This time there was no stumbling hesitation in his progress. He had been there before. He knew the way!
Straight for the hold he made, careful to keep both the line and cable free of the wreckage. It can't be said that, as he passed through the cabin where he had first stumbled over the skeleton of the long dead pirate, he did not experience an uncanny thrill. He did but, as he told himself with an uneasy laugh, he was getting used to it by this time. Pretty soon he would be able to walk through a whole sea of dead men without turning a hair!
Just the same, the chest to which he fastened the cable was not the one against which leaned the second pirate's skeleton. Phil had a weird feeling that to disturb it would be to invite disaster upon himself.
Of course when all the other chests had been hauled to the surface, he would be forced to disturb that awful, reclining figure. But, not yet!
He gave the signal agreed upon that all was in readiness and slowly the heavy chest left its fellows and moved along the littered floor. Phil went with it, sometimes before it, sometimes behind, moving objects out of its way pushing, hauling.
Then came the moment when he stood upon the scarred and mutilated deck of the schooner and watched the chest rise above his head, higher, higher, till he could no longer follow its ascent.
A wild thrill shot through him. By that one act they had conquered the deep. At last the treasure was within their grasp!
Three boxes they retrieved from the sunken vessel that day, and since it was getting dark when the last of these was hauled to the surface, they decided to postpone any further operations till the next day.
The boys were curiously silent as they tugged and hauled the chests to the cave where they might examine their contents. Suppose the mysterious boxes did not contain treasure after all? They were almost afraid to open them.
Phil it was who began to pry off the lid of the first box. His body ached with fatigue from his adventures under the sea but he never even thought of it. His whole mind was concentrated on the business of getting that lid off.
The boys stood around him holding their breath, their eyes fairly burning with excited expectation of what they hoped to see.