Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/293

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN made from some stuff on board the brig. By rough measurement, he found that he should now be near the level of the outside floor of the cave, and he worked with great caution, for the idea, first broached by Ralph, that this mass of gold might cover something more valuable than itself, had never left him.

But as he worked steadily, filling bag after bag, he found that, although he had reached at the outer edge of the floor of the mound what seemed to be a pavement of stone, there was still a considerable depth of gold in the centre of the floor. Now he worked faster, telling Shirley, who was outside, that he would not come out until he had reached the floor of the mound, which was evidently depressed in the centre after the fashion of a saucer. Working with feverish haste, the captain handed up bag after bag, until every little bar of gold had been removed from the mound.

The bottom of the floor was covered with a fine dust, which had sifted down in the course of ages from the inside coating of the mound, but it was not deep enough to conceal a bar of gold, and, with his lantern and his foot, the captain made himself sure that not a piece was left. Then his whole soul and body thrilled with a wild purpose, and, moving the ladder from the centre of the floor, he stooped to brush away the dust. If there should be a movable stone there! If this stone should cover a smaller cavity beneath the great one, what might he not discover within it? His mind whirled before the ideas which now cast themselves at him, when suddenly he stood up and set his teeth hard together.

"I will not," he said. "I will not look for a stone with a crack abound it. We have enough already. 279