when i opened my eyes watkins was bending over me.
"ah, there, mister jack," he said, "'ave a drink of this. thank you, sir." and as i struggled to a sitting position: "no need of 'aste, sir. all's well. and you 'ad a bit of a knock, if i may say so, sir."
"it seems as though you and i were the jonahs, watty," i answered. "this is the third time i've passed out cold.
"quite right, sir. the same thought was in me own 'ead. if mrs. prouty and 'awkins—the butler, sir—and the others in the servants' 'all could 'ave seen me last night, they would 'ave been startled, sir. i do assure you they would. there was that russian young lady, now. i give you my word, sir, she cursed like a maniac, and 'er brother was no better when 'e came from 'is faint. a fair rowdy lot of people we 'ad on our 'ands—including the young person in whom mister nikka happears to be interested, as the saying goes, sir."
"you said 'last night,' i believe," i interrupted.
"yes, sir. it's close to noon, mister jack. but lord bless you, sir, there's been no rest. we 'ad a largish hundertaker's job, let alone tidying up and minding the prisoners."
"what have we done with the bodies?"
"in the garden, sir. the prisoners did the work—except the russian persons, sir. 'e couldn't, account of 'is leg, and she, being a lady, so to speak, was hexcused."
"well, i'm going to get up," i announced. "my shoulder feels better."
"if you wish, sir. miss betty thought you would be fit after a nap. she and mister nikka's uncle, the tall old gentleman who looks like pantaloon in the drury lane pantos, they looked you over. they said your shoulder bone was bruised and the muscle torn, sir; but they've wrapped you up to the king's taste. my instructions were to get you anything you required, but with submission, sir, might i suggest you sleep a little longer? there's nothing—oh, 'ere's mister nikka."
nikka strolled in from the courtyard—i was lying in the apse at the end of the large chamber on the ground floor of the house of the married—with kara trailing him.
"hullo, jack!" he greeted me. "tough luck you had to stop a bullet. we're all more or less cut up, but you had the worst of it, although my uncle, who is a practical surgeon in a crude way, claims the bullet missed the bone."
"so watkins told me. any news? the police—"
"no, the storm covered the shooting. hugh has been to pera with betty in the curlew this morning, and they heard no comments. one of wasso mikali's men stopped in at the corner coffee-shop, and made sure there was no local gossip. the only danger, i think, is from mrs. hilyer. we've got to risk that."
"aren't you all worn out?"
"no. too much excitement, i expect. we're just going to eat. then betty insists on going after the treasure again."
kara sidled up to him, with a venomous glance at me, and ejaculated a remark sotto voice. nikka laughed, and pushed her behind him. she heeded him like a dog that is contented with a rebuke, so long as notice is taken by its master.
"she said," nikka translated, "that i ought not to talk with you any longer. she wants me to pay attention to her."
"humph!" i growled, returning kara's look with interest. "help me up, will you? thanks! what are you going to do with her?"
"tame her, i expect," he answered cheerfully. "i've begun by taking her knife away from her. she wanted to stick betty because i talked more than five minutes to bet about you."
"a sweet job! she'll end by sticking you."
"perhaps," agreed nikka equably. "come and get some breakfast. a cup of coffee will help you to take a more charitable view of a wild little gypsy girl."
hugh, betty and vernon king welcomed us as we entered the atrium, where a low table of packing-boxes had been rigged. wasso mikali and his men were either guarding the prisoners or else keeping watch on the street entrance. kara scowled at all of us, but squatted determinedly behind nikka. watkins proceeded to serve, and i was amused to observe that kara, much against her will, was secretly awed by the matter-of-fact pomp with which watkins was able to invest a meal under such impromptu conditions.
we talked very little. the one idea in the mind of each of us was to get at the red stone, which we could see from where we sat, and we choked down our food as rapidly as possible. i forgot completely my injured shoulder. watkins actually hurried himself in passing the eggs. betty and hugh crumbled a few bits of toast, and strangled over their coffee. vernon king alone ate placidly, with the zest of a man who feels he has done a good job well. at last, betty could stand it no longer, and she sprang up with an imitation of kara's scowl so faithful that everybody, except kara, laughed.
