"Our safety lies in the fact that he is turned the other way," whispered I.
I shall never forget the glitter of that arm as it was raised to fire. With each movement it threw a band of light across our eyes which almost blinded us. The small back flashed in a thousand brilliant jets of flame, and made the cavern to seem as if it were illumined by the morning sun.
"Those are valuable jewels," I whispered to the Bo's'n. "A fortune is there, Bo's'n—a fortune for all of us. We must steal round and capture that young rascal and discover where he found them."
I glanced at the Bo's'n as I spoke. My glance was arrested by the utterly avaricious look which had come over his face at my words. His eyes seemed to swell from out their sockets, and even at that distance to gloat on the fortune of which I had told him.
"Let us go quickly, sir," he said, "before any one else gets there."
As we left the gallery the lad had again raised the flagon to his lips, and was drinking deep of the potent fluid. The small body wavered, and I thought that the Minion would not long preserve his dignity, for he was guzzling the clear liquor as if it were so much water. We pushed out through the tunnel and then through the home passage, and finally reached the hillside. My feet were lame and sore, and the Bo's'n had to accommodate his pace to mine. We reached the top of the hill, and then descended as fast as I was able to walk. We entered the archway after a slow journey, and were at last within the great hall. We looked with amazement at the throne and then at each other. There was no shooting, there were no orders, no commands, no Minion! We advanced cautiously until we got abreast of the rock. Our eyes fell upon the same object at the same moment, and I for one was not surprised at what I saw. Lying in a heap upon the floor, his brilliant form rolled ingloriously in the dust, lay the Minion. By his side was the flagon, drained dry. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, and pearls, chains of gold and corselet bestudded with stones fit setting for an empress of the Orient, encased the unconscious form of the young rascal. The Minion was helplessly drunk. We rolled the sodden little heap over and looked into his face. He was breathing stertorously, and I feared for his life. Not that the Minion's life was of any possible use to any living being, but because of a prejudice, inborn in each one of us, against allowing a creature made in God's image to die without some attempt at succour.
We unbuckled his belts and his bracelets, his collars and his anklets. We lifted the magnificent hat with its jewelled plume from the dust where it had tumbled. We drew from the childish and dirty fingers twenty or more gorgeous rings. We laid the gem-encrusted chains, the lockets, and watches with which he had decorated himself upon the rock which had been his throne. And then we bent down and raised the pitiful little figure. He did for once point a moral, this wretched mite of a cabin boy. His gorgeous trappings gone, shorn of what for the moment he dreamed was authority, though brief and suddenly terminated, he was simply a drunken little lad—his only clothing a very ragged and very dirty undershirt.