As Young was delivered of this dismal remonstrance I handed him the small object that I had extracted from the pitch-coated ball. "Before you make up your mind that we are likely to be 'left,' as you term it, suppose you look at this," I said.
He held out his hand carelessly; but as he saw what I had placed in it his expression suddenly changed, and he burst forth excitedly: "Great Scott! where did this come from? Why—why, Professor, it looks like it was a pearl; but if 't truly is one it's about th' bustin'est biggest one that Godamighty ever made! Do you truly size it up for a pearl yourself?"
"Most assuredly," I answered. "And it is a fair assumption, I think, that there is a pearl in each one of all these little pitch-covered balls. As to what you called bits of green glass, they are neither more nor less than extraordinarily fine emeralds; I should say that the smallest of them must be worth more dollars than you could carry at a single load. Of course, all the emeralds and pearls together are not worth a single one of these manuscripts"—here Young gave a sceptical grunt—"but in the way of vulgar material riches I am confident that the value of what is in these jars is greater than that of all the gold together that we saw in the Valley of Aztlan. Without a shadow of doubt, you and I at this moment are standing in the midst of the most enormous treasure that ever has been brought together since the world was made!"
"Honest Injun, Professor?"
"Certainly," I answered; "and if this is your notion of getting 'left' on a treasure-hunt," I continued, "it assuredly is not mine."
"Left?" Young repeated after me, while his eyes ranged exultantly over the rows of jars in which this vast wealth was contained. "Well, I should smile! I take it all back about that old king bein' crazy. He was just as level-headed as George Washington an' Dan'l Webster rolled into one. These pots full of arrow-heads an' such stuff was only one of his little jokes, showin' that he must 'a' been a good-natured, comical old cuss, th' kind I always did like, anyway. Left? Not much we ain't left! We've just everlastin'ly got there with all four feet to onct! Professor, shake!"
EPILOGUE.
Throughout my whole life I have been saddened, as each well-defined section of it has come to an end, by the thought that during the period that has then slipped away from me forever I have wasted more opportunities than I have improved. As I write these final lines, therefore, I feel a sorrowful regret, which, in a way, is akin to the regret that weighed upon me when Young and I, having carried into the cave the contents of the treasure-chamber, removed the prop wherewith was upheld the swinging statue, and so suffered to fall into place again that ponderous mass of stone. From below, where we were, lifting it was impossible; and by heaping fragments of rock under the forward end of it we presently made it equally immovable from above. Thus for outlet or for inlet that way was irrevocable barred; and as I write now I know that I am not less irrevocable severing myself from one portion of my past. For, says the Persian poet, "A finished book is a sealed casket. To it nothing can be added. From it nothing can be taken away. Therefore should we pray to Allah that its contents may be good."
The record that I am now ending was begun partly that I might find in the writing of it relief from the more serious work in which I have been engaged, and partly because I perceived that I could properly include in a personal narrative many matters which were too trivial or too entirely personal to be incorporated into my extended scientific treatise, but which, I was persuaded, were of a sufficient interest to be preserved. But I certainly should not have finished this history of our adventures nearly so expeditiously had not Rayburn and Young taken a very lively interest in it, and pressed me constantly to bring it to an end.