away safely from Cartagena, box and all, for sunny Spain, where, I
doubt not, they are now living in idleness and gentlemanly ease on
what they found in the big coffer they dug up near that old Spanish
city."

Jose listened eagerly. To him, cooped up for a year and more in the
narrow confines of Simiti, the ready flow of this man's conversation
was like a fountain of sparkling water to a thirsty traveler. He urged
him to go on, plying him with questions about his strange avocation.

"_Caramba_, but the old Indian chiefs were wise fellows!" Don Jorge
pursued. "They seemed to know that greedy vandals like myself would
some day poke around in their last resting places for the gold that
was always buried with them--possibly to pay their freight across the
dark river. And so they dug their graves in the form of an L, in the
extreme tip of which the royal carcasses were laid. In this way they
have deceived many a grave-hunter, who dug straight down without
finding the body, which was safely tucked away in the toe of the L. I
have gone back and reopened many a grave that I had abandoned as
empty, and found His Royal Highness five or six feet to one side of
the straight shaft I had previously sunk."

"I suppose," mused Jose, "that you now follow this work because of its
fascination--for you must have found and laid aside much treasure in
the years that you have pursued it."

_"Caramba!"_ ejaculated the _guaquero_. "I have been rich and poor,
like the rising and setting of the sun! What I find, I spend again
hunting more. It is the way of the world. The man who has enough money
never knows it. And his greed for more--more that he needs not, and
cannot possibly spend on himself--generally results, as in my case, in
the loss of what he already has. But there are reasons aside from the
excitement of the chase that keep me at it."

He fell strangely silent, and Jose knew that there were aroused within
him memories that seared the tissues of the brain as they entered.

"_Amigo_," Don Jorge resumed. His voice was low, tense and cold.
"There are some things which I am trying to forget. This exciting and
dangerous business of mine keeps my thought occupied. I care nothing
now for the treasure I may discover. But I crave forgetfulness. Do you
understand?"

"Surely, good friend," replied Jose quickly; "and I ask pardon for
recalling those things to you."

_"De nada, amigo!"_ said Don Jorge, with a gesture of deprecation.
Then: