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A man in the water weighs practically nothing, and to heave around a capstan under water requires lateral resistance. To secure this they dived with hammers and nails, and fastened a circle of cleats to catch their feet. Then with a boy on the main fife-rail (his head out) holding slack, eighteen men–three to a bar–would inhale all the air their lungs could hold, and, with a “One, two, three,” would flounder down, push the capstan around a few pawls, and come up gasping, and blue in the face, to perch on their bars and recover. It went slowly, this end, but in three days more they could walk around with their heads above water.

The next day was Sunday, and they were entitled to rest; but the flavor of wealth had entered their souls, and they petitioned the captain for privilege to work, which was granted, to the satisfaction of the officers, and against the vigorous protest of Mr. Todd, who had prepared a sermon and borrowed clean linen from Mr. Shack in which to deliver it.

With luff-tackles on the fall they hove the stern up until the cabin doors and all deck-openings but the main-hatch were out of water, and then, with the bark hanging to the sheers as a swinging-cradle hangs from its supports, some assisted the carpenter and his mates in building up and calking an upward extension of the main-hatch coaming that reached above water at high tide, while others went over the side looking for the shot-holes of eight broadsides. These, when found, were covered with planking, followed by canvas, nails being driven with shackles, sounding-leads, and stones from the bottom in the hands of naked men clinging to weighted stagings–men whose eyes protruded, whose lungs ached, whose brains were turning.

Then, and before a final inspection by the boatswain in the diving-suit assured them that the last shot-hole was covered, they began bailing from the main-hatch, and when the water perceptibly lowered–the first index of success–a feverish yell arose and continued, while nude lunatics wrestled and floundered waist-deep on the flooded deck. The bark’s pumps were manned and worked under water, bailing-pumps–square tubes with one valve–were made and plunged up and down in each hatch, whips were rigged, and buckets rose and fell until the obstructing cargo confined the work to the bark’s pumps. Can-hooks replaced the buckets on the whips, then boxes and barrels were hoisted, broken into, and thrown overboard, until the surface of the bay was dotted with them. They drifted back and forth with the tide, some stranding on the beach, others floating seaward through the inlet. And all the time that they worked, sharp eyes had watched through the bushes, and a few miles inland, in a glade surrounded by the giant trees of the Brazilian forest, red-shirted men lolled and smoked and grew fat, while they discussed around the central fire the qualities of barbecued wild oxen, roast opossum and venison, and criticized the seamanship of the Englishmen.

With a clear deck to work on, every man and boy of the brig’s crew, except the idlers (stewards, cooks, and servants), was requisitioned, and boxes flew merrily; but night closed down on the tenth day of their labor without sign of the treasure, and now Mr. Todd, who had noticed a shade of testiness in the queries of the officers as to the exact location of the gold and diamonds, expressed a desire to climb the rigging next afternoon, a feat he had often wished to perform, which he did clumsily, going through the lubber’s hole, and seated in the maintop with Mr. Duncan’s Bible, he remained in quiet meditation and apparent reading and prayer until the tropic day changed to sudden twilight and darkness, and the hysterical crew returned. Then he came down to dinner.

In the morning the work was resumed, and more boxes sprinkled the bay. They drifted up with the flood, and came back with the ebb-tide; but among them now were about forty others, unobserved by Captain Bunce, pacing his quarter-deck, but noted keenly by Mr. Todd. These forty drifted slowly to the offshore side of the brig and stopped, bobbing up and down on the crisp waves, even though the wind blew briskly with the tide, and they should have gone on with the others. It was then that Captain Bunce stepped below for a cigar, and it was then that Mr. Todd became strangely excited, hopping along the port-rail and throwing overboard every rope’s end within reach, to the wonder and scandal of an open-eyed steward in the cabin door, who immediately apprised the captain.