"daddy, you've had time for two breakfasts," she decreed. "that's enough. besides, i won't have you getting fat in your old age. come! everybody! we've got our chance, our chance that we began to think was gone aglimmering. the treasure of the bucoleon is at our feet—under our feet, i mean. up with the red stone!"
"up she goes!" assented hugh.
crowbars, chisels, mallets, picks and shovels appeared, and hugh paced the distance from the fountain of the lion. his calculations indicated the stone that i had roughly estimated on our first visit to the garden. we all watched him with madly beating hearts. it was really true! we were going to lay bare the secret covered by the red stone, to grasp the prize that the emperor andronicus had concealed seven centuries before, the prize that generation after generation of men had striven for in vain.
the thought exhilarated us, and when hugh stepped aside and seized a chisel and mallet we all set to with superhuman energy. i was unable to do much, but i experienced a sharp pleasure in the mere act of holding with my one hand the head of a chisel upon which one of the others rained blows with a mallet. we could not take time for conversation. we worked. even vernon king, who had millions at his command, succumbed to the lure of the red stone's secret, and panted as he chipped the rotten mortar from the interstices between the red stone and those surrounding it.
working at such a pace and with so many willing hands, it was only a matter of a few minutes before the stone was detached from its neighbors, and nikka thrust the tip of a crowbar under its edge. followed then a struggle of some duration, but in the end it sagged up and was overturned. below it was a second stone of equal dimensions, granite, unmortared, although the dust of ages had sifted into the cracks around it. this yielded to our efforts much sooner than had the cap-stone, and hugh, kneeling amongst the debris, peered down into a yawning hole in the pavement.
"careful!" warned king. "a compartment which has been sealed for centuries will be full of carbonic-acid gas."
hugh sniffed.
"it's as damp as—as—that beastly drain," he said. "but it smells reasonably sweet."
we poked our torches into the hole. all they showed was a steep flight of stairs descending straight into blackness.
"most extraordinary!" mumbled vernon king. "byzantine masonry, beyond a doubt. observe the squaring of the blocks, and the composition of the mortar. this is no such slovenly work as turkish masons do. the master-builders of old laid these stones."
"if it's safe, what are we waiting for?" i barked.
our nerves were on edge.
"oh, take your time," said hugh impatiently, and he lowered himself, feet first.
the others followed him, one by one, and i brought up the rear, ashamed of myself for the temper i had exhibited. the pitch of the stairs was so sharp that we had to bend only a little in passing under the rim of the opening. they were barely wide enough for one man, and i counted thirty of them before they terminated in a passage that led off at right angles, with an appreciable downward slope.
"hold up!" hugh called back to us a moment later. "here's an opening into another passage. there's a step down. why, this is the drain again!"
we joined him, incredulous, only to be convinced at once that he was right. the passage debouched on the sewer some distance inland from the grating of the dungeon.
"my god!" groaned hugh. "and we've gone through everything for this! was there ever such a sell!"
the vaulted roof echoed his words. the "drip-drip" of slime and fungi was a melancholy punctuation for them. but the reaction loosened our taut nerves. the one thought of all of us was to comfort hugh.
"there may be some explanation," said nikka.
"perhaps we overlooked something," i volunteered.
"it is a most unusual archæological discovery," offered king.
"there is an explanation," cried betty. "we have overlooked something. i know it. there must be."
"it's no go," answered hugh despondently. "i've brought you on a wild-goose chase."
we all looked rather white and wan in the cold light of the electric torches.
"it's not your fault, old man," i said after a moment's silence, trying dismally to be cheerful. "the lead looked good. we followed it because we hoped it would make you rich. we failed, and that's that."
betty stared wildly from one to the other of us.
"you all make me tired," she exclaimed. "why should we give up hope? how long have we looked, so far? what— oh, let me by! i must think!"
she brushed by me into the fake passage, and the echo of her footfalls reached us as she ascended to the garden.
"we might as well follow her," said hugh. "i'm awfully sorry, you chaps. you risked your lives for this rotten show. my poor deluded ancestor! i expect most of these buried treasure stories are bunk, anyway. in fact, i have a dim recollection of telling poor uncle james as much. and there's another thing to make the gods laugh! a fine old cock like uncle james devoting his whole life to following a will-o'-the-wisp—and then losing it for nothing. it—it's—oh, hell, i suppose it's really funny!"
we climbed wearily up the thirty steps to the garden level. as i reached the surface the first object my eyes encountered was betty, sitting on the red stone and poring over a sheet of paper.
