I was too weak and ill, though, to resent it, and gladly sought my bed, which I did not leave for a couple of days, being tended most affectionately during that time by Mrs Landell.
We had made our entrance to the hacienda by night, as I had wished on account of our appearance, and it was well we did so, for an inspection of the clothes I had worn displayed such a scarecrow suit as would have ensured the closing of any respectable door in my face.
But if, when I rose from my couch, my clothes were worn, so was not my spirit, and during the long hours I had lain there my brain had been as active as ever concerning the buried treasures.
The terrors of the cave were great, certainly, but then I reasoned that three parts of them were due to ignorance. Had we been acquainted with the geography of the place, as we were now, and taken common precautions, we might have saved ourselves the hairbreadth escapes and agony of mind that had so told upon us—we need not have risked our lives by the great gulf, nor yet in the vault of the troubled waters. With a short portable ladder and a knotted rope the ascent to the rift over the torrent in the great amphitheatre would have been easy. And altogether it seemed to me that another visit, well prepared for, would not be either arduous or terrible.
The visit, of course, would be to search for the treasure; and calm reflection seemed to teach me that it was very probable that we had now hit upon the part that appeared likely to have been used for the purpose—so I thought. I could not feel that the timid, superstitious Indians would ever have penetrated so far as we did, but the soft earth of the bird-chamber seemed, after all, a most likely place.
“What! going again, Mas’r Harry?” said Tom when I broached the subject.
“Yes, Tom,” I said; “I want to explore this bird-chamber part of the cave. And besides, we need run no risks this time—we need not go into the terrible parts.”
“Very good, Mas’r Harry; only reck’lect about the pitcher as goes so often to the well getting broken at last.”
“But you’ll go with me, Tom?” I said.
“Go with you, Mas’r Harry? Course I will! I should just like to catch you going without me. Don’t you get coming none of them games.”