Before you came,
I was meditating possible ways of getting it for myself. I wanted
it for a melancholy relic--a sort of mausoleum in which all my
hopes were buried. Now its purpose is quite different; it is to be
my bride's chest and hold the dowry which I shall bring to one
Dugald Shaw."
"You mean _the_ chest--the chest that held the Spanish
doubloons--that lies under the sand in the sloop?"
"Exactly. And now I shall know whether you are the true prince or
not, because he always succeeds in the tasks he undertakes to win
the princess."
It was low tide, such a tide as had all but lured me to my death in
the cave. One could go and come from the beach along the rocks,
without climbing the steep path up the cliff. It was not long
before Dugald was back again with spade and pick. He tore off the
shrunken, sun-dried boards from the cabin roof, and fell to work.
It was not, after all, a labor of Hercules. The cabin was small
and the chest large. I watched with the pride of proprietorship
the swift ease with which the steel-sinewed arms of the Scot made
the caked sand fly. Then the spade struck something which sent
back a dull metallic sound through the muffling sand.
I gave a little shriek of excitement. Hardly could I have been
more thrilled if I had believed the chest still to contain the
treasure of which it had been ravished.
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