of the place he desired to show me.
And that led me--his invitation being accepted without further
parley--to mention the idea I had conceived as I came along, of
exploring those curious old ruined buildings. Need I say that the mere
suggestion was enough to set him aflame? I might have known that here,
of all men, was my man for such an enterprise. He had meant to do it
himself for how many years--but age, with stealing step, _et cetera._

However, with youth--so he was pleased to flatter me--to lend him the
sap of energy, why who knows? And in a moment he had us both akindle
with his imaginations of what might--"might"! what a word to use!--no!
what, without question, _must_ lie unsunned in those dark underground
vaults, barricaded with all that deviltry of vegetation, and guarded by
the coils of a three-headed dragon with carbuncles for eyes--eyes that
never slept--for the advantage of three heads to treasure-guarding
dragons, he explained, was that they divided the twenty-four hours into
watches of eight hours each as the ugly beast kept ward over that heap
of gold--bars of it, drifts of it, banks of it minted into gleaming
coins--doubloons, doubloons, doubloons--so that the darkness was bright
as day with the shine of it, or as the bottom of the sea, where a
Spanish galleon lies sunk among the corals and the gliding water snakes.

"O King!" I laughed, "but indeed you have the heart of a child!"

"To-morrow," he announced, "to-morrow we shall begin--there is not a
moment to lose. We will send Samson with a message to your
captain--there is no need for you to go yourself; time is too
precious--and in a week, who knows but that Monte Cristo shall seem like
a pauper and a penny gaff in comparison with the fantasies of our
fearful wealth. Even Calypso's secret hoard will pale before the romance
of our subterranean millions--I mean billions--and poor Henry Tobias
will need neither hangman's rope nor your friend Webster's cartridges
for his quietus. At the mere rumour of our fortune, he will suddenly
turn a green so violent that death will be instantaneous."

So, for that evening, all was laughingly decided. In a week's time, it
was agreed, we should have difficulty in recognising each other. We
should be so disguised in cloth of gold, and so blinding to look upon
with rings and ropes of pearls. As our dear "King" got off something like
this for our good-night, my eyes involuntarily fell upon his present
garments--far