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Two other boulders of less size went the same way, one after another, and then it was plain that the belief of the Greek was justified. The entrance to a tomb, which had evidently escaped the investigations of the treasure-seekers, appeared in all its integrity. It was a sort of portico squarely cut in the living rock.
The young lady was somewhat at a loss to reconcile this direction with the communication which she supposed must have passed between Sir Arthur and the Antiquary; but she was compelled, for the present, to remain in a most unpleasant state of suspense. The journey of the treasure-seekers was melancholy enough.
Brown streams careered down the long, meadowy hollow on his left, wherein many Hessian soldiers lay buried. There was money buried with them, the people believed, but no one cared to dig among the dead at midnight, and many a wild tale of frighted treasure-seekers recurred to his mind. At the bottom of the long hill flowed the Brandywine, now rolling swift and turbid, level with its banks.
"Perhaps we are rejoicing too soon," answered Lord Evandale, "and we may experience the same disappointment as Belzoni, when he believed himself to be the first to enter the tomb of Menephtha Seti, and found, after he had traversed a labyrinth of passages, walls, and chambers, an empty sarcophagus with a broken cover; for the treasure-seekers had reached the royal tomb through one of their soundings driven in at another point in the mountain."
Then we started on an exploring trip around the island. It was almost bare of trees, rocky in many places, and partly covered with scrubby grass. We found half a dozen pits and shafts where the treasure-seekers had been at work. We climbed the little hill where the tree stood, it was gnarled and broken, "a blasted tree" declared Mr. Daddles in rapture.
Grow we sick of the game, sour with our luck, weary of the hazard, and relinquish we our place at the table, we are pushed back and out elbowed, thrown, trampled. We are all treasure-seekers set on a treasure-island in a boundless sea.
Wherefore a rumour spread through Rome, as they passed through the streets, going about carelessly dressed, so that they were called the "treasure-seekers," people believing that they were persons who studied geomancy in order to discover treasure; and this was because they had one day found an ancient earthenware vase full of medals.
One of M. de Montriveau's companions took the men ashore in the ship's longboat, and made them so drunk at an inn in the little town that they could not talk. Then he gave out that the brig was manned by treasure-seekers, a gang of men whose hobby was well known in the United States; indeed, some Spanish writer had written a history of them.
In the mountains near Rome, the peasants regard with suspicion a singular costume, a stern cast of countenance, or any striking personal formation, in the strangers who arrive there. All travellers, thus peculiarly marked, are supposed to be enchanters and treasure-seekers, and the young Germans, in their black dresses, untrimmed beards, and long hair, are especial objects of suspicion.
The sound lured them from their own devious points of search, and a half dozen of the treasure-seekers burst from the invisibilities of the mists as Ozias Crann's pickaxe cleaving the mold struck upon the edge of a small japanned box hidden securely between the rocks, a scant foot below the surface.
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