She laughed, and I did not understand the meaning of that laugh, either.
“Is it not idle for us to speculate upon treasures which we cannot carry hence, and which in our present situation are not so useful to us as the little pieces of flint and steel with the tinder in the pocket of your coat?� she asked, smiling.
“You are right,� I answered, smiling in turn, although what it cost me to smile in the face of the picture of the future that came to me, you cannot imagine. “But let us search and see if there be anything else. Your ancestor spoke of jewels.�
“Yes,� she said, “there should be a smaller casket, let us look further.�
There were perhaps a dozen large boxes. I opened them all. Some were quite empty, with little piles of dust in them, and a few shreds of color here and there which indicated silk had been packed in them. There were also broken barrels around which still clung a faint odor of spices. There were piles of rotted débris further on, and as I stirred one of them with my sheath sword I struck something more solid. I brushed aside what seemed to be the decayed remains of cordage and wood and finally came upon a smaller casket bound, strapped, hinged, and cornered with some kind of metal which I afterward found to be silver—iron would have rusted long since. The casket was about a foot long by six inches wide and six inches deep. The metal which completely covered it was curiously chased. The casket was locked. I crumbled the wood in my hands, but could not open the lock. The edge of my axe, however, proved a potent key and at last I forced it apart. As I did so out fell a little heap of what I judged to be precious stones. There were green, red, blue, and white ones, among them many pearls sadly discolored and valueless. The stones glistened with an almost living energy. My mistress was more familiar with these things than I, and I presented a handful to her.
“Why, they are precious stones!� she cried, in an awe-struck whisper. “Look,� she held up a diamond as big as her thumb nail; it sparkled like a sun in the candlelight. “And there is an emerald,� she cried, picking up one of the green stones, “this blue one is a sapphire, this a ruby. Why,� she exclaimed, “here is a fortune alone. These jewels must be of fabulous value. The gold and silver we might leave behind, but these we can carry with us.�
In my heart I was sorry we had found them, yet I had the grace immediately to say,
“I am glad for that. We must gather them up, but where shall we put them?�
“In the pockets of your coat for the present,� she answered.
Now there were not so many of them, perhaps three or four handfuls, not nearly enough to fill the casket. I figured that it had been a jewel box with little trays or drawers, and that the stones had been wrapped separately but had all fallen together when the partitions rotted away. I easily found room for them in the capacious side pockets of my coat and then we turned back to the outer room. Passing by the hideous altar we gained the open day again. It was now late in the afternoon, we found to our surprise. And yet how sweet it was, that outer air, after those caves of death and treasure!