Thus you see that the Third of the Three was a philosopher. He paused before a marble slab, over which he bent, tracing with difficulty the inscription, which was in quaint characters, much worn by time—"Van Huyden."
"Strange enough! Just as we were about to search the tomb last night,[1] to be interrupted and scared from our object by a circumstance so unusual! The snug sum of $200,000, in plate, buried in a coffin!—an odd kind of sub-treasury! Wonder if there's any truth in the legend?"
[1] See Episode, page 114 of the Empire City.
As the gentleman thus soliloquized he fixed his eyes attentively upon the slab; but he did not see the approach of a man, wrapped in the thick folds of a cloak, and with a broad-brimmed hat over his brow,—a man who came noiselessly from the shadows and took his place at the opposite extremity of the slab, quietly folding his arms, as he fixed his gaze upon the Third of the Three.
A wild sort of picture this: The gloomy church-yard, with its leafless trees, and tombstones half hidden among heaps of timber and of stone. Yonder, the church, looking like the grotesque creation of an enchanter's power, as hidden among uncouth scaffolding, it rises vague and shapeless into the sky. And here, by the tomb of the Van Huydens, two figures,—the Third of Three, who, in a deep revery, fixes his eyes upon the inscription—and the cloaked figure, whose steady gaze is centered upon the absent-minded gentleman.
"Two hundred thousand buried in a coffin,"—soliloquized "the Third,"—"I wonder if I could not make a little search. The place is quiet,—no watchman near—"
"Liar!" said a voice, in tones deep as the sound of an organ. "Learn that the Watcher always guards the vault of the Van Huydens:—learn that it is sacrilege to rob the dead."