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.
"And what do you think of that ?" I asked.
"Mr.Dodd," he replied, "you see something of the rumness of this job, but not the whole.

The specie bothers you, but what gets me is the papers.

Are you aware that the master of a ship has charge of all the cash in hand, pays the men advances, receives freight and passage money, and runs up bills in every port?
All this he does as the owner's confidential agent, and his integrity is proved by his receipted bills.
I tell you, the captain of a ship is more likely to forget his pants than these bills which guarantee his character.