He rose erect, stretching his shoulders, and letting out a great ‘whoof’ of exhilaration. The girl clapped her hands delightedly.
‘His design!’ she cried. ‘Of course, Brion. It was to get sole possession of the house, and then, at his leisure, remove his plunder, thinking it could not be done with safety in any other way.’
‘To be sure—not with the risks of discovery he would run—and then, likely, to carry it off by sea. O, Joan!’
As by one consent, they turned to the box again, and Brion, kneeling beside it, plunged his hands, in a half fearful, half rapturous way, among the heavy glittering store. For the moment, and in their excited condition, only a cursory examination of the stuff was possible; but, such as it was, it seemed to reveal the departed buccaneer as a gentleman of fastidiously selective tastes. The mass of the treasure was in coin, and, so far as could be ascertained, gold coin exclusively. There were angels, broad-pieces, pieces of eight, moidores, nobles and others, all in lavish profusion. Some loose gems Brion turned up, sunk like sea-shells among the crevices of rocks, but more, and of greater value, appeared set in rings, brooches, buckles and the like ornaments. And never in the whole a gleam but of gold and the prismatic spars of jewels.
Suddenly Brion, with a start and sigh, rose from his investigation, and, seizing the stanchion, ran the chest back into its cache in the wall, and heaved the slab over the aperture, closing it away.
‘Come, Joan,’ he said: ‘let us leave it for the nonce, and rise where we can breathe.’
She wondered a little; but obeyed him without a word, climbing again to the upper chamber, whither he followed her, after having extinguished the light. He made the wheel then secure, and together they threaded the thicket, and emerged once more into the light of day.
The sun, while they had been gone, had penetrated the heavy mists, and shone like a lifted Host high against the walls of Heaven. In that still and golden light all the harsh acerbities of the scene stood wonderfully softened, and a great peace and quietness possessed everything. The two had walked but a little way, when Brion stopped, and taking the sweet face between his palms, and looking earnestly into the good blue eyes: ‘Tell me, Joan,’ said he: ‘shall we leave it alone?’
‘The gold, Brion?’ she asked, wondering.
‘Yes, the gold, Joan. I think of the blood and cruelty that went to its amassing; I think of the murder that secured it; I think of all the lives that have been sacrificed to make it ours at the last, and that a curse may be on it.’