"hullo!" she called, looking up with all her accustomed vivacity. "do you recognize this paper, hugh?"
she fluttered it at him.
"looks like my handwriting," he admitted.
"it's the copy of the instructions you sent me, which i remailed to myself poste restante. i remembered it this morning when we were in pera and called for it at the post office while you were packing the bags at the hotel. i thought we might need it."
"what good can it do?" asked hugh heavily.
"there's an important point in it, which nobody has appreciated up to this time. it becomes doubly important in view of what we have just seen."
"the elided portion!" exclaimed nikka.
"exactly! look!"
and she spread the paper before us. hugh had faithfully copied his uncle's translation of the old latin, setting down also the several lines of dots by which lord chesby had indicated the words which had been smudged out by moisture and handling at some past time. they appeared, you will recall, at the conclusion of the explicit directions:
"underfoot is a red stone an ell square. raise the—"
and then nothing distinguishable until the concluding line of farewell.
"well?" demanded betty triumphantly as we all studied the cryptic dots.
hugh shook his head.
"betty, you were a brick to remember it," he said, "but honestly, what use is it? whatever words are missing are unimportant. they must have been or somebody would have rewritten them."
"that does not necessarily follow," spoke up vernon king. "old documents, especially those inscribed on parchment, are tricky records. it frequently happens that some isolated portion will be spoiled, while the other parts of the same sheet may retain their integrity. moreover, we should not lose sight of the possibility that the person who last concealed the parchment, the lady jane chesby of whom you have spoken, seems not to have been inclined to attach much importance to it. she would have been the last one to attempt to make good its deficiencies."
"but where could the treasure be that we have not looked?" demanded hugh. "the directions are explicit. we followed them faithfully. so far as they exist we have verified their accuracy. but we have uncovered no place which could have served as a treasure chamber."
"yes, hugh, the directions are explicit," retorted betty. "and as you say, so far as we have them they have proved correct. they left us in the passage under the red stone which ends at the drain. and why was that passage built? why to get into the drain!"
"and the treasure was in the drain?" protested hugh. "that's absurd, bet."
"it would have been washed away long ago," i scoffed. "that place is full of water at very high tides."
"i didn't say it was heaped on the floor and left there," returned betty.
"where would it be?" asked nikka.
"that's what we have to find out."
"what about the grating in the floor of the dungeon?" i cut in. "if they wanted to get into the drain—"
"but no man who had hidden a treasure in the drain would have relied on a drainage grating in a dungeon for means of access to it," answered betty.
"that dungeon was a place for getting rid of special prisoners," interrupted king. "when the drain was actively in use, the water must often have backed up into the dungeon. i agree with elizabeth that an emperor hiding a vast treasure would not have utilized the grating for access to it."
nikka closed the argument.
"i am on betty's side in this," he said. "at the least, she has given us something definite to work on. now, if you will take my advice, hugh, you and professor king, with betty and jack to help you, will be the treasure-hunting squad. i had best remain here to act as expeditionary liaison officer with wasso mikali and his people at need. and if you don't mind, i'll need watkins as galloper."
every one agreed to this plan, and the four of us immediately descended into the passage again. king made a careful study of the stonework, in which i assisted him, with a view to ascertaining beyond any doubt whether there was any sealed opening in its walls. both of us considered this the logical first step, but hugh and betty wearied of so unexciting a task and left us to explore the upper end of the drain.
we had been at this for rather more than an hour, without the faintest hint of success, when we were interrupted by a hail from hugh.
"professor! jack! come here!"
"oh, dad," called betty, "here's a funny inscription on the wall."
we dropped into the water, and waded inland for some twenty-odd paces to where they were standing, with their torches bearing on a patch of marble let into the rough face of the right-hand wall. hugh was working with his knife-point, scraping away the moss and fungi that partially obscured the letters.
