No glittering treasure dazzled me.  I saw only a surface of stained canvas, tucked in carefully around the edges.  This I tore off and flung aside—­eclipsing poor Benjy, who was a most interested spectator of my strange proceedings.  Still no gleam of gold, merely demure rows of plump brown bags.  With both hands I reached for them.  Oh, to grasp them all!  I had to be content with two, because they were so heavy, so blessedly heavy!

I spread the square of canvas on the sand, cut the strings from the bags, and poured out—­gold, gold!  All fair shining golden coins they were, not a paltry silver piece among them!  And they made a soft golden music as they fell in a glorious yellow heap.

I don’t know how long I sat there, playing with my gold, running it through my fingers, clinking the coins together in my palm.  Benjy came and sniffed at them indifferently, unable to understand his master’s preoccupation.  He thrust his nose into my face and barked, and said as clearly as with words, Come, hunt pig!

“Benjy,” I said, “we’ll leave the pork alone just now.  We have work enough to count our money.  We’re rich, old boy, rich, rich!”

Of course, I don’t yet know exactly what the value of the treasure is.  I have counted the bags in the chest; there are one hundred and forty-eight.  Each, so far as I have determined, contains one thousand doubloons, which makes a total of one hundred and forty-eight thousand.  Estimating each coin, for the sake of even figures, at a value of seven dollars—­a safe minimum—­you get one million, thirty-six thousand dollars.  And as many of the coins are ancient, I ought to reap a harvest from collectors.

Besides the coin, I found, rather surprisingly, laid between the upper layers of bags, a silver crucifix about nine inches long.  It is of very quaint old workmanship, and badly tarnished.  Its money value must be very trifling, compared to the same bulk of golden coins.  I think it must have had some special character of sacredness which led to its preservation here.  It is strange to find such a relic among a treasure so stained by blood and crime.

And now I have to think about moving the gold.  First of all I must get the chest itself aboard the Island Queen.  This means that I shall have to empty it and leave the gold in the cave, while I get the chest out by sea.  When the chest is safely in the cabin of the sloop—­where it won’t leave much room for Benjy and his master, I’m afraid—­I will take the bags of coin out by the land entrance.  I can’t think of risking my precious doubloons in the voyage around the point.

Of course I should have liked to get to the task to-day, but after the first mad thrill of the great event was over, I found myself as weak and unnerved as a woman.  So by a great effort I came away and left my glorious golden hoard.  Now I dream and gloat, playing with the idea that to-morrow I shall find it all a fantasy.  The pleasure of this is, of course, that all the while I know this wildest of all Arabian fairy tales to be as real as the most drab and sober fact of my hitherto colorless life.