On the advice of his friend, Lieutenant Katschuka, who was betrothed to
Athalie, Timar purchased the sunken grain next day when it was put up
for auction, buying the whole cargo for 10,000 gulden. "You will do the
poor orphan a good turn if you buy it," said the lieutenant. "Otherwise,
the value of the cargo will all go in salvage."
Timar at once made arrangements for hauling up the sacks, and for the
immediate drying and grinding of the corn, and all day labourers were at
work on the wreck.
At nightfall Timar, left alone, noticed one sack differently marked from
the rest--marked with a red crescent! Within this was a long leathern
bag. He broke it open and found it full of diamonds, emeralds, and
sapphires richly set in girdles and bracelets and rings. A whole heap of
unset diamonds were in an agate box. The whole treasure was worth at
least 1,000,000 gulden. The St. Barbara had carried a million on board!
"To whom does this treasure belong?"
Timar put the question to himself, and answered it.
"Why, whom should it belong to but you? You bought the sunken cargo,
just as it is, with the sacks and the grain. If the treasurer stole the
jewels from the sultan, the sultan probably stole them in his
campaigns."
"And Timéa?"
"Timéa would not know how to use the treasure, and her adopted father
would absorb it, and get rid of nine-tenths of it. What would be the
result if Timéa gets it? She would be a rich lady, and would not cast a
look at you from her height. Now things are the other way--you will be a
rich man and she a poor girl. You do not want the treasure for yourself.
You will invest it profitably, and when you have earned with the first
million a second and a third, you will go to the poor girl and say,
'There, take it--it is all yours; and take me, too.' You only wish to
become rich in order to make her happy."
The moon and the waves cried to Timar, "You are rich--you are a made
man!"
But when it was dark an inward voice whispered,
"You are a thief!"
From that day all Timar's undertakings flourished, and step by step he
reached the summit of an ordinary successful business man's ambition--
the title of nobility. At the same time Brazovics, who had treated Timar
with brutal inconsiderateness because of the wreck of the St. Barbara,
went steadily down-hill, borrowing and embezzling trust monies in his
fall.
Lieutenant Katschuka had declared all along that he could not marry
Athalie without a dowry, and when the wedding day arrived, Brazovics,
unable to face his creditors, and knowing himself bankrupt, penniless,
and fraudulent, committed suicide. Katschuka immediately declared the
engagement at an end. In his heart he had long wearied of Athalie, and
looked with desire on Timéa. The orphan girl from the first had loved
the lieutenant with silent, unspoken affection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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