“Well, what is it, Dick? It looks like a number of very old boxes. Have you come upon a pirate’s hoard?—as you ought to do, you know, in such a cunningly concealed cavern as this,” exclaimed Flora, laughingly, as she peered inquisitively at the pile that even now she could only see very imperfectly.
“Ay,” answered Dick. “You may laugh as much as you like, little girl, but that is precisely what I have done. Of course I am not prepared to assert positively that it is a ‘pirate’s hoard,’ although it looks uncommonly like it, I must confess; but that it is treasure, and very valuable treasure, too, is indisputable. Do you see this pile of black bricks here? Well, those are gold bricks; and I estimate their value at something approaching three-quarters of a million sterling.”
“Three-quarters of a million?” repeated Flora, incredulously. “Oh, Dick, you cannot mean it; you are surely joking!”
“I assure you, dear, I never spoke more seriously in my life; what I am telling you is fact—plain, simple, indisputable, delightful fact! And the gold is only part of the story.”
He lifted the covers of the other cases and held a candle while she looked at their contents, uttering exclamations of delighted amazement as she gazed. Then he withdrew the buckskin bag from the jewel-chest, and placed it in her hands.
“Lift that,” he said simply.
“Oh, dear, how heavy!” exclaimed the girl. “I should not like to be obliged to carry this very far. What does it contain?”
Dick plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out the handful of gems that he had abstracted from the bag.
“It is full of pretty little stones like these,” he answered, displaying them to her astonished gaze. “Put your hand into the lucky-bag, dear, and see what you can find there.”
She did so, and pulled out a similar handful to those which glittered in Dick’s palm.