The discovery that made the deepest impression on Raoul took place under circumstances which intensified his superstitious feeling in regard to everything connected with the buried treasure. He was on one of numerous trips to Lake Guatavita. Riding alone, he reached the gloomy body of water toward nightfall. Tethering his horse near the trail at the edge of the plain over which he had ridden, he approached the lake on foot, his mind penetrated by the absolute silence of the place. He had come for no specific purpose except to examine further the old Spanish cutting that gashes the great hill which originally rose, a solid wall of rock, above the unknown depths of the waters. Through this narrow cleft, on the instant that it was completed three centuries ago, a mighty torrent had hurled itself into the valley beyond. As this torrent subsided and the lake shrank to its present compass, a wide margin of precipitous shore was left bare to the scrutiny of treasure seekers. Even after the lapse of centuries this portion of the lake's basin still shows the ravages wrought by the Spaniards. It remains a gaunt, jagged surface of rock and flinty gravel, unclothed by tree or shrub--an ancient sanctuary whose violation defies the repairs of time. Raoul smiled contemptuously at these evidences of the rude labors of the early Spaniards. With modern science to back him he would not attack the problem in this way. He would pierce this ancient secret to its heart by subtlety, not brute force. For the hundredth time he went over the system of lines and levels by which he and David planned to tunnel their way to the coveted prize, indicating to himself the various points from which they proposed to start their work, and noting and comparing the obstacles they would encounter by each route. Thus occupied, Raoul slowly circled the lake, following the precarious path that still remained along the edge of the old high-water mark--the path upon which had marched the gaily vestured Chibcha devotees in the pomp of their semi-annual festival, when the dancing waves radiating from the heavily laden rafts of the Gilded Man and his court, washed over their sandalled feet, and all was sunshine and joyous laughter, glitter of gold and emerald offerings ready poised to be hurled, with shouts of triumph, to the insatiable God in his crystalline caverns below. Scenes from the old legend flashed across the prosaic details of Raoul's mining schemes, as he stood in the shadow of the majestic hill that lifted its huge shoulders behind him. Not a ripple scarred the surface of the sombre waters. The ancient God, it would seem, waiting in vain the tribute that once was his, had grown angry and made of his Sacred Lake a shrunken circle of dark and sinister meaning.