“Strange!” he murmured. “Still locked. Scarcely a dent in it.”
Holding it before him, he shook it vigorously. A rattling sound was the response. His heart raced wildly.
Mopping the perspiration from his brow, he began studying the fastenings that held the cover to its place. There were seven of these. Six were mere clasps that lifted in response to a pry of his clasp knife blade. The seventh, a true lock, resisted vigorously. A sharp blow from the small axe that hung from his belt, severed this and the lid flew up, to reveal such a glistening nest of pink, blue and white pearls as is given to few eyes to see.
“Pearls!” he murmured, scarcely daring to believe his eyes. “A thousand pearls. A king’s ransom!”
Then chancing to remember a story he had read as a small boy, he said, “I wonder if they will turn to rough stones and worthless leaves when I reach the sunlight.”
This thought troubled him little. The pearls were real enough. Once the six clasps were back in their places, he felt sure enough of being able to bring the box and its contents to the light of day.
“But when I have done this,” he thought to himself, “to whom will they belong? To me?”
This problem he considered long and earnestly. The land on which he had found this treasure was wild and rough. No one laid claim to it. But there was the story of the first Don and his beaten silver box of pearls. Was this the box? Were these the pearls? Did they belong by direct inheritance to that last of the Dons who lived now at the foot of the mountain?
“Seems probable,” he told himself. “But after all,” he concluded, “the real question now is not their ownership, but how are they to be brought safely from this heart of a jungle to the centers of civilization where a thousand pearls may be offered for sale in safety and with a reasonable hope that one may find a buyer. The old Don could never do this. It must be my task.”
Having come to this conclusion, he bound the box in a stout brown canvas bag he had brought for the purpose, then began retracing his steps over the way that led to the outer air and sunshine.