Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/103



, his face red with exertion and excitement, stood gazing down into the square aperture at his feet. On the other edge of the opening knelt Ralph, holding the lantern so that it would throw its light into the hole. In a moment, before the boy had time to form a question, he was pushed gently to one side, and his sister Edna, who had clambered up the side of the mound, knelt beside him. She peered down into the depths beneath, and then she drew back and looked up at the captain. His whole soul was in his downward gaze, and he did not even see her.

Then there came a voice from below. "What is it?" cried Mrs. Cliff. "What are you all looking at? Do tell me."

With half-shut eyes, Edna let herself down the side of the mound, and when her feet touched the ground, she made a few tottering steps toward Mrs. Cliff, and placing her two hands on her companion s shoulders, she whispered, "I thought it was. It is gold! It is the gold of the Incas." And then she sank senseless at the feet of the older woman.

Mrs. Cliff did not know that Miss Markham had 91