t Saturday there will be a last delivery of gold in
the Lucsia cavern. As soon as the coins are struck, we shall divide the
profits, wish one another 'buna nopte!'[30] and depart our respective
ways. We shall destroy the machinery, blow up the smelting furnaces with
gunpowder, break down the aqueducts and close up the mouth of the
cavern. After that everyone can do as he likes with his gold. I shall
wash my hands of it."

[Footnote 30: Good night.]

"Well said!" cried old Onucz, "that is as I would have it also. The
whole lot of us who are partners in the concern will meet once more in
the Lucsia cavern. There we will listen to what you say and swear to
each other that we will not say a word of what has gone on down below
there. Then everyone will do as you bid, for you are the most prudent of
us all."

"Then I shall only have to wait another week?" enquired Anicza, winding
the locks of Fatia Negra round her fingers.

"For what?" asked the adventurer.

"Nay, but surely you know?"

"Aha! of course!" said he smiling. "You mean you will only have to wait
another week for me to cease to be your husband under a mask and become
your real, true husband, eh? That is the end of all your thoughts, eh?"

"Yes, yes!" said the girl, but she thought within herself: "I shall only
have to wait a week to give up your masked head into the hands of the
hangman!"

So Fatia Negra unsuspiciously rocked the girl up and down on his knee
and reflected complacently: "Girls are made in order that they may
believe the lies which men choose to tell them."

But Anicza was a Wallachian girl and Wallachian girls are jealous,
revengeful and artful.

* * * * *

That Saturday had arrived.

Seven hundred torches lit up the Lucsia Grotto. In between, from out of
the corners of the cavern Bengal lights burst forth from time to time
flooding for a few moments the whole of that gloomy palace with green,
blue, white and rose-coloured flames to which the red flame of the
pitch-torches with their black smoke formed a spectral contrast.

The great company of coiners had arranged for the last evening before
their separation a sumptuous feast in this subterranean hall. The floor
was strewn with white sand and all round about tents were erected in
which roast and baked meats were piled up into veritable hillocks on
broad beech-wood dishes. In order to show the wealth at their command an
ox was roasting whole on a flami