"I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn, and I dare say I
spent the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went
below to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work
hunting, feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing
blue gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about,
a dab at my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect.
I kicked a lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and stooped and
picked up something all knobs and spikes. What do you think?
Backbone! But I never had any particular feeling for bones. We
had talked the affair over pretty thoroughly, and Always knew just
where the stuff was stowed. I found it that trip. I lifted a box
one end an inch or more."

He broke off in his story. "I've lifted it," he said, "as near as
that! Forty thousand pounds worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted
inside my helmet as a kind of cheer and hurt my ears. I was getting
confounded stuffy and tired by this time--I must have been down
twenty-five minutes or more--and I thought this was good enough.
I went up the companion again, and as my eyes came up flush with
the deck, a thundering great crab gave a kind of hysterical jump
and went scuttling off sideways. Quite a start it gave me. I stood
up clear on deck and shut the valve behind the helmet to let the air
accumulate to carry me up again--I noticed a kind of whacking
from above, as though they were hitting the water with an oar,
but I didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling me to come up.

"And then something shot down by me--something heavy, and stood
a-quiver in the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd
seen young Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was
still calling him this kind of fool and that--for it might have hurt