The doctor, however, remained motionless, and lost in his reflections. He did not even heed the call of his companions, nor did he return with them to seek a shelter from the heat of the day.
“What are you thinking about, doctor?” asked Kennedy.
“About a singular freak of Nature, a curious effect of chance. Do you know, now, in what kind of soil that man of self-denial, that poor one in spirit, has just been buried?”
“No! what do you mean, doctor?”
“That priest, who took the oath of perpetual poverty, now reposes in a gold-mine!”
“A gold-mine!” exclaimed Kennedy and Joe in one breath.
“Yes, a gold-mine,” said the doctor, quietly. “Those blocks which you are trampling under foot, like worthless stones, contain gold-ore of great purity.”
“Impossible! impossible!” repeated Joe.
“You would not have to look long among those fissures of slaty schist without finding peptites of considerable value.”
Joe at once rushed like a crazy man among the scattered fragments, and Kennedy was not long in following his example.
“Keep cool, Joe,” said his master.
“Why, doctor, you speak of the thing quite at your ease.”
“What! a philosopher of your mettle–”
“Ah, master, no philosophy holds good in this case!”
“Come! come! Let us reflect a little. What good would all this wealth do you? We cannot carry any of it away with us.”
“We can’t take any of it with us, indeed?”
“It’s rather too heavy for our car! I even hesitated to tell you any thing about it, for fear of exciting your regret!”
“What!” said Joe, again, “abandon these treasures –a fortune for us!–really for us–our own–leave it behind!”
“Take care, my friend! Would you yield to the thirst for gold? Has not this dead man whom you have just helped to bury, taught you the vanity of human affairs?”
“All that is true,” replied Joe, “but gold! Mr. Kennedy, won’t you help to gather up a trifle of all these millions?”
“What could we do with them, Joe?” said the hunter, unable to repress a smile. “We did not come hither in search of fortune, and we cannot take one home with us.”
“The millions are rather heavy, you know,” resumed the doctor, “and cannot very easily be put into one’s pocket.”
“But, at least,” said Joe, driven to his last defences, “couldn’t we take some of that ore for ballast, instead of sand?”
“Very good! I consent,” said the doctor, “but you must not make too many wry faces when we come to throw some thousands of crowns’ worth overboard.”
“Thousands of crowns!” echoed Joe; “is it possible that there is so much gold in them, and that all this is the same?”
“Yes, my friend, this is a reservoir in which Nature has been heaping up her wealth for centuries! There is enough here to enrich whole nations! An Australia and a California both together in the midst of the wilderness!”
“And the whole of it is to remain useless!”
“Perhaps! but at all events, here’s what I’ll do to console you.”
“That would be rather difficult to do!” said Joe, with a contrite air.
“Listen! I will take the exact bearings of this spot, and give them to you, so that, upon your return to England, you can tell our countrymen about it, and let them have a share, if you think that so much gold would make them happy.”
“Ah! master, I give up; I see that you are right, and that there is nothing else to be done. Let us fill our car with the precious mineral, and what remains at the end of the trip will be so much made.”
And Joe went to work. He did so, too, with all his might, and soon had collected more than a thousand pieces of quartz, which contained gold enclosed as though in an extremely hard crystal casket.
The doctor watched him with a smile; and, while Joe went on, he took the bearings, and found that the missionary’s grave lay in twenty-two degrees twenty-three minutes east longitude, and four degrees fifty-five minutes north latitude.
Then, casting one glance at the swelling of the soil, beneath which the body of the poor Frenchman reposed, he went back to his car.