On his last visit to the mound he had carefully examined
its interior, and although, of course, there was a great diminution in
its contents, there was no reason to believe that the cavity of the mound
did not extend downward to the floor of the cave, and that it remained
packed with gold bars to the depth of several feet. It seemed silly,
crazy, in fact, almost wicked, for him to sail away in the _Finland_ and
leave all that gold behind, and yet, how could he possibly take away any
more of it?
He had with him a trunk nearly empty, in which he might pack some
blankets and other stuff with some bags of gold stowed away between them,
but more than fifty pounds added to the weight of the trunk and its
contents would make it suspiciously heavy, and what was fifty pounds out
of that vast mass? But although he puzzled his brains for the greater
part of a day, trying to devise some method by which he could take away
more gold without exciting the suspicions of the people on board the
English vessel, there was no plan that entered his mind that did not
contain elements of danger, and the danger was an appalling one. If the
crew of the _Finland_, or the crew of any other vessel, should, on this
desert coast, get scent of a treasure mound of gold ingots, he might as
well attempt to reason with wild beasts as to try to make them understand
that that treasure belonged to him.
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