"I was growing uneasy about you, Cliff. Did you see nothing of that strange, gray-robed creature up at the cell?"
"Nothing whatever; but I am led to believe that mysterious being often stays there. We must keep a sharp watch on the place hereafter, and perhaps we may unravel the mystery," he replied, anxious to lead the subject away from his recent search.
As he stood, dreading further questioning, the supper-bell sounded, and he quickly moved on into the house, determined that he would conceal his discovery until he had made a search for the gold also.
The Warlow family retired early that night; but as the clock struck two Clifford arose, and listening to be certain that Rob was safe in the arms of Morpheus, he then stepped lightly out on to the veranda, and, after pausing a moment at the foot of the steps to draw on his boots, hurried down to the barn.
After saddling one of his Norman horses, he rode up to his dwelling, where he secured the iron rod and spade with which he had prosecuted his former search, and then galloped on down to the old cottonwood-tree.
Tying his horse to an ash-tree on the river bank, he began digging on the very spot where he had unearthed the cask with all its attending horrors. While throwing the soil out of the pit, he soon forgot the dangers and disappointment which had attended that adventure, and in his eagerness to reach the shattered cask, still remaining below him, he labored with such energy that he soon reached the object of his search.
As he began to clear the dirt from the shattered cask, he often listened to hear the warning rattle that would announce the presence of the mate to that venomous reptile which he had slain here a few weeks previous; but no trace of the serpent was found. While removing the last spadeful of earth, the thought came to him like a flash of sunlight that the snake had been placed within the cask for the very purpose of terrifying and discouraging any one from searching deeper after he had unearthed it.
He remembered having read of circumstances where reptiles had been found imprisoned in rock, where they had survived the confinement of an era of time to which twenty-seven years was a short period in comparison; so it appeared that the snake might have been placed there when the cask was buried, and had lived and developed into the enormous reptile which had served to unnerve him and arrest his search on the first occasion.
It had occurred to him, before digging, that the cask had been buried by the wretches who were engaged in the massacre at the corral, and that the treasure was secreted just below the cask. This belief had resulted from his successful search at the cavern, and had ripened now into almost conviction; so he had resolved to search deeper on the same spot where he had met with his first signal failure.
"How true it is that we should always look below the surface of treachery, enmity, and failure for the true gold of success!" said young Warlow, meanwhile removing the last stave of the old cask, and boring down with the iron rod into the bottom of the pit.