I thought: What treasure sunk into the sea by whatsoever lost ship--galleons piled up and bursting with the gold and silver of Spain, or strange triangular-sailed boats sailing from Tripoli with the many-coloured jewels of the east, "ivory, apes, and peacocks"-- what treasure sunk there by man could be compared with the treasure already stored there by Nature, dropped as out of the dawn and the sunset into these unvisited waters by the lavish hand of God?
What diver could hope to distinguish among all these glories the peculiar treasures of kings?
We awoke to a dawn that was a rose planted in the sky by the mysterious hand that seems to love to give the fairest thing the loneliest setting.
But there was no wind, so that day we ran on gasolene.

We had some fifty miles to go to where the narrative pointed, a smaller cay, the cay which it will be remembered was, according to John Saunders's old map, known in old days as "Dead Men's Shoes"-- but since known by another name which, for various reasons, I do not deem it politic to divulge--near the end of the long cay down which we were running.
Tom and I talked it over, and thought that it might be all the better to take it easy that day and arrive there next morning, when, after a good night's sleep, we should be more likely to feel rested, and ready to grapple with whatever we had to face.
So about twilight we dropped anchor in another quiet bay, so much like that of the night before, as all the bays and cays are along that coast, that you need to have sailed them from boyhood to know one from another.
The cove we were looking for, known by the cheery name of Dead Men's Shoes, proved farther off than we expected, so that we didn't come to it till toward the middle of the next afternoon, an afternoon of the most innocent gold that has ever thrown its soft radiance over an earth inhabited for the most part by ruffians and scoundrels.
The soft lapping beauty of its little cove, in such odd contrast to its sinister name--sunshine on coral sand, and farther inland, the mangrove trees, like walking laurel stepping out into the golden ripples--Ah! I should like to try my hand on the beauty of that afternoon; but we were not allowed to admire it long, for we were far from being alone.
"She's changed her paint," said Tom, at my elbow.

And, looking round, I saw that our rakish schooner with the black hull was now white as a dove; and, in that soft golden water, hardly a foot and a half deep, five shadowy young sharks floated, with outstretched fins like huge bats.

Our engineer, who was already wading fearlessly in the water, beautifully naked, "shooed" them off like chickens.

But it was soon to be evident that more dangerous foes waited for us on the shore.
Yet there was seemingly nothing there but a pile of sponges, and a few black men.