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Updated: June 19, 2025
But what we saw when the plank came away was not a chest full of doubloons, pieces-of-eight, moidores, and other such ancient coins, mingled with golden ornaments thickly studded with precious stones; no, we saw the very bright lid of a tin box, a circular box, rather more than two feet in diameter.
He had no clothes on but a seaman's waistcoat, a pair of open-kneed linen drawers, and a blue linen shirt; but nothing to direct me so much as to guess what nation he was of: he had nothing in his pockets but two pieces-of-eight and a tobacco-pipe; the last was to me of ten times more value than the first.
The man who accumulated the store must have been an individual of a very enterprising nature, for there were great piles of strong, solid wooden cases packed to the brim with doubloons and pieces-of-eight; two hundred and eighty-five gold bricks, weighing about forty pounds each, every brick encased in the original raw-hide wrapper in which it was brought down from the mines, now hard and dry and shrivelled; quite a large pile of rough, shapeless ingots of gold and silver, conveying the suggestion that at various times large quantities of gold and silver plate and jewellery had been run through the melting pot; and, finally, a leather bag containing not far short of a peck measure of gems of every conceivable description, all of the stones being cut, and evidently taken from pieces of jewellery of various kinds that had probably been broken up and melted.
And this, thought I, was the end of the undertaking upon which we had entered so lightly, with frolic jests of piracy and Spanish galleons and pieces-of-eight, and with all that mock-seriousness with which we discussed hypnotic suggestion and psychic force! The bitterness grew sickening, as Corcoran, hearing the long whistle of the engine, said that we were coming into Barslow.
The governors of some of the West Indies were as keen on the scent of the sea-robbers as the latter were in the chase of merchant-men, and they were unable to see a good many sad goings-on when a few pieces-of-eight were held before their eyes.
Harris an' Sawkins an' half o' their best men we left on the Isthmus. But out of one galleon we took fifty thousand pieces-of-eight, besides silver bars in cord piles. Think o' that, lads!" A fair, stocky, young deserter from a British man-of-war his forearm bore the tattooed service anchor broke in, his eyes gleaming greedily at the thought of the treasure. "That was in New Panama," he cried.
In three days they took up thirty-two tons of bullion. In the afternoon of the third day the store-room was cleared, and then they searched the hold. Here they found, cunningly distributed among the ballast, a great many bags of pieces-of-eight. These, having lain in the water so long, were crusted with a strong substance, which they had to break with iron bars.
"I will say nothing to anyone about it; but, after all, it is only a happy dream. I shall never see Paris, still less Louis XV." I arose, and going to my cash-box I took out a roll of a hundred and fifty louis, which I gave to her, saying it was a packet of sweetmeats. It felt rather heavy, and on opening it she found it to contain fifty pieces-of-eight, which she took for medals.
I suppose they told you this so-called treasure is in the form of ingots and nuggets and pieces-of-eight and jewels-so-rich-and-rare, and all the rest of the bag of tricks borrowed from Stevenson's 'Treasure Island'? They would!" She showed her disrelish for his flippant tone, by removing her hand from his arm.
The pair began in the usual way by taking several prizes on the high seas, dropping down upon the islands and the Spanish coasts, and carrying off abundance of Christians to serve at the oar, or to purchase their liberty with those pieces-of-eight which never came amiss to the rover's pockets.
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