How deep these ingots went I could not say, and was not then disposed to inquire, for my attention was attracted by an arched opening, like the doorway of a church, on the other side of the room. Through this I passed, and found myself at the head of another flight of stone steps, much broader and wider than the others--a gigantic stairway that descended into the middle of a chamber so vast that my torch did no more than throw a kind of halo all around me.
I rushed down these steps with a loud, glad cry, and below I hastened like a madman, here and there, passing along the walls, crossing at random that wide, gloomy subterranean room.
Everywhere was gold, stacked upon the floor, piled against the walls. I saw golden chalices and cups, bracelets, rings and girdles; great jugs of gold and golden basins, besides bars and ingots that one might have counted by the thousand.
I know not why it was, but the very sight of it made me dizzy, as I staggered blindly about that wondrous place. At times I slipped and stumbled, and at other times I fell between those glittering stacks, to find myself--as Amos Baverstock had said in my hearing--knee-deep in the very stuff that has made the world as wicked as it is.
And then, at last, I sat down upon I know not what, save that it was gold. The very sight that I had seen had exhausted me far more than all my travels and privations. I felt sick at heart and weary. I looked about me with tired and dreamy eyes.
It seemed to me strange--now that I had beheld this wonder--that I had endured so much for sake of it. How had it come to pass that men prized so highly what after all is no more than yellow metal? Here was enough of it, in very truth, to serve the needs of a nation; and here it had lain for four hundred years--and the world was none the worse. How little of this vast treasure would be enough for me, or even Amos Baverstock, in spite of all his greed!
It frightened me--and that is the truth of it. I could not think what I should do if all this precious wealth were mine. And then I wondered if I had any right to call it mine just because it was mine for the moment to gaze upon, to regard in breathless bewilderment and fear.
You may behold that which you never own, as you may own that which you never see. Boy though I was, so much was clear to me as daylight. Nor had I any reason to suppose that I was the first to look upon this marvel, since the fugitives from Cuzco, centuries ago, had carried it across the mountains to hide it in this secret place. John Bannister himself, perhaps, had looked upon it, though he had never told me so. If it belonged to any living man, all this wealth was his.
I felt by now as if I were about to faint; and besides, my torch was burning low. And therefore I got unsteadily upon my feet and walked into the little outer room, and thence ascended the steps in the broad light of day. And there I stood breathing deeply, with my eyes closed and my mouth parched as if by thirst.
On a sudden I cast my burning torch into the brook before me, and fell upon my knees and prayed to God. I prayed aloud, as if the living trees and running water and the red stones about me could all hear my prayer. And it was the Lord's Prayer that I had learned at my mother's knee; for, boy though I was, I felt that which I had looked upon was the very pith and kernel of all temptation to which, since Eden, humanity was heir.