Jack pointed to the skeleton at his feet, among whose bones it had lain.
"Could this have been their secret treasure-room?" said Mr. Haydon, looking round. "Yet it is very unlikely. It is too large, and hardly in the place where they would have built it."
At this moment they heard a murmur at their shoulders. The woman had followed them, and they turned to see that she had picked up a couple of rubies from among the bones of another skeleton, and was holding them out to Mr. Haydon.
The great expert took them and examined them swiftly.
"Finer than the one you found in point of size," he said to his son. "As to purity, they are all of the highest quality. These three stones in my palm represent a substantial fortune."
Jack had never before seen such magnificent stones. He gazed in wonder at the three gleaming splendours, and turned them over with his finger.
"They are true oriental rubies," said his father, "of the finest colour and without flaw. Any one of them is ten times as valuable as a diamond of the same weight."
The native woman was turning over the bones of another skeleton. She straightened herself, came forward, and dropped another noble ruby into Mr. Haydon's hand.
"Jack, Jack," cried the latter to his son, "don't you see what this means, my boy? Here is proof positive of the truth of the legend."
"I see," said Jack, "these are the monks who were said to have fled with the pick of the rubies."