I turned to look at my father’s resting-place.  The velvet on his coffin hung from its sides in moldering remnants—­but it was not so utterly damp-destroyed and worm-eaten as the soaked and indistinguishable material that still clung to the massive oaken chest in the next niche, where she lay—­she from whose tender arms I had received my first embrace—­she in whose loving eyes I had first beheld the world!  I knew by a sort of instinct that it must have been with the frayed fragments on her coffin that my fingers had idly played in the darkness.  I counted as before the bits of metal—­ eight bits length-wise, and four bits across—­and on my father’s close casket there were ten silver plates lengthwise and five across.  My poor little mother!  I thought of her picture—­it hung in my library at home; the picture of a young, smiling, dark-haired beauty, whose delicate tint was as that of a peach ripening in the summer sun.  All that loveliness had decayed into—­what?  I shuddered involuntarily—­then I knelt humbly before those two sad hollows in the cold stone, and implored the blessing of the dead and gone beloved ones to whom, while they lived, my welfare had been dear.  While I occupied this kneeling position the flame of my torch fell directly on some small object that glittered with remarkable luster.  I went to examine it; it was a jeweled pendant composed of one large pear-shaped pearl, set round with fine rose brilliants!  Surprised at this discovery, I looked about to see where such a valuable gem could possible have come from I then noticed an unusually large coffin lying sideways on the ground; it appeared as if it had fallen suddenly and with force, for a number of loose stones and mortar were sprinkled near it.  Holding the light close to the ground, I observed that a niche exactly below the one in which I had been laid was empty, and that a considerable portion of the wall there was broken away.  I then remembered that when I had sprung so desperately out of my narrow box I had heard something fall with a crash beside me, This was the thing, then—­this long coffin, big enough to contain a man seven feet high and broad in proportion.  What gigantic ancestor had I irreverently dislodged?—­and was it from a skeleton throat that the rare jewel which I held in my hand had been accidentally shaken?

My curiosity was excited, and I bent close to examine the lid of this funeral chest.  There was no name on it—­no mark of any sort, save one—­a dagger roughly painted in red.  Here was a mystery!  I resolved to penetrate it.  I set up my candle in a little crevice of one of the empty niches, and laid the pearl and diamond pendant beside it, thus disembarrassing myself of all incumbrance.  The huge coffin lay on its side, as I have said; its uppermost corner was splintered; I applied both hands to the work of breaking further asunder these already split portions.  As I did so a leathern pouch or bag rolled out and fell at my feet.  I picked it up and opened it--it was full of gold pieces!  More excited than ever, I seized a large pointed stone, and by the aid of this extemporized instrument, together with the force of my own arms, hands, and feet, I managed, after some ten minutes’ hard labor, to break open the mysterious casket.