“But look,” said Doris, trying her best to keep up. “He is leaving the ruins and taking to the forest.” Her tone showed her disappointment. “He’s not going to his treasure-house. He’s trying to escape us.”
“You never can tell,” said Dot. “Anyway we must follow him.”
So once more in the stifling heat of a Haitian day they took up the wild race that led on to victory or defeat, to treasure or disappointment.
A half hour of exciting struggle through brush, bush and tangled vines and then, just as hope was waning, they came to an open space to discover there a heap of broken masonry. And atop the pile, Oh, joy of joys! was the jeweled monkey.
One moment he blinked at them, the next he disappeared into the ruins.
“Oh, Dot!” said Doris. “What if this should prove to be the place of the queen’s treasure!”
“That,” said Dot, after a moment of rest and thought, “is what we are about to find out.”
Together, hand in hand, feeling like Twin Alices in Wonderland, they marched to the ruins.
“This,” said Dot, “is the ruins of the black emperor’s hunting lodge. I have heard of it, but no one I know has ever seen it. Look,” she said as she mounted the pile. “The monkey went down through that small hole to the cavity beneath that large rock.”
“We must roll the stone away,” said Doris excitedly. “There must be a chest down there, a huge copper chest filled with jewels and gold.”