The _Hamilla Mitchell_ came to grief on the Leuconna Rock, near Shanghai, and carried down with her £50,000 of specie. She was a total loss, and the underwriters, after paying the insurance, considered the question of trying to salve the treasure. They instructed an expert to visit the scene and report on the case. The expert in due course considered that the case was hopeless, that the specie was lost for all time, and that the wreck had gone down in such deep water in so exposed a position that it was much too dangerous for divers to work there--not a very cheerful report for the underwriters to receive. There, for a time, the matter rested. Then upon the scene came a Captain Lodge with an offer to do his best to recover the treasure. The underwriters, unwilling to allow the specie of which they were the owners to remain at the bottom of the sea, agreed gladly to the proposal that was placed before them. Captain Lodge considered the problem most profoundly. He knew that what was lost would not be won back easily, that the odds were, indeed, very much against a single ounce of the precious metal ever again seeing the light of day. This did not dismay him. Securing the services of two clever divers, named Ridyard and Penk, he made the trip to Shanghai, taking out with him some special diving apparatus--the finest and most powerful equipment to be found in the world. He wandered about Shanghai looking for a vessel that would suit his purpose, and, coming across a small sailing craft, chartered her and proceeded on his quest for the wreck. Small as was the salvage vessel, she was yet too large to take inshore among the high rocks, and so the divers had to prosecute their search from the small boat which they towed behind. They searched here, they searched there, dropping over the side of the boat in their cumbersome dress, facing all the unknown perils of the unknown depths. Now they were carefully exploring a ledge perhaps only 20 feet deep, and a little later they would be slipping down the face of a chasm that plunged sheer into the sea for another 100 feet or more. They did not spare themselves in that search, for at times they penetrated to a depth of 160 feet. They were investigating a ledge one day when a dark mass loomed up at one end. They approached it, to find the wreck at last, noting with satisfaction that it was in a comparatively shallow depth which made the prospect of salvage fairly easy. Their jubilation was cut short, however, as they drew nigh. It was the stern that held the treasure, and the stern was missing! Fate had once more been up to her tricks. The _Hamilla Mitchell_ had settled with her stern overhanging deep water. Not for long did she remain intact, for the gales soon broke off the unsupported after end, which slipped off the ledge into the abyss, where the divers managed to locate it in 156 feet of water.