He came near sharing the fate of Brigond, for the yawl
grazed the needle of the rock that, hiding away in the water, with a nose
out for destruction, awaits its victims. They reached safe anchorage,
but by the time they landed it was night, with, however, a good moon
showing.
All night they searched, three silent, eager figures, drawing step by
step nearer the place where the ancient enemy of man was barracked about
by men's bodies. It was Joan who, at last, as dawn drew up, discovered
the hollow between two great rocks where the treasure lay. A few
minutes' fierce digging, and the kegs of gold were disclosed, showing
through the ribs of two skeletons. Joan shrank back, but the two men
tossed aside the rattling bones, and presently the kegs were standing
between them on the open shore. Bissonnette's eyes were hungry--he knew
now the wherefore of the quest. He laughed outright, a silly, loud,
hysterical laugh. Tarboe's eyes shifted from the sky to the river, from
the river to the kegs, from the kegs to Bissonnette. On him they stayed
a moment. Bissonnette shrank back. Tarboe was feeling for the first
time in his life the deadly suspicion which comes with ill-gotten wealth.
This passed as his eyes and Joan's met, for she had caught the melodrama,
the overstrain; Bissonnette's laugh had pointed the situation; and her
sense of humour had prevailed.
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