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54 I must confess that I was very anxious to get back to the Dart, for, as will be remembered, I had left my money belt with its precious contents behind. This belt I had secreted in a hollow between my state-room and that next to it, and I felt it would be safe so long as the elements did not utterly destroy the ship. Besides the belt with my gold, silver, and the Manila draft, I had left behind a large packet of business papers of great value to our house. If these were lost, I felt our firm would have more trouble than ever in the Philippines.

"It's queer the Dart didn't sink in the middle of the sea," I observed, as we hurried on through the forest skirting the shore. "How do you account for it?"

"Well, we had a light cargo, for one thing, and it was packed pretty tightly forward. Maybe some the boxes got jammed in the hole that was stove in her," answered Tom Dawson, and later on, this proved to be correct.

The sun was beating down fiercely and the moment we left the shade of the trees we felt its full force. But we had now but a short distance further to go, so we did not slacken our pace.

"Stop!" cried Tom Dawson suddenly, and held me back, while he motioned to Matt Gory to halt.

"What's up?" I whispered.