Accordingly, the helm was put up, and we ran into the mouth of the inlet, with the wind right aft. Beaching the boat on the soft sand, we sprang out, and advanced cautiously in the direction of the smoke, but, after several minutes of scrambling, we reached the fire only to find it deserted, its original proprietors having seen our sudden alteration of course, and sought the safety of the dense bush, where further search would have been useless. "Now that we are on shore," said Dunmore, "let us make a billy full of tea; it won't take long. Here, you boys, get 'em like 'it waddy to make 'em fire." The troopers and Lizzie dispersed in quest of fuel; Ferdinand walking up the bank of the creek, where he was soon lost to sight. A loud coo-eh from that direction soon brought us to the spot from whence it issued, and we found the boy staring at several pieces of timber sticking out of the sand. "Big fellow canoe been sit down here," he said, on our approach, and examining the protruding stumps, we soon saw enough to convince us that the boy was right, and that we were in the presence of a vessel, wrecked, or abandoned, Heaven only knows how many years ago. With our hands, with pint pots, with a spade we had brought with us -- mindful of the difficulty we had experienced in finding a resting-place for poor Cato -- with every utensil, in fact, that ingenuity could devise, we set to work clearing away the sand that had accumulated round the old ribs. Suddenly, the tin rim of one of the pots gave back a ringing sound, as if it had struck against metal, and in less than a minute, a much rusted cannon-shot was exposed to view, and passed round from hand to hand. It was of small size, weighing, perhaps, five pounds, though its dimensions were evidently much decreased by the wasting action of damp. "By Jove!" said Dunmore, "perhaps she was a Spanish galleon, and we shall come across her treasure. Won't that be a find, eh, old fellow?" "She's more likely a pirate," I answered, as visions of the old buccaneers floated through my brain; and Edgar Poe's fanciful story of the "Gold Beetle" occurring to me, I sung out, "Whatever you do, keep any parchment you stumble across," and abandoned myself to thoughts of untold wealth, whilst I wielded a quart pot with the energy born of mental excitement. "My word! that been big fellow sit down like 'it here," cried Ferdinand, who, lying on one side, had his bare arm buried at full length in the sand. "I feel him, Marmy, plenty cold." We rushed to the boy's assistance, and speedily scraped away the shingle, until an old-fashioned gun was exposed to view; it was coated and scaly with rust to such an extent, that we were unable to form any idea as to its age or nationality. It would most probably have been a twelve or eighteen-pounder howitzer, for it was about four feet in length, and disproportionately large in girth; but one of the trunnions, and the button