He went on, throwing the light of the lantern on the ground before him, for he had now reached a part of the cave which was entirely dark.  Suddenly something on the ground attracted his attention.  It was bright—­it shone as if it were a little pale flame of a candle.  He sprang toward it, he picked it up.  It was one of the bars of gold he had seen in the mound.

“Could I have dropped this?” he ejaculated.  He slipped the little bar into his pocket, and then, his heart beginning to beat rapidly, he advanced, with his lantern close to the rocky floor.  Presently he saw two other pieces of gold, and then, a little farther on, the end of a candle, so small that it could scarcely have been held by the fingers.  He picked up this and stared at it.  It was a commonplace candle-end, but the sight of it sent a chill through him from head to foot.  It must have been dropped by some one who could hold it no longer.

He pressed on, his light still sweeping the floor.  He found no more gold nor pieces of candle, but here and there he perceived the ends of burnt wooden matches.  Going on, he found more matches, two or three with the heads broken off and unburnt.  In a few moments the mound loomed up out of the darkness like a spectral dome, and, looking no more upon the ground, the captain ran toward it.  By means of the stony projections he quickly mounted to the top, and there the sight he saw almost made him drop his lantern.  The great lid of the mound had been moved and was now awry, leaving about one half of the opening exposed.

In one great gasp the captain’s breath seemed to leave him, but he was a man of strong nerves, and quickly recovered himself; but even then he did not lift his lantern so that he could look into the interior of the mound.  For a few moments he shut his eyes.  He did not dare even to look.  But then his courage came back, and holding his lantern over the opening, he gazed down into the mound, and it seemed to his rapid glance that there was as much gold in it as when he last saw it.

The discovery that the treasure was still there had almost as much effect upon the captain as if he had found the mound empty.  He grew so faint that he felt he could not maintain his hold upon the top of the mound, and quickly descended, half sliding, to the bottom.  There he sat down, his lantern by his side.  When his strength came back to him,—­and he could not have told any one how long it was before this happened,—­the first thing he did was to feel for his box of matches, and finding them safe in his waistcoat pocket, he extinguished the lantern.  He must not be discovered, if there should be any one to discover him.

Now the captain began to think as fiercely and rapidly as a man’s mind could be made to work.  Some one had been there.  Some one had taken away gold from that mound—­how much or how little, it did not matter.  Some one besides himself had had access to the treasure!