a hard task; but I trust you, Harold!'

Here he would groan, as all the anguish of the past would rush back upon
him; and keenest of all would be the fear, suspicion, thought which grew
towards belief, that he may have betrayed that trust. . . .

At first the side of this memory personal to his own happiness was
faintly emphasised; the important side was of the duty to Stephen. But
as time went on the other thought became a sort of corollary; a timid,
halting, blushing thought which followed sheepishly, borne down by
trembling hope. No matter what adventure came to him, the thought of
neglected duty returned ever afresh. Once, when he lay sick for weeks in
an Indian wigwam, the idea so grew with each day of the monotony, that
when he was able to crawl out by himself into the sunshine he had almost
made up his mind to start back for home.

Luck is a strange thing. It seems in some mysterious way to be the
divine machinery for adjusting averages. Whatever may be the measure of
happiness or unhappiness, good or evil, allotted to anyone, luck is the
cause or means of counter-balancing so that the main result reaches the
standard set.

From the time of Harold's illness Dame Fortune seemed to change her
attitude to him. The fierce frown, nay! the malignant scowl, to which he
had become accustomed, changed to a smile. Hitherto everything seemed to
have gone wrong with him; but now all at once all seemed to go right. He
grew strong and hardy again. Indeed, he seemed by contrast to his late
helplessness to be so strong and hard that it looked as if that very
illness had done him good instead of harm. Game was plentiful, and he
never seemed to want. Everywhere he went there were traces of gold, as
though by some instinct he was tracking it to its home. He did not value
gold for its own sake; but he did for the ardour of the search. Harold
was essentially a man, and as a man an adventurer. To such a man of such
a race adventure is the very salt of existence.

The adventurer's instinct took with it the adventurer's judgment; Harold
was not content with small results. Amidst the vast primeval forces
there were, he felt, vast results of their prehistoric working; and he
determined to find some of them. In such a quest, purpose is much. It
was hardly any wonder, then, that in time Harold found himself alone in
the midst of one of the great treasure-places of the world. Only labour
was needed to take from the ear