“No, no; he is not pointing there.”
“Look! Look!” cried Abel.
“Poor lad, he’s off his head,” whispered Tregelly.
“Do you hear me, you two?” cried Abel hoarsely. “Look! Can’t you see?”
“What is it, Bel?” said Dallas soothingly, as he stepped round to the other side of the
fire; and then, following the direction of his cousin’s pointing finger, he too uttered a wild cry, which brought Tregelly to their side, to gaze in speechless astonishment at the sight before them.
For the thick glazing of ice had been melted from the perpendicular wall of rock at the back of their fire, and there, glistening and sparkling in the face of the cliff, were veins, nuggets, and time-worn fragments of rich red gold in such profusion, that, far up as they could see, the cliff seemed to be one mass of gold-bearing rock, richer than their wildest imagination had ever painted.
The effect upon the adventurers was as strange as it was marked.
Abel bowed down his face in his hands to hide its spasmodic contractions; while Dallas rose, stepped slowly towards it, and reached over the glowing flame to touch a projecting nugget—bright, glowing in hue, and quite warm from the reflection of the fire.