"No one. In time past the ring was submitted to many antiquaries, but they could make nothing of it."
Idris, though justly proud of his success in a matter wherein experts had failed, kept his own counsel for the present, and refrained from mentioning that he had accomplished the feat.
"Then, of course, the treasure of old Orm—Draco, I mean—has never been discovered?"
"Not by a Ravengar."
"But by some one else probably. It is not likely that the buried treasure has remained undiscovered for a thousand years."
"The legend says that only a Ravengar can discover it, and that in the very moment of discovery he will forfeit his life as an atonement for the death of the herald. But this," added Lorelie with a smile, "is, of course, mere poetic fancy."
"There is one omission in your story. You did not state where this sea-king, Draco, was buried."
"The legend does not say. You are forgetting that it is a legend, invented, perhaps, by some imaginative king-at-arms in order to decorate the vanity of the first Earl of Ormsby with a long pedigree and a romantic origin."
But Idris had received proofs that the story was true in the main. For example, there had actually existed an altar-ring such as described—for he had seen and handled it himself—a ring engraved with a sentence which not only spoke of a buried treasure, but also bore the names of the very persons, Orm, Hilda, and Magnus, who had figured so prominently in the story. The fragment of tapestry brought from the interior of the ancient tumulus supplied additional evidence as to the historic existence of the Golden Viking and the widowed Hilda.
"This Draco," continued Idris, "if he received the sepulchral honours due to a Norse chief, would be buried beneath an immense mound of earth. If we are to look for his tomb in this neighbourhood we shall perhaps find it in a tumulus on the seashore about four miles from here."