Me and my impatience it would
appear he had forgotten; for when he was quite done, he
sat a while thinking, whistled a bar or two, refolded
the papers, tied them up again; and then, and not
before, deliberately raised the tray.
I saw a cigar-box, tied with a piece of fishing-line,
and four fat canvas bags. Nares whipped out his knife,
cut the line, and opened the box. It was about half-
full of sovereigns.
"And the bags?" I whispered.
The captain ripped them open one by one, and a flood of
mixed silver coin burst forth and rattled in the rusty
bottom of the box. Without a word, he set to work to
count the gold.
"What is this?" I asked.
"It's the ship's money," he returned, doggedly
continuing his work.
"The ship's money?" I repeated. "That's the money
Trent tramped and traded with. And there's his cheque-
book to draw upon his owners? And he has left it?"
"I guess he has," said Nares austerely, jotting down a
note of the gold; and I was abashed into silence till
his task should be completed.
It came, I think, to three hundred and seventy-eight
pounds sterling; some nineteen pounds of it in silver:
all of which we turned again into the chest.
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