the
very night I had seen him, as he struggled in some imaginary conflict,
and patted the ground in some fancied act of concealment! A sudden chill
ran through me as I thought by what horrible deeds of crime and blood
all this treasure might--nay, must--have been amassed! What terrible
acts of murder and assassination! Many of the gems were richly set, and
showed that they had been worn. Some of the emeralds had been extracted
from ornaments, or taken from the hilts of daggers or swords. Violence
and blood had stained them all, there could not be a doubt of it; and
now there arose within me a strange conflict, in which the thirst for
wealth warred with a feeling of superstition that whispered, "No luck
could go with gain so bought!" The perspiration rolled in great drops
down my face; my heart swelled and throbbed with its emotions; the
arteries of my temples beat with a force that seemed to smite the
very brain as I canvassed this vital question, "Dare I touch wealth so
associated with deeds of infamy?"

If my wishes arranged themselves on one side, all my fears were
marshalled on the other; and what foes can wage a more terrible
conflict! The world, with its most attractive pleasures, its thousand
fascinations, all the delusions that gold can buy and convert into
realities, beckoned here. Horrible fancies of an unknown vengeance, a
Nemesis in crime unexpiated, menaced there! May I never have to preside
in a court where the evidence is so strongly opposed, where the facts
are so equally balanced! If, at one instant, I beheld myself the
gorgeous millionnaire, launching forth into the wide ocean of unexplored
enjoyment, at the next I saw myself crawling upon the earth, maimed and
crippled like the old negro slave; a curse upon me; the cries of widowed
mothers ringing in my ears; the curses of ruined fathers tracking
me wherever I went! I cannot tell what verdict my poor empanelled
conscience might have brought in at last, but suddenly a new witness
appeared in the court and gave a most decided turn to the case. This was
no less than "the Church," whose testimony gently insinuated that if the
matter were one of difficulty, it was not yet without a solution. "It is
true, Master Con," whispered she, "that these treasures have an odor of
rapine; but let us see if the Church cannot purify them. A silver lamp
to the Virgin can throw a lustre upon deeds that have not 'loved the
light.' An embroidered petticoat can cover a grea