Tom himself began to be a little down-hearted, and more than once suspected that he had made a wrong guess. But when he brought to mind that the money was of one mintage, and, from the way in which it lay, that it was plainly washed out of the wreck by the water that had flowed over the sand-spit at the time of the hurricane, he would feel reassured that he was right, though he could not account for the reason why a part of it should have been washed up, while the rest seemed to lie so deeply beneath the surface. So he managed to keep Jack pretty steadily to his work, though, as the days dragged along and nothing came of their labor, it became a great task to do so. But on the tenth day they made a find. They were just about to give up their work for the evening, when Tom unearthed a small, wooden box. It was about a foot long, six inches wide, and three or four inches deep. It was very rotten, and fell to pieces as Jack tried to pick it up. It was full of money, which tumbled all in a heap as the box crumbled in Jack’s hand. The money must have been in rolls when it was put into the case, for there were scraps of mouldy paper mixed with it, and some of the coins had bits of paper glued to them by the black rust that had gathered upon them. This was the first money that they found by digging, and Jack nearly went crazy over it. Tom himself was very much excited, but he did not act as absurdly as Jack, who danced, and laughed, and shouted like one possessed. It was their first gleam of good luck, and it was a good thing that it came when it did, for it was speedily followed by the worst of ill fortune. That night there came a south-east storm that did great damage. It had been brewing all of the afternoon, but Tom and Jack had not seen it, or, if they had seen it, had thought nothing of it, for heretofore the wash of the surf had never run as far up as the wreck, even in the heaviest weather. But so much of the sand had been carried away that the surf came a great deal higher than it had done before. It was blowing quite heavily when Tom and Jack went over to the sand-spit the next morning, and a part of the wash of the breakers had found its way into the place that they had been digging, so that the sand had caved in here and there. They tried to do all that they could to protect their work, but it was no good, for, by the time that evening had come, the place that they had dug out was half full of sand, and by the next morning it was nearly levelled over, and all of their labor was to be done again. As soon as the storm was over they set to work, and in a week’s time had the sand nearly all dug out. Then came another blow, and the same thing happened as before.