"It certainly looks as if the jewels were secured in feverish haste," I said, at the same time picking up from the uneven floor a bronze oil lamp lying overturned and discarded.
Together we set about making a systematic examination of the various chests, numbering nearly one hundred. Those fashioned from single stones were of great age, looking like coffins, while those of iron were ponderous caskets bound with huge bands, studded and double-locked, with great antique hinges of marvellous workmanship. With perhaps half a dozen exceptions the lid of each had yielded to the charge of explosive placed beneath it, while in many cases the whole side of the casket had been blown completely out, injuring or destroying some of its valuable contents. Jewellery and gems, set and unset, had been strewn about and trodden into the dust by hurrying feet, and a few that I recognized at once as of fabulous value had been overlooked. Stooping, I picked up from the dirt a marvellously-cut ruby, almost the size of a pigeon's egg. But the majority of the treasure-chests had been emptied. The place had been visited, and the vast wealth of a nation stolen.
"For the first time in the long, glorious history of my land has the Treasure-house been entered by thieves," Omar said, as if to himself. "No mere adventurer can have been here; this great robbery is the result of some base conspiracy. The treasure of the Sanoms, renowned through the whole world as the most wondrous collection of magnificent and unsurpassable gems, has been cleared out and the entrance re-closed in a manner little short of marvellous. To-day is indeed a sad one for Mo, and for me. My inheritance has been taken from me."
"By whom?" I inquired, continuing my way, examining one of the few chests that had apparently not been tampered with. But, as in the gloom I hastened from one casket to another, my foot suddenly struck against some object, causing me to lose my balance, and thus tripped, were it not for the fact that I clutched at the corner of the great chest, I should have fallen upon my face.
Bending to examine what it was, I was amazed to discover the body of a male slave, still dressed in the uniform of the servants of the palace, but rapidly decomposing. It was the faint sickening odour emitted from the corpse that had greeted our nostrils when we entered the place.
We both bent and looked at him, astounded at discovering, still imbedded in his back, a long keen knife. He had been struck down from behind and murdered, while in the act of securing some of the treasure, for his brown withered fingers still grasped a beautiful necklet of magnificent pearls, an ornament worth several thousand English pounds.
"That is one of the Naya's personal attendants," observed Omar, recognizing the dress, but unable to distinguish the features of the murdered man, so decomposed were they. "He perhaps participated in the plot, and to secure his silence, or his portion of the booty, his fellow-conspirators struck him to earth."
"But to whom is due the chief responsibility in this affair?" I asked. "Surely you have some suspicion?"
"I know not," he answered. "Besides myself only the Naya knew the secret means by which the treasure might be reached."
"Then in all probability she secured it before her flight!" I cried.