. But after devouring it with his eyes, and enjoying that
cruel satisfaction, in what trouble did he not find himself when he
was obliged to leave it in order to seek for provision? How often did
he reproach himself with not having carried it with him? And if he
ever remembered the old man, it was only to accuse his memory, and to
persuade himself that he must have had some bad design, since he had
not advertised him of a thing which he might have foreseen without
being so learned as he really was. Not to die with hunger in this
subterranean vault, he was obliged to quit it. What succours could he
find in so barren a desert as that with which it was surrounded? He
was obliged, therefore, to go to a place at some distance; but how
could he resolve upon that, especially at a time when the ground
lately removed might attract the curiosity of a traveller? Dakianos
almost determined to let himself die rather than lose sight of his
treasure. All that he could do to calm his inquietudes was not to
depart till night, when he took some handfuls of the gold coin and
repaired to the city, where he bought a horse, which he loaded with
biscuit and with a small barrel of water, and returned before daybreak
to seek his treasure, which he found in the same condition he had left
it, with as much pleasure as he had felt chagrin at leaving it.

His first care was, with incredible fatigue, to make a very deep ditch
round the cavern. He contrived a passage to it underground, the
opening of which he covered with his clothes, that in a few days he
laid upon them, and afterwards raised a hut of earth to preserve
himself from the weather. All that he suffered during these immense
labours is not to be conceived, and no one could have imagined, who
had seen him thus wasted with labour and fatigue, that he was the
richest inhabitant of the earth.

When he had conducted his work so far as to be able to leave it
without fear, he repaired again to the city, but with the same
precaution--that is to say, he went only in the night. He employed it
wholly in purchasing some slaves, with whose assistance by degrees he
brought thither everything that was necessary for his safety and
convenience. Soon after, he gathered workmen, with whose aid he built
more solidly the works which he had begun. He surrounded the place
with three walls of stone, and lay always between the first and the
second. He took great care to spread abroad a report after this that
he