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Updated: May 23, 2025
Barnwell withdrew, and Kanoffskie bowed his head upon the table before him, repeating a simple prayer of the Greek Church which he had not quite forgotten. The young man made haste to Batavsky's cell, but there the old exile, dead, with his eyes staring wide and glassy. He had died alone, without a friendly hand to close his eyes with a prayer.
"And if poor old Batavsky's spirit is hovering near to me, and to the yellow coin he devoted to the advancement of human liberty and equality, it shall see that I shall prove true to my trust. To-morrow I will away to Berlin, to place this to my credit, after which well, after which, we shall see!" Then he fell into a reverie.
When the surgeon had dressed his wounds again that day, he felt so much better that he was assisted to a chair that stood under a broad linden-tree, where, a part of the time, he read and restudied Batavsky's queer diagram until it was fairly burned into his memory.
And, oh, what a relief it was to Barnwell, who had all but given up the hope of ever seeing a semblance of civilization again. How his heart thrilled as he nursed his hopes! Kanoffsky seemed greatly altered, although for the past two months he had lost much of the nervousness produced by old Batavsky's death, as though from leaving the scene of it further and further behind.
But the more he thought the matter over, the more reasonable did it seem to him that, even if that were the location of Batavsky's buried treasure, it was only natural that wolves should rendezvous there. But how superstition should locate money there was more than he could understand. Then the thought came to his mind what if that gold had been discovered by someone and removed?
But I feel better now that he has had a Christian burial, and you assure me that a holy prayer was said over his dead body." "Rest assured on that point, sir." "But it was such a dreadful dream." "So I grant you, sir." "And happening just at the moment of old Batavsky's death!" "As I said before, simply a coincidence." "Oh, if I could only think so! Light the lamps."
The sound told that; and old Batavsky's truth, proved up to the point, was a further guarantee for it. Taking out another one, he started with one in each hand for his wagon, by which Ulrich was waiting, like the patient, honest soul he was. Nothing that Barnwell did surprised him.
Barnwell experienced great relief from the skillful dressing his wounds had received, and he was presently able to collect his thoughts. And naturally enough they ran back to the wolf's den, where he had found the starting point that corresponded with Batavsky's diagram, and the legend which the landlord had told him of. What a startling coincidence it was, to say the least of it!
Some said Batavsky was an exiled nobleman, and that he had been thus buried by order of the governor, but no one suspected for a moment that it was at the orders of the surgeon-in-chief, whose dream had frightened him into the semblance of a human being. When all had been done, and the grave marked with Batavsky's prison number, Barnwell returned, as ordered, to Kanoffskie.
He was now near the alleged hiding-place of Batavsky's rubles, and while seemingly only rambling over the wild country, he was studying the diagram that the old man had given him and trying to locate the hiding-place by the aid of it.
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