The old soldier was sitting with her hand in his, and he turned to her as he spoke. She threw her arms round his neck, and pressed her face against his shoulder. “He is to me what you were to mamma,” she said, so that only he could hear.
“Then be to him what she was to me,” answered the general, kissing her. “Ah me, little girl! I am old, but perhaps this is the right way for me to grow young again. Well, if you are of the same mind six months hence——”
“Worse; it will be much worse, then,” murmured the professor. “Better make it three.”
The chest was made of some alloy of steel and nickel, impervious to rust, and very hard. It resisted all gentle methods of attack, and it was finally found necessary to force the lock with a charge of powder. Within was found another case, which was pried open with the point of the general’s bowie-knife.
It was filled to the brim with precious stones, most of them removed from their settings. But such of the gold-work as remained showed the jewels to be of ancient Aztecan origin. There was value enough in the box to buy and stock a dozen ranches as big as the general’s, and leave heirlooms enough to decorate a family larger than that of the most fruitful of the ancient patriarchs.
“I call that quite a respectable dowry,” remarked Meschines. “Upon my soul, Miriam, if I had known what you had up your sleeve, I should have thought twice before allowing a ‘civil engineer’—do you remember?—to run off with you so easily.”
At dawn, they prepared the body of old Kamaiakan for its interment. In doing this, the professor noted the peculiar appearance of the corpse.
“The flesh is absolutely withered,” said he, “especially those parts which were uncovered. It must have been subjected to the action of some destructive vapor or gas, fatal not only to breathe, but to come in contact with. I have heard of poisonous emanations proceeding from the ground in these regions, but I never saw an instance of their effects before. That skull that you say you found, Harvey, was probably that of a victim of the same cause. But it is strange that Miriam, who must have remained some time in the very midst of it, should have escaped without a mark, or even any inconvenience.”
“Kamaiakan ascribed it to the magic of the Golden Fleece,” said Freeman.
“Well,” rejoined the other, “he may have been right; but, for my part, the only magic that I can find in it lies in the fact that it is made of pure wool, which undoubtedly possesses remarkable sanative properties; or maybe the fiery soul of Semitzin was powerful enough to repel all harmful influences. The poor old fellow himself, being clad in cotton, and with no soul but his own, was destroyed. Let us wrap him in his blanket, and bid him farewell—and with him, I hope, to all that is uncanny and abnormal in the lives of you young folks!”