“A spell was put upon the spot,” Miriam went on, with a certain imaginative seriousness; for she loved romance and mystery so well, and was of a temperament so poetical, that the wildest fairy-tales had a sort of reality for her. “No one can find the treasure while the spell remains. But Kamaiakan understands the spell, and the conjuration which dissolves it; and when he dissolves it, the treasure will be found.” “And, between ourselves,” added the general, “Kamaiakan is himself the priestly relative by whom the spell was wrought. He bears an enchanted life, which cannot cease until he has restored the jewels to Miriam’s hands.” “There might be something in it, you know,” said Meschines, after a pause. “The treasures of Montezuma have never been found. Is there no old chart or writing, in your collection of curiosities and relics, that might throw light on it?” “The scriptures of Anahuac were of the hieroglyphic type,--picture-writing,” replied the other. “No, I fear there is nothing to the purpose; and if there were, I shouldn’t know how to decipher it.” “But, papa, the tunic!” exclaimed Miriam. “Oh! has the tunic anything to do with it?” “Is that the queer woollen garment with the gold embroidery?” inquired the professor, becoming more interested. “I took a fancy to that, you remember. Has it a story?” “Well, it is a kind of an anomaly, I believe,” the general answered, looking up at his daughter with a smile. “The Aztecs, you are aware, dressed chiefly in cotton. Even their defensive armor was of cotton, thickly quilted. Their ornaments were feathers, and embroidery of gold and precious stones. But wool, for some reason, they didn’t wear; and yet this garment, as you can see for yourself, is pure wool; and that it is also pure Aztecan is beyond question.” “Admitting that, what clue does it give to the treasure?” “You must ask Kamaiakan,” said Miriam: “only, he wouldn’t tell you.” “Possibly,” the professor suggested, “the place where the treasure is hidden is the place whence the water is to flow out; and the water is the treasure.” “Seriously, do you suppose that such a phenomenon as the return of an inland sea is physically practicable?” asked Trednoke. “No phenomenon, in this part of the world, would surprise me,” returned Meschines. “The Colorado might break its barriers; or it is conceivable that some huge stream, taking its rise in the heights hundreds of miles north and east of us, may be flowing through subterranean passages into the sea, emerging from the sea-bottom hundreds of miles to the westward. Now, if a rattling good earthquake were to happen along, you might awake in the morning to find yourself on an island, or even under water.” “A moderate Mediterranean would satisfy me,” the general said. “I wouldn’t exchange the certainty of it for the treasures of Montezuma.” “The thirst for gold and for water are synonymous in your case?”