to get up one extremity of the vessel, Don Esteban,” returned the Mexican; “but are you quite certain that the doubloons are in her?”

This question was put because the functionary of a government in which money was very apt to stick in passing from hand to hand was naturally suspicious, and he found it difficult to believe that Mulford, Jack Tier, and even Biddy, under all the circumstances, had not paid special attention to their own interests.

“The bag was placed in one of the transom-lockers before the schooner capsized,” returned the captain, “as Jack Tier informs me; if so, it remains there still.  Even the sharks will not touch gold, Don Wan.”

“Would it not be well to call Jack, and hear his account of the matter once more, now we appear to be so near the Eldorado of our wishes?”

Spike assented, and Jack was summoned to the quarter-deck.  The little fellow had scarce showed himself throughout the day, and he now made his appearance with a slow step, and reluctantly.

“You’ve made no mistake about them ’ere doubloons, I take it, Master Tier?” said Spike, in a very nautical sort of style of addressing an inferior.  “You know them to be in one of the transom-lockers?”