he never had found of this
ancient deposit the smallest trace; for which excellent reason he had
concluded that if ever there had been such a treasure it long since had
been dispersed. No doubt--considering how useless to me, beyond the mere
gratification of my own curiosity, would have been its discovery--my
regret at this abrupt ending of my hopes was most unreasonable; but I
confess that, so far as I myself was concerned, the very keenest pang of
sorrow that I suffered through all that sorrowful time was when I thus
learned that the archaeological search that I had entered upon so
hopefully, and that I had so laboriously prosecuted, had been but a
fool's errand from first to last.

XXXIV.

A MARTYRDOM.

Heavily and wearily the days dragged on as we lay in that dismal prison
hewn from the mountain's heart; and as they slowly vanished there stole
upon us a new sorrow, that was deeper and more searching than the
doubting dread by which we were beset touching the cruel ending of our
lives.

Rayburn's wound--a very savage cut in the thigh, made by the jagged edge
of a maccahuitl--from the first had been a dangerous one; and the danger
had been aggravated by inflammation that had followed that long, hot
journey across the lake, and by the rough handling that his bearers had
given him, and by the excitement that had attended El Sabio's fiery
outburst beside the sacrificial stone. Even Fray Antonio's skill in
surgery, without which he assuredly would have quickly died, only barely
sufficed to keep him alive while the fever was upon him; and when at
last the fever left him, the little strength remaining to him grew less
with every passing day. It was pathetic to see this man, who until then
had been the very embodiment of rugged vigor, so worn with suffering
that without Fray Antonio's tender assistance he scarce could move; and
still more pathetic was it to hear him moaning in his pain, and uttering
heart-sick longings for sunlight and fresh air, for need of which, Fray
Antonio affirmed, he was dying there quite as much as because of his
wound. Indeed, the chill chamber in the rock where he was lying was no
fit place even for a well man at that time to dwell in; for the season
of rains had come, and all the nights were cold and damp, while through
the afternoons and in the night-time, during which portions of the day
the rain fell in torrents, the whole mountain was shaken by the
tremendous peals of thunder whic