“Well, a few days after the great gale, I came out in this direction, and noticed, to my amazement, that the hill was gone! That didn’t surprise me much, for I had known other such changes to take place in every storm, though I had never known any on such an extensive scale. But when I came nearer, and saw this old hull, you may depend upon it I was astonished enough. Here it was,--all laid bare, all the sand blown away just as you see it now, except the cabin there, which I proceeded to clear out as soon as I could. “Now, the first glance showed me that this old hull must be at least a couple of hundred years old; and I took it for one of the old French or English ships that had been wrecked here in the early days of American colonization. I accounted for its position so far inland in the easiest manner in the world. The fact is, this whole island is all the time shifting and changing. I don’t believe it is in the least like what it used to be. When this ship got here, I believe this was a shoal where she drove ashore in some tremendous gale, and was soon covered up with sand. Gradually the sand gathered about her more and more, and the island changed its shape, and the shoal rose above the water, till at last this place became the middle of the island. Two or three hundred years from this, I dare say there’ll be miles of land away off there to the north, all along, and this’ll be considered the South Shore.” “But didn’t you find anything aboard of her?” asked Bart, in eager curiosity. “Well, that was the very first thing I thought of. This old-fashioned ship reminded me of the Spanish galleons that used to take cargoes of gold and silver across the water, and I was full of the idea that there might be some immense treasure still on board. The sand had preserved the wood from decay, and gold was still more likely to be preserved. So I hurried back at once, and got a shovel, and came here alone. I cleared out the whole cabin there that day, and to my deep disappointment, I found not one single thing. I found it, in fact, just as you see it now--completely cleaned out by the waves. Everything had gone, except the timbers and some of the deck work. Doors had been torn off, and the whole front of the quarterdeck had been forced away. There were no movables of any kind, nothing, in fact, except those beams and planks, that had been strong enough to resist the fury of the waves.