"i saw it by accident," bubbled betty. "we went up a long way to where the roof gets much lower, and we heard water rushing ahead of us, so hugh said we ought to turn back. my light just happened to catch on this piece of stone here as we passed it. there was one row of letters quite clear, but the others were all overgrown with this slimy stuff. what does it say, dad?"
"it's greek right enough," added hugh, still scraping industriously. "i can make out a word here and there, but it doesn't seem to be the same language i boned at school. just a moment, sir, and i'll have the whole inscription cleared."
i peered over their shoulders at the deeply-carven lines of angular characters.
the stone was about three or four feet square, and below it was another similar one. above the lettering was an elaborately scrolled cross. from it my eyes sought my uncle's face, and were held at once by the astonishment i saw mirrored there.
"most amazing!" he muttered to himself.
"what is it, dad?" clamored betty.
"but it can't be," he said, shaking his head. "quite extraordinary! dear me, i never saw this formula before."
"for pat's sake, tell us!" i implored.
"it says nothing about the treasure, my dear boys," he answered sadly. "my surprise was called forth by the unusual form of expression. these inscriptions always follow a certain set phraseology, but this one is strikingly different."
"by gum," groaned betty inelegantly. "isn't this the limit?"
"read it anyway," i urged.
hugh was beyond words.
"it says," began king, "and mind you, i am translating roughly—your statement that it differs from the classical greek, standardized according to german theories, hugh, such as is taught in the classroom, is quite correct—'in the year after christ 1185 and of the indiction 2, andronicus, the scepter wielder, christ-loving emperor of the romans, built this drain new from the tide level.'"
he broke off.
"so far it is no different from thousands of other inscriptions we might find on the city walls, aqueducts, cisterns, churches or other public works. but now comes the part i cannot understand: 'if there were tongues, many might praise him."
"'if there were tongues many might praise him,'" repeated betty.
"what does it matter?" said hugh dispiritedly. "we're not interested in whether or not the subjects of the emperor andronicus were anxious to praise him. i could curse him for putting up a cock-and-bull story on my foolish ancestor.'
"'if there were tongues many might praise him,'" repeated betty again. "and it was the emperor andronicus! the same, daddy? the one the instructions speak about?"
"manifestly, my dear, the date certifies to that."
"then there must be something in it," she insisted. "'if there were tongues many might praise him.' don't you see what it means? there were no tongues to praise him. this work was not known at the time. why? and why was he able to keep it a secret?"
"he may have murdered all the workmen," replied her father slowly. "he was a singularly bloody tyrant, according to the contemporary historians."
"exactly," triumphed betty. "and why would he have murdered them, in order to keep this work a secret? you see, he 'built the drain new from the tide-level, probably to this point. that means there was a drain, but it needed repair, and he seized the opportunity to hide his treasure. hugh, where are those tools? i'm going to get this stone out of the wall."
it was as hard a job as we tackled, despite the softening of the mortar by the moisture of the ages; but after two hours, hugh and vernon king were able to pry the slab loose and it fell out with a mighty splash. hugh thrust in the end of his crowbar, and it struck brickwork. our torches showed this to be very flimsy, and when it was pounded it rang hollow. the three of us who had two arms apiece went at it with a will, and i was dispatched for reinforcements.
nikka refused to come himself, but he sent watty, and the valet helped in the final act of demolition. by the end of the afternoon we had smashed through an embrasure nearly three feet high and four feet long, and hugh nominated betty for the honor of leading the way into the dim passage which abutted on the hole. the rest of us crawled in afterward. my uncle and watkins boosted me up, for my bad shoulder hindered me.
the passage was seven feet high and four feet wide. it led straight back between brick walls into a large chamber the roof of which was upheld by brick piers. the place was musty, foetid even, and very damp, but as our torches struggled through the darkness the rays were captured and juggled by glinting, sheeny heaps that were stacked against the piers and walls. betty started forward involuntarily. there was a slurring sound, and then a tiny tinkling that died away in a faint murmurous ssssh.
