Frontin’s hawk-nose led them aright, but not his calculations, for so toilsome was the road along the shore ice under the cliffs, that in the end Vanderberg rigged shears up above and rove his unrotted mooring-lines together, and so made an easy descent and a quick road over the snow above the cliffs. This let the _Irondelle_ pursue her own fate, and a current threw her ashore when the remaining bower-hawser chafed through and she lay stranded on a shallow. Who cared? They were mad, those men, doing the work of giants for the reward of the earth-gnomes. On the ledge under the cliff, the ledge which was flooded at high tide, or had been, were great masses of snow-clear ice like crystal, and under the ice lay the shattered and sundered galleon, and chests plain to be seen. Then there was chopping and splitting of ice, and Frontin dried out the wet powder and tampered with it, and made some of it to burn so that the ice was riven asunder. Because the days were short, they hurled dead trees and logs over the cliff-edge, and built them fires on the ledge, laboring through the night. When wearied, they dropped and slept, and rose and took up axe and chisel again, now snatching a bite to eat and now a dram of hot rum, staggering as they hewed; and the smoke of the burning rose up by day and the flame seared the cliff-side by night. In three days those six men accomplished what any other twelve men would have done in a fortnight, so that in the end they reached the shattered galleon. On the fourth day came to pass the prodigious finale. The plunder was got at and laid out--six chests of mahogany bound with sea-greened brass, three baggy canvas sacks bulging with gold cups and like articles, and two casks of good Spanish wine. Frontin and the four men were swung up to the cliff-top to haul, while Vanderberg remained below to make each chest fast in turn. A hard driving rain had been falling all night, and Vanderberg had laid fire to the high carven stern-portion of the galleon’s wreck, so that presently the ledge and the niche in the cliffs were roaring warm, and the work went on merrily. One by one the chests swung up, and the bags, and one of the casks of wine. Then, as Vanderberg was making fast the second cask, the fire reached some unsuspected powder in the wreck. Those up above knew not what had happened, nor cared greatly, for the rain was driving down and they had broached the cask of wine and were hammering at one of the mahogany chests for a sight of the gold. Then, when the shock of the explosion was gone, and the roaring echoes had died out, they heard Vanderberg bawling at them and saw the rope shaking; so Frontin flailed them to the lines, and presently the captain was hauled up and landed like a sack of meal.