Good fortune fared forth with me from the royal city and remained steadfastly at my right hand as long as the matches lasted; but when the last one had flickered out and left me in impenetrable gloom, my troubles began.
I was well into the rough country when the lights failed, threading a road bordered by hills that in some places were shoulder high. About the first thing I did was to blunder off the trail; in trying to regain it I stumbled over a five-foot mountain and went down all of a heap.
Had I fallen on the exchequer I should have smashed it into a cocked hat—a result only narrowly averted. Regaining my feet and smothering some good strong language that rose instinctively to my lips, I essayed once more to find the Baigol road.
I had my trouble for my pains, and, after an hour spent in fruitless blundering, I sat down on a cliff, propped up the exchequer on the side of a cañon and nursed my barked shins until day began flashing from the reflectors.
As I sat there waiting for the light my brain was filled with evil thoughts which I recall with contrition and chronicle with regret. I knew the exchequer must contain the king's wealth—golden pieces of eight of a rare fineness unknown to the mints of Terra.
I was not of a mind to return the gold after allowing the king of Baigol to take his Bolla. Why not stow the treasure away about my clothes and rely upon my native tact and discretion to get me to the steel car in spite of the grasping monarch of Baigadd?
I was much wrought up over the way I had lost the loot taken from the plutocrats. In my mind's eye I could see those four bulging handkerchiefs waxing and waning about the castle, and I had hoped they would fall to the surface of Mercury along with the car, so that I might still be able to secure them.
In this I was disappointed. Once the Mercurial atmosphere was struck the loot and the revolver had fallen away from the castle like so many pieces of lead.
The wallets, undoubtedly, had been incinerated by the sun's rays, together with the banknotes that were in them. I imagined that the intense heat had exploded the cartridges in the six-shooter and had warped and twisted the firearm until it was no longer serviceable.
The other plunder also, even if found, could not by any possibility be utilized by me or any one else.