Timar at once made arrangements for hauling up the sacks, and for the immediate drying and grinding of the corn, and all day labourers were at work on the wreck.

At nightfall Timar, left alone, noticed one sack differently marked from the rest—­marked with a red crescent!  Within this was a long leathern bag.  He broke it open and found it full of diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires richly set in girdles and bracelets and rings.  A whole heap of unset diamonds were in an agate box.  The whole treasure was worth at least 1,000,000 gulden.  The St. Barbara had carried a million on board!

“To whom does this treasure belong?”

Timar put the question to himself, and answered it.

“Why, whom should it belong to but you?  You bought the sunken cargo, just as it is, with the sacks and the grain.  If the treasurer stole the jewels from the sultan, the sultan probably stole them in his campaigns.”

“And Timea?”

“Timea would not know how to use the treasure, and her adopted father would absorb it, and get rid of nine-tenths of it.  What would be the result if Timea gets it?  She would be a rich lady, and would not cast a look at you from her height.  Now things are the other way—­you will be a rich man and she a poor girl.  You do not want the treasure for yourself.  You will invest it profitably, and when you have earned with the first million a second and a third, you will go to the poor girl and say, ‘There, take it—­it is all yours; and take me, too.’  You only wish to become rich in order to make her happy.”

The moon and the waves cried to Timar, “You are rich—­you are a made man!”

But when it was dark an inward voice whispered,

“You are a thief!”

From that day all Timar’s undertakings flourished, and step by step he reached the summit of an ordinary successful business man’s ambition—­ the title of nobility.  At the same time Brazovics, who had treated Timar with brutal inconsiderateness because of the wreck of the St. Barbara, went steadily down-hill, borrowing and embezzling trust monies in his fall.

Lieutenant Katschuka had declared all along that he could not marry Athalie without a dowry, and when the wedding day arrived, Brazovics, unable to face his creditors, and knowing himself bankrupt, penniless, and fraudulent, committed suicide.  Katschuka immediately declared the engagement at an end.  In his heart he had long wearied of Athalie, and looked with desire on Timea.  The orphan girl from the first had loved the lieutenant with silent, unspoken affection.

When the Brazovics’ house was put up for sale Timar bought it outright, furniture and all, and then said to Timea, “From this day forth you are the mistress of this house.  Everything in it belongs to you, all is inscribed in your name.  Accept it from me.  You are the owner of the house, and if there is a little shelter for me in your heart, and you did not refuse my hand—­then I should be only too happy.”