"There was not much bravery in it," said Dutch, who was now smoking as composedly as if nothing had occurred, while the water that had streamed from his india-rubber suit was fast drying on the sun-baked deck. "I was well-armed; my enemy was not." "Wasn't he?" growled Rasp, giving a vicious rub at the helmet. "What do you call them teeth? But, then, we divers are not skeered about a shark or two." "Do you feel well enough to talk about your descent, Pugh?" said Mr Parkley. "I feel well enough to go down again," said Dutch smiling; "but this time I must have a sharp-pointed iron rod to probe the sand." "I'm a-going down next," said Rasp. "It's my turn." "But what is your opinion? What have you made out?" said Mr Parkley. "Almost nothing," replied Dutch. "If there is anything below there, it is buried deep in sand, which, I think, we must blast away, for it runs back as fast as it is dug." "Then you found absolutely nothing," said Mr Parkley, while the others waited eagerly for the young man's answer. "Unless this proves to be something," replied Dutch, taking the shelly mass from his net basket and handing it to his partner. Mr Parkley received it with trembling hands. "It is heavy," he said, turning it over and over. "Here Rasp, a hammer, quick." The old fellow handed a bright steel-headed tool, with the ordinary hammer head on one side, but a sharp wedge-shaped edge at the other, and with this Mr Parkley chipped away the small barnacles and other shells conglomerated together, and at about the fourth stroke laid bare something bright and shining. "My dear Dutch," cried his partner, dropping the hammer, "we are right. Look--silver!" He wrung Dutch's hand vigorously, as the young man's face flushed with pleasure; and then, picking up the hammer, he struck off the remainder of the shelly concretion, and passed round a blackened wedge-shaped ingot of about a couple of pounds weight, and undoubtedly of fine silver. "Here, lay hold of the legs of this soot," cried Rasp eagerly, as he seized the second suit which lay ready on a seat. "I'm a-going down dreckly." "We'd better wait first, and make some definite plan of action," said Mr Parkley, who was nearly as excited as his old assistant. "No, we hadn't," said Rasp, shuffling into the india-rubber garments. "Only just have that there ladder shifted over to port. You can make your plans while I go down tother side and feels about with the iron rod. You two's administrative; I'm zeketive. I shan't be happy unless I has a go in." The point was yielded, the ladder shifted over to the other side, and in a few minutes Rasp had taken the keen knife and stuck it in his belt, thrown down a long iron rod, and declared himself ready. "I shall set to work where you left that there spade," he said. "You'll see as the wind ain't stopped, Mr Parkley, sir?" "Of course," was the reply.