Rees climbed down the remaining steps, the nails in his boots clanking at almost every tread against more of the scattered coins. At last he was again on level ground. Stumbling against something, he heard the surging sound of a sea of gold pieces, and discovered at his feet a small clumsily fashioned chest, made of wood, covered with leather, and strengthened by metal bands. The lid was open, and the coins with which it had been filled were pouring from it. Rees scarcely noticed it.
For, not a yard from where he stood, was the dead Lord Hugh of Thirsk, the wide cavalier cloak still hanging in dusty folds from his fleshless shoulders, the low-crowned hat, with its ragged shred of feather, still lying at his feet.
Rees shuddered. This man, dying nobly in the execution of his desperate duty, reproached him—stung him with a half-acknowledged sense of a great difference. He stole closer, and by the lantern’s weak light examined the motionless figure. The face was grey and shrivelled, the dry lips had fallen apart, and the glassy eyes stared out of cavernous sockets. Yet Rees fancied he saw the remains of a noble and handsome countenance in the wreck death had made. The hair fell, dark and lank and powdered with dust, upon the shoulders. The withered hands still rigidly clasped the thighs, as if their owner had determined with resolute strength of will to wait for death quietly. The low seat on which his body rested was formed of two small chests, of similar shape and size to that one against which Rees had stumbled.
Rough conjectures as to the events which had immediately preceded Lord Hugh’s death flashed through Rees Pennant’s mind as he made his way rapidly back to his companions, without disturbing by so much as a touch the solemn peace of the dead man.
No man, Rees supposed, could have carried more than one of those chests at a time. Small as they were, not more than twelve inches high, by ten wide, and eight deep, the weight of each when full of gold must have been great. Lord Hugh must have brought them down from the castle one by one when he resolved to try to escape by risking the unknown dangers of the disused subterranean passage. Rees pictured to himself that he must then have found his way to the other entrance, and either finding the stone impossible to raise, or discovering that he was in the midst of the Puritan camp, he had crept back, perhaps dashing to the ground in his despair the chest he had brought with him, and having failed in his enterprise, rather than fall either within or without the walls into the enemy’s hands, he had sat down and calmly waited for death in the poisonous air.
This was the last of the romantic side of the adventure which Rees was allowed to see. With his return to Goodhare and Sep came the greedy, the base, the commonplace. When the opening of the entrance for some hours had allowed fresh air to mingle with the poisonous gases in the passage, which Rees’s intrusion had moreover helped to disperse, in the cold grey light of the early morning Goodhare himself ventured to go down, followed by Sep, and, pushing aside the body with avaricious, ruthless hands, began to drag up one of the chests with long, lean, clutching fingers. Lord Hugh’s dead body fell to the ground with very little noise, his long cloak in a moment losing its shroud-like dignity and splitting into ragged strips. Goodhare did not heed it; Sep glanced at it with a shudder; only Rees felt still the influence of the sentiment with which the sight of the poor cavalier had impressed him. Then back again they all went into the chilly morning air, carrying one of the chests with them. They worked all through the hours of early morning, until not a single coin was left in the cavernous passage of all the treasure which Lord Hugh had guarded so long. They did not attempt to carry it away then, as the daylight was growing strong, and at any moment they might be espied by some laborer on his way to work. Leaving the chests just within the entrance to the passage, they replaced the stone, and covered that over carefully with the clods of turf. Then, forced to trust to chance the safety of their fortune, they parted and returned as quickly as they could to their homes.
On the following night they removed the whole of the gold to Goodhare’s lodging, where Amos made a rough calculation that the value of the gold, though much greater at the time it was first buried than now, would prove to be about fifteen thousand pounds. Rees made some faint suggestions about making known the discovery to Lord St. Austell; but Goodhare, while listening gravely, said it would be better for them first to take the gold up to London, and have the value decided by experts. To which Rees with little persuasion, and Sep without any, agreed.
They had made their plans for going to London, and Rees was, under the auspices of the two other men, looking forward to this new experience with vague delight, when Goodhare, who constantly affected to depreciate Deborah’s charms, found an opportunity of meeting her alone as she was returning from some trifling errand for Mrs. Pennant.
Deborah had never tried to hide her dislike and fear of the librarian except by the barest show of civility, and therefore her surprise was unbounded when she suddenly found that he was making her an offer of marriage. When, not heeding her prompt refusal, he proceeded to tell her that he had just had a large sum of money left him, and could make her rich and independent, she drew herself up with much indignation.
“I don’t think you understand women very well, Mr. Goodhare,” she said coldly and proudly. “The first step towards marrying a man that I shall take will be to like him. That step, in your case, I have not taken.”