bolts. But the bolts had never been
shot, and when she pulled at it the door creaked upon its rusty hinges
and opened. She was on the threshold of the treasure-chamber!

It was square and of the size of a small room, packed on either side
almost to the low, vaulted roof with small bags of raw hide, carelessly
arranged. Quite near to the door one of these bags had slipped down
and burst open. It was filled with gold, some in ingots and some in raw
nuggets, for there they lay in a shining, scattered heap. As she stooped
to look it came into the mind of Benita that her father had said that in
her trance she had told them that one of the bags of treasure was burst,
and that the skin of which it had been made was black and red. Behold!
before her lay the burst bag, and the colour of the hide was black and
red.

She shivered. The thing was uncanny, terrible. Uncanny was it also
to see in the thick dust, which in the course of twenty or more of
centuries had gathered on the floor, the mark of footprints, those of
the last persons who had visited this place. There had been two of them,
a man and a woman, and they were no savages, for they wore shoes. Benita
placed her foot in the print left by that dead woman. It filled it
exactly, it might have been her own. Perhaps, she thought to herself,
that other Benita had descended here with her father, after the
Portuguese had hidden away their wealth, that she might be shown where
it was, and of what it consisted.

One more glance at all this priceless, misery-working gold, and on she
went, she who was seeking the gold of life and liberty for herself and
him who lay above. Supposing that the stairway ended there? She stopped,
she looked round, but could see no other door. To see the better she
halted and opened the glass of her lantern. Still she could perceive
nothing, and her heart sank. Yet why did the candle flicker so fiercely?
And why was the air in this deep place so fresh? She walked forward a
pace or two, then noticed suddenly that those footprints of the dead
that she was following disappeared immediately in front of her, and she
stopped.

It was but just in time. One step more and she would have fallen down
the mouth of a deep pit. Once it had been covered with a stone, but this
stone was removed, and had never been replaced. Look! there it stood
against the wall of the chamber. Well was this for Benita, since her
frail strength would not have sufficed to stir that mass