others have, at all events, done the worst of the work, and I may as well see whether it was really a tomb, and whether the rest of them are likely to be worth our trouble hereafter.’
So I went on again with a will, and found to my satisfaction, that when the three or four large marble blocks were fairly rolled away, only small stones and rubble remained. These were rapidly cleared out, and in about another quarter of an hour I had succeeded in making a space large enough to enable me to creep in. Having done so, and found that I could stand upright inside the building, I waited till my eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. Gradually, as before, one object and then another became visible, and I found that the place was beyond all doubt a sepulchre.
The inner chamber measured about six feet by ten, and was closed in by a ceiling, about three inches above my head. The walls were lined with slabs of the purest alabaster, engraved all over with strange characters. The ceiling was rudely painted with representations of birds, fishes, plants, and beings half human and half brute. Some broken urns of dark blue pottery lay scattered about the floor, and at the farther end of the chamber, on a raised shelf of plain white marble, stood an alabaster coffer, the lid of which, shattered in a dozen fragments, lay close by. It was too dark for me to see to the bottom of this coffer, but I put my hand in, and found it, as I had expected, empty. Just as I was withdrawing my fingers, however, they encountered a small object that felt like a pea. I seized and brought it to light. It was a fine pearl, somewhat discoloured by the damp, but as large as an ordinary holly-berry.
This discovery made my heart leap for joy, and rewarded me for all the trouble I had given myself to break into this tomb. The pearl itself was probably of no great value, but it was an earnest of what I might hope to find in those tombs which as yet had never been disturbed by previous adventurers. I put it inside my tinder-box for safety, and promised myself the pleasure of displaying it to the crew of the Mary-Jane , in proof of the booty that awaited us.
‘If there is treasure in the tombs,’ thought I, exultingly, ‘what may we not hope to find in the temples and palaces?’
My head swam with visions of wealth. I pictured to myself temples with costly altars, and sacrificial vessels of gold and silver—palaces with unexplored apartments, containing thrones, and royal furniture, and weapons studded with precious stones—tombs filled with gorgeous ornaments of buried kings. Aladdin’s garden of jewels was not more lavish of wonder than became now to me the ruins of this forgotten city. Then came the bewildering thought that all the riches of this vanished race were mine. The island was unclaimed, uninhabited, unpossessed. It was mine to explore, to ransack, to plunder at my pleasure.
I crept out of the tomb and exultingly breathed the fresh air again. I looked up at the great peak, which I could hardly be said to have even begun to ascend. The sun seemed as yet scarcely to have moved in the heavens, and the glorious day was still at its zenith. I sat down for a few moments to rest, and refreshed my parching throat with a few delicious purple berries that grew upon the bushes close beside me. Then I took out my pearl and examined it again in the open daylight. The sight seemed to stimulate me—I rose, replaced it in the box, and resumed my task.
In a few minutes, I had left the last terrace and the last tomb below my feet, and had entered upon that part of the ascent where the rock grew steeper and was overgrown with thorny underwood, through which I had to force a passage as I could. I did force it, however, though my hands and face bled for it, and my clothes were well-nigh torn to pieces on my back. Panting and exhausted, I at length fought through the belt of brushwood and emerged upon the bare rock above.
Hence the barren peak rose, steep and
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