“William,” I said, now wide awake. “We were wasting our time. There’s only one place that treasure can be. And that’s the only place we haven’t searched!”
“Oh yes?” he asked sceptically, and yawned. “And where is that?”
“On the highest point of the island, of course. Right in the middle, and that happens to be exactly where the French built their weather station. The treasure is buried beneath that little tin shed!”
William thought it over and nodded.
“Follow me!” he barked and trotted away in the direction of the shed. I glanced at my watch – it was still hours away from sunrise. But there was no time like the present. Our food and water were running out and we simply couldn’t wait for daylight.
Inside the shed our metal detector went crazy. The strongest signal was in the corner opposite the door.
Luckily for us, the French did not go to the trouble of laying a proper foundation. William had discovered that when he’d dug his tunnel earlier.
We started our excavation with vigour. I used a sturdy spade and William joined in like a dog recovering his juiciest bone. It was pitch dark inside the shed, and I could only hope that the batteries of our flashlight would hold.
The going was not very hard. The biggest challenge was to stop the sand running back into the hole, but we stacked some planks around the inside edges and that prevented it from caving in.
Just as I was beginning to feel dizzy from all the hard work, my spade hit something hollow. A few minutes later we uncovered a mouldy chest and we dragged it out into the open.
I sat down on the heap of sandy soil that we’d excavated. I tried to catch my breath as sweat poured down my neck. I could hardly believe my eyes.
An old pirate’s chest, uncovered after almost three hundred years!
In the half-light the hands of my watch glimmered with a spooky light. It was five o’clock in the morning, almost a day and a half after we had escaped from the Sonata.
I suddenly wondered how my mother was.
William also felt uneasy. He disappeared through his tunnel under the wall. Perhaps he wanted to lift a leg outside.
Three seconds later, he was back.
“Come see, Alex. Trouble!”
I carefully opened the door of the shed. It was that special hour just before dawn, when the world was particularly quiet. Stars shone brightly through gaps in the clouds that had gathered through the night, and the surface of the sea gleamed like molten lead.
“Over there!” William said and pointed in the direction of the sea.
Then I saw it. On the horizon, where the sky was lightening with the promise of the new day, the dusky profile of a large vessel was visible.
The Sonata.
The pirates had found us!