nough
to satisfy her father.

"I should not tell you so unless I felt certain of what I am saying. I
told you before I left that it was almost a forlorn hope that I was
undertaking, and that the chances were ten thousand to one against me.
I think now that the one chance has turned up, and I hope to be home
within two months of the time that you receive this letter."

He did not say more; but even now he could scarcely believe that the
good fortune had befallen him, and feared that some unlucky fate might
interfere between him and the fulfilment of his hopes. When Dias
returned after two days' absence the work began. Each morning they
worked together at bringing up the gold and piling the ingots on the
rock. It was slower work than Harry had expected, for on hauling the
bag to the rocks it was often caught by the boulders, and he and Bertie
sometimes had to dive four or five times before they could free it and
get it ashore. The gold was piled in the tunnel just beyond the water.
In a fortnight the last ingot they could get at was stored with its
fellows--two hundred and eighty-two in all.

They had repeatedly talked over the best plan of getting the gold away,
and finally concluded that it would be risking too much to take it into
a town, and that the best plan would be for Harry to buy a boat at
Callao, which, as a naval officer, would be natural enough. They
decided to procure three times as many bags as the ingots would really
require, and that they should put in each bag three ingots only,
filling it up with pieces of stone, so that the weight should not
exceed what it would have been were the contents heavy ore. Harry
arranged that he would go down to Callao, buy a large boat, and after
having made several excursions, to accustom the officials at Callao to
seeing him going about, he would make a bargain with the captains of
two ships about to sail to England, to carry about two tons each of
ore, which he could put on board them after dark, so as to avoid the
extortion he would have to submit to before the p