“And then,” he went on, “I cared for nothing.  Sometimes my heart awoke for this young partner of mine in his innocent, trustful love for a girl that even in her humble station was far beyond his hopes, and I pitied myself in him.  Home, fortune, friends, I no longer cared for—­all were forgotten.  And now they are returning to me—­only that I may see the hollowness and vanity of them, and taste the bitterness for which I have sacrificed you.  And here, on this last night of my exile, I am confronted with only the jealousy, the doubt, the meanness and selfishness that is to come.  Too late!  Too late!”

The wondering, troubled eyes that had looked into his here appeared to clear and brighten with a sweet prescience.  Was it the wind moaning in the chimney that seemed to whisper to him:  “Too late, beloved, for me, but not for you.  I died, but Love still lives.  Be happy, Philip.  And in your happiness I too may live again”?

He started.  In the flickering firelight the chair was empty.  The wind that had swept down the chimney had stirred the ashes with a sound like the passage of a rustling skirt.  There was a chill in the air and a smell like that of opened earth.  A nervous shiver passed over him.  Then he sat upright.  There was no mistake; it was no superstitious fancy, but a faint, damp current of air was actually flowing across his feet towards the fireplace.  He was about to rise when he stopped suddenly and became motionless.

He was actively conscious now of a strange sound which had affected him even in the preoccupation of his vision.  It was a gentle brushing of some yielding substance like that made by a soft broom on sand, or the sweep of a gown.  But to his mountain ears, attuned to every woodland sound, it was not like the gnawing of gopher or squirrel, the scratching of wildcat, nor the hairy rubbing of bear.  Nor was it human; the long, deep respirations of his sleeping companions were distinct from that monotonous sound.  He could not even tell if it were in the cabin or without.  Suddenly his eye fell upon the pile in the corner.  The blanket that covered the treasure was actually moving!

He rose quickly, but silently, alert, self-contained, and menacing.  For this dreamer, this bereaved man, this scornful philosopher of riches had disappeared with that midnight trespass upon the sacred treasure.  The movement of the blanket ceased; the soft, swishing sound recommenced.  He drew a glittering bowie-knife from his boot-leg, and in three noiseless strides was beside the pile.  There he saw what he fully expected to see,—­a narrow, horizontal gap between the log walls of the cabin and the adobe floor, slowly widening and deepening by the burrowing of unseen hands from without.  The cold outer air which he had felt before was now plainly flowing into the heated cabin through the opening.  The swishing sound recommenced, and stopped.  Then the four fingers of a hand, palm downwards, were cautiously introduced between the bottom log and the denuded floor.  Upon that intruding hand the bowie-knife of Demorest descended like a flash of lightning.  There was no outcry.  Even in that supreme moment Demorest felt a pang of admiration for the stoicism of the unseen trespasser.  But the maimed hand was quickly withdrawn, and as quickly Demorest rushed to the door and dashed into the outer darkness.