The men recoiled, and lay panting from their labors on the edges of the subway. Charlie blessed his lucky stars that hidden in his clothes was a bundle of tapers used by the explorers for just such emergencies. By great good fortune, his captors had not discovered them.
“What’s to be done now, Jim?”
“Git down there and explore, but hanged if I want the job, Mr. Vance.”
“We’ll go together, Jim. Let’s see,” he mused. “What did Prof. Stone’s parchment say? ‘Beware the tank to the right where dwells the sacred crocodile, still living, although centuries have rolled by, and men have been gathered to the shades who once tended on his wants. And beware the fifth gallery to the right where abide the sacred serpents with jewelled crowns, for of a truth are they terrible,’ ” quoted Charlie, dreamily.
“You don’t suppose this is the place you were hunting for, do you?” queried Jim, with eyes big with excitement.
“Jim, my boy, that’s a question no man can answer at this distance from the object of our search. But if it is, as I suspect, the way to the treasure will lead us to liberty, for the other end must be within the pyramid. I’m for searching this passage. Come on if you are with me.”
He lighted his taper and swung it into the abyss, disclosing steps of granite leading off in the darkness. As his head disappeared from view, Jim, with a shudder, followed. The steps led to a passage or passages, for the whole of the underground room was formed of vaulted passages, sliding off in every direction. The stairs ended in another passage; the men went down it; it was situated, as nearly as they could judge, directly beneath the room where they had been confined. Silently the two figures crept on, literally feeling their way. Shortly they came to another passage running at right angles; slowly they crept along the tunnel, for it was nothing more, narrowing until it suddenly ended in a sort of cave, running at right angles; they crossed this, halting at the further side to rest and think. Charlie looked anxiously about him for signs, but saw nothing alarming in the smooth sandy floor, and irregular contorted sides. The floor was strewn with boulders like the bed of a torrent. As they went on, the cavern widened into an amphitheatre with huge supporting columns. To the right and left of the cave there were immense bare spaces stretching away into immense galleries. Here they paused to rest, eating sparingly of the food they had brought. “Let us rest here,” said Charlie, “I am dead beat.”
“Is it not safer to go on? We cannot be very far from the room where we were confined.”
“I’ll sit here a few moments, anyhow,” replied Charlie. Jim wandered aimlessly about the great vault, turning over stones and peering into crevices.
“What do you expect to find, Jim, the buried treasure?” laughed Charlie, as he noted the earnestness of the other’s search.
Jim was bending over something—wrenching off a great iron cover. Suddenly he cried out, “Mr. Vance, here it is!”
Charlie reached his side with a bound. There sat Jim, and in front of him lay, imbedded in the sand of the cavern’s floor, a huge box, long and wide and deep, whose rusted hinges could not withstand the stalwart Negro’s frantic efforts.
With a shuddering sigh the lid was thrust back, falling to one side with a great groan of almost mortal anguish as it gave up the trust committed to its care ages before. They both gazed, and as they gazed were well-nigh blinded. For this is what they saw:—
At first, a blaze of darting rays that sparkled and shot out myriad scintillations of color—red, violet, orange, green, and deepest crimson. Then by degrees, they saw that these hues came from a jumbled heap of gems—some large, some small, but together in value beyond all dreams of wealth.
Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, amethysts, opals, emeralds, turquoises—lay roughly heaped together, some polished, some uncut, some as necklaces and chains, others gleaming in rings and bracelets—wealth beyond the dreams of princes.
Near to the first box lay another, and in it lay gold in bars and gold in flakes, hidden by the priests of Osiris, that had adorned the crowns of queens Candace and Semiramis—a spectacle glorious beyond compare.
“The Professor’s parchment told the truth,” cried Charlie, after a few moments, when he had regained his breath. “But what shall we do with it, now we have it?” asked Jim in disconsolate tones. “We can’t carry it with us.”
“True for you, Jim,” replied Vance, sadly. “This wealth is a mockery now we have it. Jim, we’re left, badly left. Here we’ve been romping around for almost six months after this very treasure, and now we’ve got it we can’t hold it. This whole expedition has been like monkeying with a saw mill, Jim, my boy, and I for one, give in beaten. Left, I should say so; badly left, when I counted Africa a played-out hole in the ground. And, Jim, when we get home, if ever we do, the drinks are on me. Now, old man, stow some of these glittering baubles in your clothing, as I am going to do, and then we’ll renew our travels.” He spoke in jest, but the tears were in his eyes, and as he clasped Jim’s toil-hardened black hand, he told himself that Ai’s words were true. Where was the color line now? Jim was a brother; the nearness of their desolation in this uncanny land, left nothing but a feeling of brotherhood. He felt then the truth of the words, “Of one blood have I made all races of men.”
As they stooped to replace the cover, Jim’s foot knocked against an iron ring set in the sandy flooring. “I believe it’s another box, Mr. Vance,” he called out, and dropping his work, he pulled with all his might.
“Careful, Jim,” called Charlie’s warning voice. Too
