"Let's get 'em all aboard first. They'll keep, and I'll be bound
you're tired and hungry."
"Hungert as a wolf, but finding siccan things takes the tired out o'
one," and his black eyes sparkled over his finds, and he must go on
telling about them as they worked.
"It was down under where we found yon Duke o' Kent box. I spied
another, and then more, mebbe there's, more yet down below."
"More fancy coats?"
"Ah!--and some with jewelled stars on 'em and swords with fancy hilts.
I'll show you when we get aboard."
"You didn't come across any tools, I suppose?"
"Tools? No. What would we want tools for?"
"I was wondering if it might not be possible to build some kind of a
boat and get across to Nova Scotia."
"We're safer here than trying that, I'm thinking."
"When you've got all there is to be got out there you'll want to get
home and enjoy it----"
"Man! It'd take a hunderd years to go through it all. It's bin piling
up there since ever this bank silted up."
"Oh well, we don't want to stop here a hundred years, that's certain.
What's the good of it all if you can't make any use of it?"
"It's graand to handle anyway."
And when they had eaten, he opened some of his bundles and displayed
his treasures,--a jewelled 'George,' roughly cut from some
Garter-knight's court-coat, several smaller decorations, all more or
less ornamented with precious stones, three dress-swords with
mountings, in ivory and gold, a small wooden box lined with sodden blue
velvet in which were half a dozen rings, some of which from the size of
the stones and the massiveness of their setting, seemed to Wulfrey of
considerable value.
"They're worth something, all those," said Macro, as he handled them
with loving exultation.
"Ay, if you could get them home and turn them into money. I don't see
what use they're going to be to you here," said Wulfrey, fiddling his
own string again.
"They're fine to have anyway."
"I'd sooner have another pipe and some more tobacco than the whole of
them."
"Ye can have that too," and he rooted in another bundle and produced
both. "They're oot a dead man's chest and they're wet. But he's no
use for 'em and they'll dry. So there ye are. Ye dinnot care for
jewels?" and he looked at Wulfrey wonderingly.
"As to that, I don't say I wouldn't pick them up if I came across them,
but I've no hankering for them."
"Ye've plenty money of your own, mebbe."
"As much as I need--if ever I get ashore."
"Ah! It meks a difference, ye see. I never had any to speak of, and
these bonny sparklers pluck at the heart o' me."
"You're welcome to all you can get, as far as I'm concerned----"
"Ay, man, they're mine, for I found 'em."
"But they're no use to you unless we can get away from here. Get
ashore and you can turn them to account. Now why couldn't we build
some kind of a boat and get across to Nova Scotia? There's wood enough
and to spare out yonder----"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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