As the instrument struck hard against some resisting object, but two feet below, he felt the shock of a hot thrill of excitement; then grasping his spade with trembling hands, he soon reached the goal of his labors.
Another cask was revealed!
Yes; there was the treasure, he felt with all the conviction of certainty, that he had so long vainly hoped to recover. He struck the head of the cask several blows with his spade, and as the wood crushed in, he paused with the same old feeling of vacillation and dread that had seized him when the precious casket lay unopened before him at the secret cavern,—the irresolute, wavering sensation, the fear of disappointment, which so often assails us when fortune's phantom stands dimly near, and we hesitate to grasp her beckoning hand, fearing vaguely that a buffet may await us. It was in such a mood young Warlow stood, while the hopes and fears coursed dreamily through his soul. The sweat-drops rained from his brow, and fell trickling down through the pale moonlight. At last, with shaking hand, he lit his lantern and peered down into the cask below; and as he slowly cleared out the fragments of the shattered head, he saw that there was a mass of fleecy wool filling the cask completely. Tearing this aside with nerveless fingers and panting haste, there was revealed row after row of deer-skin bags, with the words,
"George Warlow, 1849."
plainly lettered upon their sides. With his knife he quickly severed the thong that bound one of them, and the dull, red gold gleamed back in the flickering light!
"Oh God! at last—at last!" cried our hero (who certainly has earned his title), as broken sobs shook his frame, and he leaned faint and dizzy against the side of the pit. But while he stood, weak and panting, a wild, frightened snort from his horse caused him to bound out of the pit, and hurry forward to where he had fastened the animal. When he reached the tree the usually quiet creature was found to be trembling with fear or excitement. After caressing the sleek Norman for a moment, and speaking in a soothing tone to quiet the creature, Clifford walked back toward the pit; but as he came into the moonlight, he paused a moment to take a full breath of the light breeze, which was rippling the water and whispering among the trees.
Far down the valley he could trace the silvery veil of vapor, revealing the course of the narrow stream, and among the dense shadows of willow and vines the fire-flies wove their webs of glimmering light. The midsummer night was still and tranquil, the silence only broken by the moan of the brook and the chirp of insects; the heavy dew-drops on tree and shrub glinted and flashed in the moonbeams that sifted through the willows in a sheen of wavering silver.
The quavering scream of a wolf on some dismal hill-top—a sound heard nightly all over the Western prairies, but one that never fails to send a cold thrill of horror through the lone traveler—startled Clifford from the momentary reverie into which he had fallen, and brought back vividly the remembrance of that night of terror and danger, which now seemed so long ago; and, as if the very thought had conjured up the spirits of the past, that well-remembered spectre, gray-robed, with snaky locks and glaring eyes, darted from among the shadows and with its bony, talon-like fingers clutched at young Warlow's throat.
Not a sound came from the lips that were drawn back from its snaggled fangs, but with its loathsome, grave-like breath full on his cheek, it closed in a death grapple with the startled and horrified youth. A wild struggle ensued; the rank vines and slender willows were trampled to the earth; and soon the combatants stood on the banks of the stream, by a deep, dark pool, and the fierce, unearthly creature, tried to force Clifford's head beneath the water.
As the fiendish, murderous intention of his assailant became apparent, young Warlow sprang back from the danger that yawned before him, and tore loose from the fury-blinded wretch, which again darted at Clifford, grappling with him in all the frenzy and desperation of a maniac.