He shouted to Teddy, and together they pulled and hauled sufficiently to make an opening through which they could pull themselves. They were panting and exhausted when they drew themselves up and looked about them.
They found themselves in what seemed to have been a receiving vault of the long ago. There were three broad shelves, on which were resting sarcophagi that seemed to have been placed there temporarily, awaiting perhaps a more ceremonious burial later.
Don gave a shout, as his eyes rested on them.
“Gold!” he exclaimed, looking from the lids of the coffins to the slender pillars that adorned the structure. “Gold! Look at them, Brick! As bright and untarnished as the day they were placed here. Brick, old boy, we’ve come across a treasure!”
For a time the lads were filled with a wild elation, and they moved rapidly from one object to another, handling, examining, tracing the curious inscriptions.
Then the stark reality of their situation came back to them. What good was their wonderful discovery, after all? What could it do for them?
Here they had happened on wealth that would buy them the most sumptuous banquets that the world could provide. It gave them everything—and nothing.
“Starving to death with all this gold about us!” muttered Teddy bitterly. “I’d give it all for a cup of water.”
“The poorest beggar with his crust on the steps of a mosque is better off than we are,” agreed Don moodily.
He bowed his head in his hands. Then suddenly he raised it again. What was that he heard?