"I did dig, in a dozen places, but all was dry. At one spot, I kept digging until I made a hole nearly shoulder deep, as the sand felt cool and damp. My knife struck on what seemed to be a pebble, and I pulled it out with one hand and flung it aside. As I did so, the sunlight glittered from its side, where my knife had struck. I looked--it was the lump you have, Wythe--and saw that _it was gold_!" and pausing, Duplin hurriedly brushed the sweat from his brow, though the night air was cool and bracing. "Great Lord! go on--hurry up!" muttered Tyrrel, excitedly. "One glance told me what it was. It was what I had journeyed over fifteen hundred miles in search of, and there it lay, in my hand. I tell you, boys, it nearly _killed me_--and I haven't got over it yet. I half believe now that I am asleep and only dreaming all this; I do, honestly. "I did then, too. I sat there for a full hour, almost afraid to move, looking first at the hole, then at the nugget. I told myself over and over again, that I was a fool--that this was only a stray lump that had been dropped here by some Indians, years ago. And yet, even as I said so, the top sand seemed to melt away showing to me great masses of gold, pure and yellow, looking like petrified sunshine. Actually, for a time I believe that I was _mad--gold crazy_." "Look here, Paley Duplin," muttered Jack Tyrrel, suspiciously, as the young man paused in his speech. "Better mind what you're about. If this is a joke--if you are making this all up just to have a laugh at us, I'll lick you clean out o' your boots! If I don't, then it's no matter!" "It's no joke, Jack, my dear fellow, but sober earnest. Sometimes, though, I feel tempted to wish it _was_ a joke." "Duplin!" "A fact. I don't know _why_, but there seems to be a cloud over me--I feel as though some great calamity was impending. Boys, you may laugh at me, but while I was thus stupefied, I saw my mother's spirit before me, beckoning me to leave the spot. She--it was crying, I thought, as though I was in peril. I saw it as plain as I see you now. I flung down the nugget and fled. Not far, though. Then I stopped. The bright, yellow devils seemed to beckon me back. I took a step forward, and _she_ vanished. Then I went back to the hole," and as he spoke, Duplin trembled violently. "And you found it then--the hole, I mean? It hadn't vanished?" whispered Jack, breathlessly. "No," smiling faintly. "It was still there. I dug then, like a madman. I tore up the ground for a dozen feet around. Look--my fingers are worn to the quick. I found more nuggets--I found a dozen more, all larger than that, lying close together. I don't know how large the pocket may be, but I saw enough to feel sure that there is a great fortune there for each one of us; enough, at any rate, to make us independent for life." "You thought of us, then, as sharers in the pocket with you?" queried Burr Wythe.