"Oh, look around you, Adolph. Look at the sea. Doesn't its beauty thrill you? Ah! who could settle down as a landsman, who has ever felt the glamour of old ocean in his heart. But now, old comrade, let us eat and drink, and then talk. It is just like old times to have you all to myself. Do you mind the Island of Snakes, Adolphus?"
"Oui, oui," said Adolph, "and I remember the gold also. I knew when you brought me here that you meant to speak of that. But the gold is all yours, Kep. It was you who found it. You who dived and discovered the treasure, and----"
"Hold one minute, comrade. That gold is not yet found. Don't forget that; or there may be so little to find, that it may not pay the expense of searching for it."
"Mean to? Well, yes, and I long to do so so far more now than ever. I have had letters from home and they have stirred and subdued me. Nay, but they have aged me. I'm a boy no longer, but a thinking, busy-brained man."
"My father has let and left his fine estate. He has come down in the world, Adolph, and I fear it may break the old man's heart. He is living by the sea which he loves so well, living in peace and quiet, that is if a seaman-bred can ever be restful. And I fear that Madge, my dear sister, may now think it her duty to marry a certain wealthy man whom she hates, in order to please father. He is older far than she, and on his death all the wealth would be hers."
"I should say she could not do better. That is my continental view of the matter, Kep."
"Ah! but comrade, poor Madge has had a little _affaire de coeur_, which I did not tell you. Only a child's romance."
"That might alter the case," said Adolph demurely enough now, because he saw that Kep was very much in earnest.
"See," said the boy, "I have worn myself almost thin, brain-working and studying, for a time to come, when I shall be great, though never perhaps wealthy."
"What, not even if we recover those sunken millions?"
"I don't even allow these to count for anything, Adolph. Money can do much, but it never can satisfy the longings of an ambitious boy. I have," he added, "a double incentive now to struggle to rise. I have always loved my father and he loves me, although we are both too Scotch ever to have shown it. But, Adolph, I never felt I loved him half so much as I find I now do.