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“But will not this be strictly what the longshoremen would term a salvage job?”

“I do not intend that it shall be a salvage job. What? Deliver up the dollars to the Dutch or British Government and be put off with an award that would scarce do more than pay wages?”

“You mean to run the stuff?”

He nodded. “There is time enough to talk over that,” said he; “and yet perhaps it’s right I should tell you that Tulp and I have arranged for the running of the dollars so that we shall forfeit not one farthing.”

“Well, I heartily wish you joy of your discovery,” said I. “This voyage will be your last, no doubt, if the dollars are still where you saw them.”

I looked at a little clock that was ticking over a table; it was a quarter after eleven. I then looked at the small scuttle or window which swung with regular oscillations out of the flash of the flying foam into the light of the blowing morning. I then looked at Galloon, and wondered quietly within myself how long it would take me to get home; for the speeding of the brig was continuous; the heave of the sea that rushed her forward was full of the weight of a sort of weather that my experience assured me was not going to fail us on a sudden. When, then, was I going to get home? and while I kept my eyes fastened upon Galloon, I mused with the velocity of thought upon my uncle Captain Round; upon my adventure with the press-gang; upon the Royal Brunswicker, and her arrival in the Thames; upon my little property in the cabin I had occupied aboard her, and on the wages which Captain Spalding owed me.