I began to grow uncomfortable. Also, less glad than I had been that we had discovered my uncle. True, he had not talked to anybody for so long that he was doubtless anxious to make up for lost time, but I wished he had selected some other subject. We waited the end in silence. “He would have been my heir,” he went on, “had my ship come into port. He is my heir to-day of whatever of property or prospect I may leave behind. Of prospect I believe there is considerable on this island. Of property—well, as I told Nick, I have had a good deal of time on my hands during the past twenty-one years, and the result”—turning, he laid his hand on a great flat stone in the wall near him, and swung it aside—“it is in there—you can see it for yourselves.” We leaned forward and looked into the opening made. Beyond, there was a sort of storehouse or small room, the floor smoothly covered with skins. In the center arose a heap or pyramid of what appeared to be irregular yellow lumps of earth, or pebbles, of varying sizes—some very small—others quite large. No one spoke, but we looked at him questioningly. “Those are nuggets,” he said. “That pile contains, I believe, about two tons of solid gold!” XL. CLAIMING THE REWARD. For three weeks the Billowcrest lay a prisoner off the South Shetlands—just which of these islands, I do not consider it proper at this time to say. Assisted by Chauncey and Edith Gale, my uncle and I put the treasure into bags and had it conveyed to the vessel as “mineral specimens,” for we felt that we could not wholly trust our crew. Then at length a wind from the northwest set the currents a new pace and altered the sand drift. We found ourselves afloat one morning, and crowding on sail and steam made all speed northward, arriving safely in New York harbor on the evening of February second, after an absence of nearly eighteen months. As we came in through the dusk, the splendid cities and the bridge between to us seemed gloriously illuminated; but if so, it was not in our honor. Nobody knew that we had returned, or even that we had gone. We steamed up North River to our old dock, and Chauncey Gale set forth at once to catch a Broadway car for a certain down-town theater, which he greatly feared had been discontinued during our absence. Next morning I went with my uncle to establish some desirable banking connections, through which his treasure might be properly transferred, and converted into funds.