here has no mud or sediment. It is all coral; coral even at the depth of over a mile.
When Sheila came on deck next morning she found the sun up, the Canaries vanished and the Selvages a dun line marked with foam on the port bow.
The Selvages, or Selvagees, have a chapter of their own in the long, exasperating history of treasure hunting, the history which to my knowledge has never been marked by one find worth mentioning. Here was actually hidden a vast amount of gold and here armed with full directions as to the position of the treasure the British government sent one of their ships under Sir Hercules Robinson. He found nothing. It was like the Trinidad business, the map given by the dying sailor in all good faith to his benefactor, the chart of South West Bay, the position of the hills, the minute details as to the location of the treasure—everything—but no treasure. It was like the Voss business, it was like the innumerable businesses of which I have a list as long as my arm, which have been started to hunt for pirate gold among the islands and keys of the West India Islands—they have never found anything but mosquitoes, never will.
Sheila, her eyes fixed on the lonely rocks, sand banks and foam goats of the Selvages felt a rising of her heart. She knew these barren islands and their story, and old Captain Dennis, who was in the main a sensible man, had drilled into her mind the absolute hopelessness of the treasure gamble. So it was that now, gazing across the water at these sinister and desolate rocks where many a man has labored like a fool, her heart rose at the thought that come what might she and her companions had at least touched their treasure. There was to be no hopeless digging. They had only to bury it at a well-marked spot and to unearth it again.
As she turned from the view of the islands she saw Longley and Hearn. They were in different watches, but they were both on deck at the same time, Hearn having just come up from the fo'c's'le.
Both these men were out of the picture in this expedition. They were too respectable. Dicky and James and the others harmonized with—or at least did not shout against—their surroundings, but the two yacht sailors didn't fit. They felt it, perhaps that's why they showed it. They were not used to such narrow quarters and such dingy surroundings; the fo'c's'le of the Baltrum “smelt fusty” and the cooking was not up to their expectations. They wanted fresh meat. They did not grumble, but they showed themselves dissatisfied and they showed their dissatisfaction without rudeness or giving offense. It was a sort of atmosphere they carried with them, and Sheila, who had not much knowledge of the ways of their class, thought at first she had done something to offend them. Then she discovered she hadn't—it was only the Baltrum.
She had made up her mind at first to get rid of them at Great Bahama, send them back on board the Dulcinea and so be free of them when the time came to sail to Crab Cay and do the burying.
This morning she came to alter her mind on this subject.
She had been calculating up the man power necessary for taking the ketch to Crab Cay, keeping her off it and carrying the gold ashore, and it seemed to her that they were too short handed for safety. They wanted at least another man and Longley was the man of all men for the job.
Longley had a face unintellectual as the face of a sheep and not unlike. His people originally had belonged to the South Downs before coming to Southampton in the time of King George I., and engaging in the business of yacht sailing. Longley was a safe man, Sheila felt, safe to know nothing of their business unless it was carefully explained to him, and to say nothing even if he knew.
He was just what they wanted, a big, able-bodied, stupid man, trustable to keep a secret as a steam engine. Hearn was quite different. Sheila determined to keep Longley and get rid of Hearn.
So it was that this treasure expedition with bullion at stake, greater in amount than was ever carried by any boat smaller than the Majestic or Homeric, was under sole control of a girl who put in spare moments knitting a jumper.
Longley and Hearn were ignorant of the whole business, so was Larry; James and Dicky were useless except as subordinates. They knew nothing of navigation at sea and the equally important work of navigation ashore found them wanting.
She could not trust them—at least she could not trust James; he was honor personified no doubt, but he was erratic. Dicky, when alone, was sensible, but when ashore
