I did not speak—I could not just then; for in a flood the recollection of the past came upon me, and taking Tom’s hands in mine, for a good ten minutes I sat without speaking.
“Well, Mas’r Harry,” continued Tom—but speaking now in a thick, husky voice—“I took up the paddle and then I dropped it again, I was that weak, faint, and in pain; and it seemed to me that before I could do anything else I must wash and bind up a bit.
“One of my hands was terribly crippled from my hurt, but I managed to bind a couple of paddles together; and then, rowing slowly on, I was thinking that my labour had been all in vain unless I could manage still to save the gold, when, happening one day to turn round to look upstream, I saw that, Mas’r Harry, as seemed to give me life, and hope, and strength all in a moment; and you know the rest.”
Chapter Fifty.
The Use of the Treasure.
It is one thing being possessed of a treasure and another knowing what to do with it. Here was I with the fortune, as my uncle called it, of a prince, found, as I had found it, and to which some people may say I had no right, and I often thought so myself. But on the other hand I felt that I could do more good with it than it would do left there in the bed of that stream—so many relics of a superstition—of a pagan idolatry carried on three hundred years ago. The traditions of its being hidden there had of course been handed down, but it had never been seen since it was buried at the time of the conquest, and all who had a right to it had been dead for ages.
So I comforted myself that I was only the one who had brought it to light, and that it was my duty to put it to as good a purpose as possible, and that I meant to do.
Well, here I had the treasure; but the next thing was, should I be able to keep it?