The boat touched the shore. Nopp lifted the chest easily on the ground. “Don’t be too hopeful,” he advised Edith quietly. “If it’s gold that’s in it, you couldn’t have much over a thousand. It only weighs nine or ten pounds, box and all.”
It was true. And the box itself, bound with iron, could easily weigh that much. Had we been hoaxed by an empty chest?
Somehow or other, nervous and fumbling, we got the thing open. Some of the rods we broke, others we bent back. And at first we only stared in blank surprise.
It did not look like gold—the contents of the chest. Nor was it a string of precious jewels. It seemed merely a bent, shapeless object of some dark-colored metal, and a few dull stones, some of which were as large as hickory nuts, loose in the bottom. Certain words were said as we looked down, certain questions asked—but all of them were dim and lost in a great, wondering preoccupation that dropped over me.
Nopp reached a big hand, took one of the stones, and rubbed it on his trouser leg. Looking at it, he rubbed it again with added vigor. Then he stared at it in sudden, fascinated wonder.
“Good Heavens!” he suddenly exclaimed in tremendous excitement. “Do you know what this is?”
We turned to him, staring blankly. “What is it?” Edith asked. Her voice was quiet; only the bright sparkle in her eyes revealed how excited she really was.
“It’s an emerald. That’s what it is. One of the finest in this country. It’s worth a whole chest of gold. Killdare, the story was that it was a Portuguese ship—bound out from Rio?”
“Yes——”
“And the chest was the property of some noble family, Portuguese princes at the time the court of Portugal was located in Rio de Janeiro?”