The sailors interested me so much that, whilst they were with us, I looked only at them. It was not that there was anything in their faces, if I except the dreadful pallor, or in their attire, to fix my attention; it was that they were a part of the crew of this accurst ship, participators in the doom that Vanderdecken had brought upon her, members of a ghostly band the like of which it might never be permitted to mortal man to behold again. One had very deep-sunk eyes, which shone in their dark hollows with much of the fire that gave a power of terrifying to those of the captain. Another had a long, grizzly beard, over which his nose curved in a hook, his little eyes lay close against the top of his nose, and his hair, that was wet with spray or rain, lay like new-gathered seaweed down to pretty near his shoulder-blades. This man's name, I afterwards heard, was Tjaart Van der Valdt, whilst he that had the glowing eyes was called Christopher Roostoff. They all went about in the soulless, mechanical way I was now used to, and, when they had set down the chests, Prins dismissed them with an injunction to stand by ready to take them below again. The cases were about three feet high, and ranging about five feet long; they were heavily girt with iron bands, and padlocked with massive staples. Prins opened them and flung back the lids, and then, to be sure, I looked down upon treasures the like of which in quality, I'll not say quantity, in one single ship, the holds of the Acapulco galleons could alone rival, or the caves in which the old buccaneers hid their booty. Miss Dudley, seeing me rise, left her seat, and came to my side. Vanderdecken stepped round, and leaned against the table, his arms folded, and his body moving only with the rolling of the ship. I should speedily grow tedious were I to be minute in my description of what I saw, yet I must venture a short way in this direction. In one box there were fitted four trays, each tray divided into several compartments, and every compartment was filled with precious stones, set in rings, bracelets, bangles and the like, and with golden ornaments, such as birds for the hair, brooches, necklets, chains for wearing about the waist or neck, and other such things of prodigious value and beauty of device. I asked leave to examine some of these objects, and on picking them up noticed that some were of a much more antique character than others, insomuch that I said to Miss Imogene in English, "I suspect that much of these splendours our friend will have collected at different periods." She answered in our tongue, "He can tell you what he purchased at Batavia, or what was consigned to him for delivery at Amsterdam, but his memory after that is a blank, and the last wreck he can recall, in which he found several quintals of silver and unminted gold, is the Fryheid that he met--I cannot tell where--in a sinking condition." "There is more treasure aboard than this! cried I.