"Come! we must go back," said the latter, "the game's not up yet;" and
he again led the way to the tulip-tree.
"Jupiter," said he, when we reached its foot, "come here; was the skull
nailed to the limb with the face outward, or with the face to the limb?"
"De face was out, massa, so dat de crows could get at de eyes good,
widout any trouble."
"Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you dropped the
beetle?"--here Legrand touched each of Jupiter's eyes.
"'Twas dis eye, massa--de lef eye--jis as you tell me," and here it was
his right eye that the negro indicated.
"That will do--we must try it again."
Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied that I saw,
certain indications of method, removed the peg which marked the spot
where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to the westward of
its former position. Taking, now, the tape-measure from the nearest
point of the trunk to the peg, as before, and continuing the extension
in a straight line to the distance of fifty feet, a spot was indicated,
removed, by several yards, from the point at which we had been digging.
Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in the former
instance, was now described, and we again set to work with the spades. I
was dreadfully weary, but scarcely understanding what had occasioned the
change in my thoughts, I felt no longer any great aversion from the
labor imposed. I had become most unaccountably interested--nay, even
excited. Perhaps there was something, amid all the extravagant demeanor
of Legrand, some air of forethought, or of deliberation, which impressed
me. I dug eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually looking, with
something that very much resembled expectation, for the fancied
treasure, the vision of which had demented my unfortunate companion. At
a period when such vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and when
we had been at work perhaps an hour and a half, we were again
interrupted by the violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the
first instance, had been, evidently, but the result of playfulness or
caprice, but he now assumed a bitter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's
again attempting to muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and leaping
into the hole, tore up the mould frantically with his claws. In a few
seconds he had uncovered a mass of human bones, forming two complete
skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal, and what appeared
to be the dust of decayed woollen. One or two strokes of a spade
upturned the blade of a large Spanish knife, and, as we dug further,
three or four loose pieces of gold and silver coin came to light.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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