Part 14 (1/2)
”Oh, then you are sure it _is_ treasure,” Mollie returned.
”Well, we might as well think that as anything else--until we get the box open and find it full of--sand!” declared Betty, laughing.
”Oh, let's open it now!” cried Grace, impulsively. ”I'm just dying to see what's in it. Please let's open it now.”
”Perhaps we have no right,” objected Amy.
”Why, of _course_ we have,” insisted Grace, making ”big eyes” at Amy.
”We found it. Can't we open it, Betty?”
But there was a very good reason why the girls could not open the box--at least then and there.
CHAPTER XI
THE CIPHER
”Locked!” exclaimed Betty, laconically, when she had tried the cover of the box.
”Oh, dear!” came petulantly from Grace. ”Isn't that horrid!”
”Well, I suppose the men have a right to lock up their treasure,” coolly remarked Betty, again vainly trying to raise the cover.
”You will have it that those men hid the box,” said Amy, with a smile.
”Also that it is treasure.”
”I'm getting romantic--like Grace,” commented the Little Captain.
Then, as they found that their efforts to open the box were vain, the girls looked at it more closely.
It was a black j.a.panned box of tin, or, rather, light sheet iron, rather heavier than the usual box made for holding legal papers. It was such a receptacle as would be described, in England, as a ”dispatch box.” And in fact, the box did seem to be of some foreign make. It was not like the light tin affairs used locally to hold deeds, insurance policies and the like.
The cover fitted on tightly. This much was seen at a glance, and so well did it fit that it needed a second look to make sure which was the bottom and which the top, for there was no bulge or ”shoulder” of the metal to indicate where the lid rested.
”It's water-tight, I'm sure,” Mollie said, when the box had again been set upright. They decided that the top was that place where the initials ”B. B. B.” showed, half-obliterated, in white paint.
”Then it might have been washed ash.o.r.e from some wreck,” Amy said.
”Too heavy to float,” was the answer of Mollie, as she again lifted it.
”But it could work up in a heavy wind or sea; that is, if it didn't go down too far from sh.o.r.e,” Grace remarked. ”But can't we get it open some way?”
”We might break it,” Mollie observed. ”Otherwise, I don't see how we can. It is a complicated lock, if I am any judge,” and she looked at the front of the box. ”Let me take that stake, Amy.”
”Oh, no! Don't break it open!” expostulated Betty. ”We must try and see if we can't slip the lock, after we get it home. Papa has a lot of odd keys.”
”But I don't see any lock!” exclaimed Grace.
”There it is,” and Betty pushed to one side a round disk of metal that fitted over the keyhole.