San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-03-31
CHAPTER XVI.
HEAR OF A GREAT TREASURE.

I lighted a pipe, and sat bordering his
story little while. There was no doubt he
had given me the exact truth so far as his
relation of it went. AS it was certain then
that the Boca del Dragon las she was called
had been fixed in the ice for hard upon fifty
years, the conclusion formed was that she
had been blown by some hundreds of leagues
farther south than the point to which the
Laughing Mary had been driven; that this
ice in which she was entanged was not then
drifting northward, but was in the grasp of
some polar current that trended it south
easterly; that in due course it was carried to
the antarctic main of ice, where it lay COM
pacted; after which, through stress of
weather or by the agency of a particular
temperature, a great mass of it broke away
and started on that northward course which
bergs of all magnitude take when they are
ruptured from the frozen continent.
Now that l had a companion should be
able to escape from this horrid situation? He
had spoken of chests of silver. Where was
the treasure-in the run? There might be
booty enough in the hold to make a great
man, a fine gentleman, of me, ashore 1t
would be noble ending to an amazing ad-
venture to come off with as much money as
would render me independent for life, and
enable me to turn my back forever upon the
hardest calling to which the destiny of man
can wed him.
Of such were the fancies which hurried
through my mind.
l wished to see how the schooner lay, and
what change had befallen the ice in the
night, and went on deck 1t was blowing a
whole gale of wind from the northwest.
The sea was swelling very furiously, and l
could divine its tempeStuOus character by
clouds of spray which spread like volumes of
steam under the sullen dusky heavens high
over the mastheads. The schooner lay with
a list of about - dogs, and her bows high
cooked l looked over the stern and saw
that the ice Lad sunk there, and that there
were twenty great rents and yawning seams
where | had before noticed but one. A vast
block of ice had fallen on the starboard side,
and lay so close on the quarter that l could
have sprung on to it. No other marked
changes We're observable.
l was about to go below again, when my
eye was taken by the two figures lying upon
the deck. No dead bodies ever looked more
dead; but after the wondrous restoration of
the Frenchman could not view their forms
without fancying that they were but as he
had been, and that if they were carried to the
furnace, and treated with brandy and rub
bling and the like, they might be brought to.
Full of thoughts concerning them stepped
into the cabin, and going to the cook room
found Tatsard still heavily sleeping. The
coal in the corner was low, and as it wanted
an hour Of dinner time took the lantern and
bucket and went into the fore peak, and
after several journeys stocked up good pro-
vision of coal in the corner. l made noise
enough, Tut Tassard slept on. When this
was ended l boiled some water to cleanse
myself, AMI then set about getting the dinner
ready.
The going into the fore peak had put my
mind upon the treasure, which, as l had
gathered from the Frenchman's narrative,
was somewhere hidden in the schooner-in
the run as doubted not; mean in the hold,
under the lazarette-for you will recollect
that, being weary and half persisted with the
cold, had turned my back on that dark part
after having looked into the powder room.
All the time was fetching the coal and dress.
ing the dinner my Imagination was on fire