guess, but it's better'n nothin'. It just
makes me sick t' think of all that gold, that ud 'a' made our
everlastin' fortunes if we'd only been able t' pack it along with us.
There was millions an' millions there, I s'pose--an' it 'll never do us
any more good than if we'd never seen it at all!" and as Young spoke he
heaved a very melancholy sigh. "But we may as well grab all we can get,"
he went on, more cheerfully. "There was a lot o' gold boxes an' jugs in
th' room where Mullins is; an' maybe there's somethin' that's worth
havin' in all them little pots. Let's go back an' see, anyway. Rayburn's
lookin' almost all right this mornin'; and Pablo's got his wits back
now, an' can give him anything he wants."

For my own part I did not desire, because of their money value, any of
the articles which I had seen in the treasure-chamber; but I did very
earnestly long to possess myself of that most curious arbalest, and I
desired also to examine carefully--because of the discoveries of great
archaeological value which I hoped to make--the contents of the gold
boxes and vases and earthen jars. Therefore, Rayburn having expressed
his entire willingness that we should leave him, I assented readily to
Young's proposition; whereupon Young lighted the lantern and we set off.

As we entered again the treasure-chamber there was within me a strong
feeling of awe. During our hurried passage through it, the imminent
danger in which we were, and then the excitement of the scene in the
oratory, and then the joyfulness of our finding a way of escape, had
prevented me from realizing how wonderful was the deposit that this room
contained; a deposit that certainly had lain there for not less than a
thousand years, and that unquestionably was the most perfect surviving
trace of the most intelligent and most interesting people that in
prehistoric times dwelt upon this continent. Which strange reflections,
now that my mind was free to entertain them and to dwell upon them,
aroused within me a feeling of such reverent wonder that I hesitated for
some moments before I could bring myself to disturb what thus through so
long a sweep of ages had remained sacredly inviolate.

But reverence, as he himself would have said, was not Young's strongest
hold; in truth, I am persuaded that there was not an atom of it in his
entire composition; and as I stood hesitating beside the statue of
Chac-Mool he briskly called to me: "Come right along, Professor; there