"Hatch was bracing himself on the wheel, riding out the memory. Horror washed over him like seasickness as the drizzle splattered the pilothouse windows and the bell buoy tolled mournfully in the mists. But mingled with the horror was something else, something new: the realization that there was a vast treasure down there - that his grandfather had not been a complete fool who destroyed three generations of his family for nothing. In a moment, he knew what his decision had to be: the final answer that was owed to his grandfather, his father, and his brother." (Chapter 3, pg. 44)

"He gestured in the direction of the island. 'Here - a mere hundred yards away - lies one of those great riddles, perhaps the greatest still left in North America. Look at it. It looks like nothing, a hold in a patch of dirt and rock.. And yet this...