"This business is gettin' worse, instead o' better," Young said, gloomily, as he began his search on the third side of the room by opening one of the small gold boxes. "The stuff in here is nothin' but a mean sort o' wrappin'-paper with pictures on it—like that old map o' yours that got us started on this tomfoolin' treasure-hunt. I s'pose you'll just have a fit over it!" And as I uttered an eager cry of delight, and bent over this casket that contained such inestimable riches, he gave a sniff of contempt, and added: "There, I thought so. You think more o' that rotten old stuff than you would o' gold dollars. Well, there's no accountin' for tastes, and it takes all sorts o' people t' make th' world." But I paid no attention to him as I rapidly glanced over these priceless manuscripts; and then had my cup of happiness filled absolutely to overflowing by the glad discovery that in every one of the gold boxes, of which there were nine in all, treasures of a like sort were stored. In the supplemental volume (in elephant folio) to my Pre-Columbian Conditions on the Continent of North America these wonderful manuscripts are reproduced in fac-simile; and when that great work is published the surpassing value of my discovery will be at once recognized. It is sufficient to say here that these several codices together constituted a complete hieratic chronicle of the Aztec tribes; and that (herein lying the extraordinary value of the collection) the uncertain picture-writing was accompanied by a translation into the ideographic characters of later times, the meaning of which I was enabled, thanks to the instruction that my friend the guardian of the archives had given me, fully to understand. In short, my discovery precisely paralleled that of Boussard; for even as the Rosetta Stone gave the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics, so did this transliteration into intelligible characters make all Aztec picture-writing plain. As the full significance of my discovery burst upon me, my joy and the excitement of my splendid triumph so moved me that my hands trembled as I held these precious manuscripts, and I no longer could see clearly the painted characters because of the tears of happiness which filled my eyes.
Young, however, whose longing was only for material treasure, continued his investigations in anything but a thankful mood. "There ain't no doubt of it now," he said presently in a most melancholy tone. "That old king o' yours must 'a' been just as crazy as a loon. Look here: this thing ain't even a fool arrow-head; it's nothin' but a bit o' green glass! I reckon it's part o' th' bottom of a porter-bottle. Nice sort o' stuff this is t' call treasure, an' t' take such an all-fired lot o' trouble t' hide away! Why, I should jedge that that king must 'a' spent most of his time settin' up nights a-puzzlin' over plans for makin' sure that he was th' very d——dest biggest fool that ever lived!—an' that's just what he was, for sure! It's tough, gettin' left this way; but it wouldn't begin t' be as tough as 't is if 't wasn't for all them car-loads an' car-loads o' gold right clost by us here that we might 'a' got away with as easy as rollin' off a log if we'd only ketched on to this back-door racket in time. An' see here, Professor," he went on in a very earnest tone, "I don't believe there's anybody in there now; why shouldn't we just chance things a little an' go back an' get some of it? We've got our guns; an' even if we do strike a crowd too big for us t' tackle, an' have t' run for it, we won't be no worse off 'an we are now. Come, let's try it on!"
While Young spoke I had been looking closely at the object that so violently had excited his indignation, and instead of replying to him I asked, "Are there any more pieces of that porter-bottle in the jar?"
"It's full of 'em," he answered with a contemptuous brevity.
"And the next?"
"That's full of 'em too. All th' jars on this side o' th' room are full of 'em," he added, as he rapidly thrust his hand into one after another—and so set the dust to flying that we both fell to sneezing as though we would sneeze our heads off. "Oh come along, Professor: what's th' use o' foolin' over this rubbish; let's go for th' stuff that's good for its weight in spot cash every time!"
"Wait till we see what is in these gold vases over here," I answered, turning as I spoke to the side of the room that as yet we had not examined.
"What's th' good?" he asked, sulkily. But he lifted down one of the vases, and with his thumb and finger brought forth from it a little round black ball. "Worse an' worse," he said, as he handed the ball to me. "We've got down t' what looks like lumps o' shoemaker's wax now. That's about th' sickest lookin' thing t' call itself treasure I ever did see!"
It did not seem to me probable that the little ball was shoemaker's wax; but in order to settle this point experimentally I cut into it with my penknife. Under the gummy exterior I found a layer of cotton-wool, and enclosed in this a hard substance about the size of a hazel-nut. While I was making this examination, Young investigated into the contents of the remaining vases—which themselves were exceedingly interesting, being made of hammered gold and most curiously engraved.
"They're no good," he said, "except I s'pose th' mugs must be worth somethin'. Shoemaker's wax in 'em all! It's worse 'an th' porter-bottles—for what's th' use o' shoemaker's wax t' folks who don't rightly know what a shoe is? Come along, I say, Professor, an' let's have a whack at them piles o' gold. If we don't tackle 'em we might just as well never have come on this treasure-hunt at all. Some o' the stuff in here's worth havin'—th' gold mugs an' boxes, an' that old gold bow-gun that you're so busted about—but what does th' whole of it amount to, anyway, when you come t' divide it up among four men an' a jackass? I guess even th' jackass ud turn up his nose at it if he knowed what a lot more there was that was t' be had just for grabbin' it an' packin' it along. It's somethin', I s'pose, that we've pulled through without losin' our hair; but we have pulled through all right, an' now we want t' make this business pay; an' unless we go for that gold this business won't 'a' paid worth a cuss—an' instead o' comin' out on top we'll be left th' very worst kind!"