"it's gold!" she cried.
we flashed our torches right and left. it was true. great golden piles sloped away from us. the fragments of the bags that once had held this wealth projected from the multitude of coins. at the end of the chamber the piles mounted to the roof. there were stray rivulets of gold that trickled almost to the mouth of the passage. to the left stood several tiers of ancient chests. the first yielded at once to the point of hugh's knife. the rotten wood cut like cardboard. when he flung the lid back it fell apart, but we scarcely noticed it for the dazzling glamor of the gems that seemed almost to fight to escape from their centuries-long imprisonment.
jewels and jewelry and massive plate were heaped in indiscriminate confusion, huge salvers, cups, chalices, amphoræ, bracelets, armlets, amulets, brooches, necklaces, rings beyond number—and running in and out of the set stones, the endless profusion of unmounted gems, diamonds, amethysts, rubies, opals, pearls, sapphires, topazes, garnets, turquoises, emeralds, and others i could not name.
i picked up what had been a king's crown, a barbaric headdress of crude unalloyed gold, red and soft, set with enormous uncut stones. next to it was a chased bracelet that might have come from the goldsmiths' shops of athens in the classic age. the quantity of precious things was almost inconceivable. and this was but one of a score of chests.
king stooped and scooped up a handful of gold pieces from the floor, broad, finely-minted, bearing the double-headed eagle of byzantium and the busts and figures of dead-and-gone emperors.
"was there ever such a find?" he muttered. "what a chance for the numismatists! see! here is a byzant of artavasdos the usurper. i never saw one before. it was not known that he had coined money. and here is the likeness of arcadius, first of the eastern emperors."
betty threw her arms around hugh, as shameless, for the moment, as kara.
"oh, i'm so glad!" she murmured. "it's as much as you thought it would be, isn't it?"
hugh was dazed.
"as much? by jove, sweetheart, i—i never dreamed of anything like this! i—really, you know, i didn't honestly believe in it before. i used to pretend to make myself carry on. i told myself it was up to me to see the thing through on uncle james's account. but—this! i say, professor, how much do you suppose there is here?"
vernon king swept his torch in an arc around the chamber, the extreme confines of which were shrouded in shadow.
"i am no fiscal expert, my dear boy. it would take committee of jewelers to assess those chests alone. as for the gold, i have seen the treasury vaults in washington, and gold mounts up fast when you run into the thousands of pounds avoirdupois. just as a wild guess, i might hazard a minimum of $100,000,000, £20,000,000 at normal exchange."
"but it can't be!" i protested, the sweat beading my forehead at the thought. "why, it's ridiculous. they didn't have wealth on such a scale in those days."
"not at all, jack," returned my uncle, his scholar's pride aroused. "you must remember that you are viewing here the hoard accumulated by a roman emperor, one of the last rulers before the definite initiation of the empire's final collapse. it was then still by far the richest country of which we have any record. according to benjamin of tudela, the jewish traveler of the twelfth century, the revenue received by the emperor from the city of constantinople by itself amounted to 7,300,000 numismata, or in the neighborhood of $20,000,000.
"benjamin and other later authorities, andreades, paparrhegopulos, kalligas, assert the revenue derived from the remainder of the empire to have represented five times this sum. at the most moderate computation, the total revenue of the empire must have exceeded $120,000,000. it was probably very much more. in addition, the wealth of the individual citizens and nobles was enormous. the emperor andronicus, with whose efforts we have to deal here, had two years to milk the country's wealth. during those two years, he not only absorbed the taxes, but confiscated the wealth of more nobles than any ruler prior to that period.
"i should not be greatly surprised if the contents of this chamber was discovered to exceed $125,000,000. andronicus was possessed with a mania for accumulating a treasure for rebuilding the empire. if he—"
"if you aren't very lucky, hugh, you are going to lose all this stuff just because you were lucky enough to find it," said nikka's voice behind us.
we turned to confront him. kara's dark, passionate face was at his shoulder. her eyes drank in the picture, and she stood on her tip-toes to whisper in nikka's ear.
"no thank you, my dear," he answered drily. "she suggests that i give her my knife, and that between us we clean up you people. oddly enough, she is not alone in possessing that idea. who do you suppose is upstairs?"
"mrs. hilyer," i exclaimed.
"right. but she's not alone. she came back with mahkouf pasha. i've got them both safe under lock-and-key, with wasso mikali's knife at their throats. still—"
he shrugged his shoulders.
"out of the frying-pan into the fire, your ludship," remarked watkins glumly. "sure i was this was too good to last."
