Bonteck had hoisted himself out of the pit and was poising one of the gold bars in his hands.
"It is a gloriously substantial dream, Madeleine, dear," he said gravely, ignoring me as if I were deaf and dumb and blind, or altogether of no account. "For a rough guess, I should say that these bars will weigh thirty-five or forty pounds apiece, if not more—say a quarter of a million, in round numbers, for the lot. It isn't a fortune, dear, but it will serve to—to buy you——"
She broke in with a frantic little cry of protest.
"But it isn't mine, Bonteck! It's—it's——"
It was at this crisis that Van Dyck deigned to take notice of me as being present and able to answer to my name.
"She says it isn't hers, Preble. Tell her; make her understand."
"It is most unquestionably yours, Madeleine," I assured her. "You will remember that Bonteck told you there was one chance in a hundred million. That chance has won out, and it has fallen to you, incredible as it may seem. By all the laws of the treasure seekers, the find is yours."
"But it must have belonged to some one, at some time!" she objected, honest to the core.
I nodded. "It really belonged to the poor Peruvians from whom the Spaniards looted it. We are three or four centuries too late to restore it to the unfortunate Incas. I'm afraid you'll have to take it and keep it for your own."
"Of course she will keep it!" Bonteck thrust in. "The only question is, what shall be done with it now?"