“What shall we tackle next?” asked Ned. “That big bale looks as though it ought to contain something valuable; I think I will pursue my investigations in that direction.”
The bale, which had an outer covering of wax-cloth of a much coarser texture than that which closed the mouth of the jars, proved to be too heavy for Ned to move unaided; so his knife was again brought into requisition, and the cloth—which was still tough enough to offer a slight resistance to the blade—was ripped open from end to end of the bale. The orifice thus made disclosed to view a firmly packed mass of several sorts of fabrics, neatly folded, and laid one upon the top of the other. The first three or four layers consisted of fine linen cloth dyed a deep rich purple hue. Then came several pieces of a heavy, rich kind of brocade; then a quantity of thin filmy muslin, fine as if woven of a cobweb, and exquisitely embroidered with a beautiful and intricate design in very fine gold thread. The brocades had been greatly admired by Sibylla, but these embroidered muslins simply threw her into ecstasies.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands in almost childish delight, “they are lovely; never in my life have I ever seen anything half so exquisitely beautiful!”
“Then,” said Ned, in the most matter of fact way, “I’ll tell you what we will do. The next time we come here we will be provided with the means of carrying off enough of the stuff to make you a dress or two. We cannot do so now, as the men would see it, and questions would be asked; which would never do. But next trip we will contrive to carry away a bolt or two of it.”
Sibylla was a true woman; and even in her present predicament her feminine love of things beautiful was strong enough to win from her a ready assent to Ned’s proposition. In the meantime the muslins were carefully re-folded—a task of some little difficulty, owing to their filmy texture—and replaced in the bale.
Quite a large pile of small brick-like parcels next came in for a share of Ned’s attention. They, like the bales, were enveloped in wax-cloth, and like the jars were singularly heavy. Ned opened one, and on removing the cloth wrapper disclosed to view a block of dull yellow virgin gold. The block was about the same shape as, but a little larger than an ordinary English brick, and stamped or moulded on each side was a sign or symbol of hieroglyphic character.
Ned did not consider it necessary to open any more of the brick-like parcels, as, after his experience with the jars, he felt fairly satisfied that, if opened, each parcel would be found to contain a gold brick similar to the one already disclosed. He was therefore about to suggest a descent to the boat, under the impression that his inspection of the cave and its contents had been completed, when it occurred to him that he might as well strike a match or two and throw a little light into the extreme corner of the cave, in which, now that his eyes were growing somewhat accustomed to the gloom, he fancied he could detect a pile or stack of some kind. He accordingly drew from his pocket a box of matches, and, placing some half a dozen of them together, ignited them. This afforded him light enough to see that there really was a stack of long dark curved objects piled in the angle. To get at these it was necessary for him to climb over the heap of gold bricks, which formed a kind of barrier across the corner, and in so doing his eye fell upon one brick quite at the rear of the stack which was very considerably larger than the others.
Reaching the mysterious stack in the corner he selected one of the long curved objects and, brushing the dust from it as well as he could, proceeded to scrape through the remaining coat of dirt with his knife. By this means he soon reached a hard bone-like substance, upon which he presently scraped a white surface, when the expenditure of a few more matches revealed the fact that he had been operating upon an elephant’s tusk, of which nearly a hundred he thought must be stacked in that dark corner.
On his return to the lighter part of the cave where he had left Sibylla, his attention was again attracted by the extra large brick-like parcel, which he thought he might as well examine. He accordingly raised it from the floor to carry it further forward into the light, when, though tolerably heavy, the comparative ease with which he lifted it at once assured him that, whatever else it might be, it certainly was not gold.
The grimy cloth wrapping was soon removed, and a casket of discoloured but still recognisable brass of elaborate and curious workmanship was disclosed. The lid was not secured in any way, otherwise than by the hinges; and so perfect had been the protection afforded by the wax-cloth wrapping that these worked without difficulty. The lid was quickly raised, and the casket—which measured about fifteen inches long by nine inches wide, and perhaps ten inches deep—was found to contain a number of neat wax-cloth parcels. The first which came to hand—and which, by the way, was by far the largest one—was at once opened, and there before the eyes of the admiring pair, fresh as if just removed from the shell, lay some two hundred or more magnificent pearls—magnificent not only in respect of their unusual size, but also of their exquisite lustre and perfect globular form. Needless to say that in presence of these superb and incomparable gems Sibylla’s admiration of the embroidered muslins dwindled away to insignificance, and her minute examination of the pearls plunged her into a perfect trance of delight. The other parcels were found to contain rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, and other precious stones, all in their rough state just as they had been unearthed from the mine, but all without exception of extraordinary size. At first the fortunate finders were not greatly impressed at the sight of these stones, for neither of them quite knew what they were—though they judged them to be valuable from the circumstance that they had been deemed worthy of a place in the same receptacle with the pearls—and it was only the gleam of the diamonds which at last awakened in their minds a suspicion that the stones were really precious. When at length, however, this suspicion fairly dawned upon them Ned positively gasped for breath.