I gave him a glass, and he drank greedily. “It is for you to think,” said I, “if you should further persevere. The swamp has an ill name.” And at the word I ominously nodded.
“Give me the pick,” said he. “Where are the jewels buried?”
I told him vaguely; and in the sweltering heat and closeness, and dim twilight of the jungle, he began to wield the pickaxe, swinging it overhead with the vigour of a healthy man. At first, there broke forth upon him a strong sweat, that made his face to shine, and in which the greedy insects settled thickly.
“To sweat in such a place,” said I. “O master, is this wise? Fever is drunk in through open pores.”
“What do you mean?” he screamed, pausing with the pick buried in the soil. “Do you seek to drive me mad? Do you think I do not understand the danger that I run?”
“That is all I want,” said I: “I only wish you to be swift.” And then, my mind flitting to my father’s deathbed, I began to murmur, scarce above my breath, the same vain repetition of words, “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
Presently, to my surprise, the treasure-seeker took them up; and while he still wielded the pick, but now with staggering and uncertain blows, repeated to himself, as it were the burthen of a song, “Hurry, hurry, hurry“; and then again, “There is no time to lose; the marsh has an ill name, ill name“; and then back to “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” with a dreadful mechanical, hurried, and yet wearied utterance, as a sick man rolls upon his pillow. The sweat had disappeared; he was now dry, but, all that I could see of him, of the same dull brick-red. Presently his pick unearthed the bag of jewels; but he did not observe it, and continued hewing at the soil.
“Master,” said I, “there is the treasure.”
He seemed to waken from a dream. “Where?” he cried; and then, seeing it before his eyes, “Can this be possible?” he added. “I must be light-headed. Girl,” he cried suddenly, with the same screaming tone of voice that I had once before observed, “what is wrong? is this swamp accursed?”
“It is a grave,” I answered. “You will not go out alive; and as for me, my life is in God’s hands.”