The dogs barked as if for joy at the discovery, stopped their work, and sprang barking from one shepherd to the other.
The shepherds set to work to lift out the chest, which they found tremendously heavy. It contained a mass of gold and silver coins with a stamp of a time long past.
Before they could recover from their astonishment, the dogs began again to scratch the ground in the same spot, and soon a second chest came to view, in which the shepherds found golden goblets, candlesticks, and other sacred vessels of immense value.
Not till now were the dogs satisfied, but as the second chest was opened they hurried back to the flock, and displayed an unwonted zeal to fulfil their duty.
The two shepherds repaired to the Abbess of the St. Servatius Convent in Quedlinburg, related what had occurred, and expressed a wish that two towers should be built on the new Nikolai[[1]] church with the found treasure.
[[1]] Nikolai—St. Nicholas.
At the news of the wonderful discovery, half the town went out to the wood to see the spot where the treasure had been found. But no ruin was to be discovered; all was vanished without leaving a trace, and even the shepherds could not find the spot again.
If the treasure in their possession had not proved to the contrary, they would have held the whole thing for a dream.
The Nikolai church still stands, shaded by old lindens, and at its west end the shepherds' two towers.
The figures of the two shepherds and their dogs, hewn in the stone, still look down upon the ancient, imperial city from these towers, where they were placed so many centuries ago as memorials of a somewhat unusual unselfishness.