Figures out treasure location

An hour later, they had searched every room in the palace--including the dungeon and the treasure vaults, but they found nothing more than a few doubloons. They didn't even need the key. The wooden doors to the vaults had rotted away. There were some pretty lamps and old furniture and bolts of rotting silk in Captain Stone-Eyed Sam's bedroom--but nothing shiny, precious, and easy to carry.

"Someone has come already and cleaned this place out," Fitzwilliam observed.

"No, there's no footprints," Arabella pointed out, "like there were around the throne room."

Jack frowned, thinking.

"Maybe this Sam was ... allergic to treasure," Jean said, scratching Constance under the chin.

Jack's eyes lit up. "He was a pirate long before he was a king," he said.

"So?" Arabella asked, gathering around him. The others followed.

"So? Old habits are hard to break, Bell!" he said, his voice echoing in the royal bedroom. "Give me a hand with this," he ordered, pulling at the enormous ebony bed.

Jean and Fitzwilliam bent down to help. "What nonsense is this, Jack?" Fitzwilliam demanded. "We are not looking for his chamber pot, I hope."

Jack sighed in disgust while ripping up the small, rotted rug that was under the bed.

"You're not thinking like a pirate, Fitzy. When it comes to treasure, trust no one. And keep it close at hand. Believe me, I know," he added darkly.

He ran his hands over the floorboards and grinned when his fingers hit the groove that he was sure he would find. He blew a cloud of dust away and pointed at the keyhole in the door hidden in the floor. The key fit perfectly.

"Light me a torch, someone," Jack ordered, handing over his flint-and-tinder kit. Arabella and Tumen quickly did as he said.

He opened up the hatch and stuck his head down, holding the torch before him.

"Well?" Jean asked impatiently.

"Well," Jack said calmly, dropping the torch down into the blackness, "see for yourself."

Fitzwilliam, Arabella, Tumen, Jean, and

Constance crowded around eagerly. But it was Fitzwilliam who saw it first.

"By the King's blood ..." he swore.

The torchlight flickered on what looked like a roomful of gold.

***

The Oncoming Storm, Chapter 10