Captain Jules shook the heavy safe. Something certainly rattled on the inside.
There were bits of moss and tiny shells and stones encrusted on the upper lid of the box. Deliberately Captain Jules scraped them off with a stick. The houseboat party and Tom were beginning to grow impatient. What made Captain Jules so slow? Philip Holt, who was standing by Mrs. Curtis's side, gazed sneeringly at the operations. He was glad, indeed, that he had not risked his life in descending to the bottom of the bay in search for pearls, only to bring up a rusty chest.
"The box is fastened tightly; it will have to be broken open," remarked Madge indifferently. She was feeling tired, now that the excitement of her diving trip was over. She wished to go home to the houseboat. She did not wish Captain Jules to guess for an instant how disappointed she was that they had found nothing of value on their diving adventure. If only the captain had not dropped the shells in which there might have been a chance of finding pearls!
Captain Jules had hold of the iron hammer that he used when diving. Click! click! click! he struck three times on the lock of the iron safe. Like the magic tinder-box, the lid flew open. Tania's long-drawn childish, "Oh!" was the only sound that broke the tense and breathless stillness that pervaded the group.
A single pearl! The scorned iron chest almost full of shining coins and precious stones! There were coins of gold and silver--strange coins that no one in the watching crowd had ever seen before. Some of them bore dates and inscriptions of English mintings of the early part of the eighteenth century.
Of course, it was incredible! No one believed his eyes. A treasure-chest unearthed after more than two hundred years? It was impossible!
Yet instantly each one of the girls remembered that the pirates had sunk many vessels in Delaware Bay in the latter part of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. In those days many wealthy English families came over with their servants and their treasure to settle in the new country of America.
Phil's book on the history of piracy had recalled this information to the girls only ten days before. It was then, when Madge lay with her head resting in her hands, looking dreamily out over the waters, that she had wondered how anything so remote from her as the story of the early American battles with pirate ships could help her to solve her present troubles? Yet here, like a miracle before her eyes, lay the answer!