His
whole soul was in his downward gaze, and he did not even see her.
Then there came a voice from below. "What is it?" cried Mrs. Cliff. "What
are you all looking at! Do tell me."
With half-shut eyes, Edna let herself down the side of the mound, and
when her feet touched the ground, she made a few tottering steps toward
Mrs. Cliff, and placing her two hands on her companion's shoulders, she
whispered, "I thought it was. It is gold! It is the gold of the Incas."
And then she sank senseless at the feet of the older woman.
Mrs. Cliff did not know that Miss Markham had fainted. She simply stood
still and exclaimed, "Gold! What does it mean?"
"What is it all about?" exclaimed Ralph. "It looks like petrified honey.
This never could have been a beehive."
Without answering, Captain Horn knelt at the edge of the aperture, and
taking the lantern from the boy, he let it down as far as it would go,
which was only a foot or two.
"Ralph," he said hoarsely, as he drew himself back, "hold this lantern
and get down out of my way. I must cover this up, quick." And seizing the
stone slab by the handle, he lifted it as if it had been a pot-lid, and
let it down into its place. "Now," said he, "get down, and let us all go
away from this place. Those negroes may be back at any moment."
When Ralph found that his sister had fainted, and that Mrs. Cliff did not
know it, there was a little commotion at the foot of the mound.
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