No time was lost in lowering cables, and one by one the ingots began to speed to the surface. Then, all too quickly, the signal was given for the divers to ascend, and the treasure had to be left for another day. That season ingots valued at £500,000 were recovered from the strong-room, after superhuman labour on the part of all concerned. So extremely arduous were the conditions that our crack divers could only work two spells of fifteen minutes’ duration each day. Half an hour’s toil beneath the sea took as much out of them as the ordinary day’s work takes out of the ordinary man. Once more the winter gales played havoc with the wreck, and next spring the divers found that the treasure was lost under a mass of twisted plates and girders. Imagine a street of lofty houses, then imagine that all the buildings were pushed suddenly down into the centre of the road, and you will arrive at some faint idea of what the ship looked like. Great girders were bent into all sorts of strange shapes; iron bars thick as a man’s wrist were twisted into fantastic curves. The only way to get to the treasure now was to blast a passage with explosives. The difficulties of the task were increased by the necessity of hoisting every bit of plate out of the wreck and towing it some distance before dumping it, in order to make quite certain that the plate would not again obstruct the divers. The placing of the charges in the most effective spots, and the withdrawal of the divers while contacts were made and the charges exploded, took a long time and entailed endless trouble. But the salvors kept at it doggedly, and bit by bit they cut away obstructing plates and girders weighing about 300 tons. [Illustration: A DIVER GOING DOWN TO BLOW UP PART OF A WRECK TO GET AT THE TREASURE. THE CHARGE OF EXPLOSIVE, WEIGHING 50 LBS., IS CONTAINED IN THE LONG TIN OVER THE SIDE OF THE BOAT. SOMETIMES THE EXPLOSIVE IS PACKED IN A CANVAS BAG THREE OR FOUR FEET LONG AND THREE OR FOUR INCHES ACROSS] Thus they opened up a way to the treasure, and once more began to send ingots of the precious metal to the surface. Things began to look rosy, and there seemed the prospect of making a clean sweep of all the bullion, when a terrific storm arose and stopped operations. When the divers went down again they found that more plates had folded down over the treasure, as if deliberately to prevent its abstraction. It was a dreadful disappointment, for very soon afterwards the autumnal gales put an end to the hunt for the season. The next year the _Racer_ was back again off the Donegal coast, eager to resume the great treasure-hunt. But it proved a terrible season. The weather seemed to mock the hunters. For weeks at a time work was impossible. As soon as one storm abated, another sprang up.