It is one thing being possessed of a treasure and another knowing what to do with it.  Here was I with the fortune, as my uncle called it, of a prince, found, as I had found it, and to which some people may say I had no right, and I often thought so myself.  But on the other hand I felt that I could do more good with it than it would do left there in the bed of that stream ­so many relics of a superstition ­of a pagan idolatry carried on three hundred years ago.  The traditions of its being hidden there had of course been handed down, but it had never been seen since it was buried at the time of the conquest, and all who had a right to it had been dead for ages.

So I comforted myself that I was only the one who had brought it to light, and that it was my duty to put it to as good a purpose as possible, and that I meant to do.

Well, here I had the treasure; but the next thing was, should I be able to keep it?

If the Indians could trace me and dared to come across the river all this distance down and into the civilised region, I knew that my life would not be safe, and that they would have the treasure back at any cost.

But then it was not likely that the simple savages would venture after me even if they could find out where I had come.

Then there were the Spaniards about us.  If they knew of the wealth we had in the ordinary house of which we had taken possession they would either get it away by legal means, claiming it as belonging to one or the other government, or else make a regular filibustering descent upon us and secure it by violence, even taking our lives as well.

Secrecy, then, seemed to be the only thing possible; and after a good deal of thinking and planning, my uncle, Tom, and I constructed a little furnace in a corner of the house, after boarding up the window and covering it with blankets as well.  Here we purposed to melt down the treasure into long ingots, which we hoped to mould in sand ­little, long, golden bars being the most convenient shape in which we could carry our gold.

I knew even then that it was a great pity to destroy what were equally valuable as curiosities as for their intrinsic worth as precious metal; but any attempt to dispose of them would have meant confiscation, and such a treasure was not to be introduced to the notice of strangers with impunity.

My uncle joined with me in lamenting the difficulties of the case, and that we should be under the necessity of melting the cups and plates down; but he urged me to do it as soon as possible, and we soon set to work, carrying on our metal fusing in secret by the help of a crucible and a great deal of saltpetre, which soon helped to bring the heat to a pitch where the gold would melt like so much lead, and then by the help of a strong handle the pot was lifted out and its glowing contents poured forth into the moulds.

The ingots we thus cast had to be filed and the rough projections taken off, the dust and scraps being remelted down with the other portion.

It was a tremendous task, though.  The plates we managed pretty easily, but the discs had to be cut up first by means of a great hammer and a cold chisel, and the progress we made upon some days was very small.

The cups, too, were very difficult to manage; and Tom and I used to work exceedingly hard, hammering and breaking the gold into small pieces that would go into the melting-pot.  Sometimes our fingers were quite sore with the hammering and filing.

Still we kept on making progress, nervous progress, lest people should find out what we were about; and by slow degrees we added ingot to ingot ­little, bright, yellow bar after bar ­to one heap, and bar after bar of silver to another heap, which were kept buried under a stone in the floor of one of the rooms.

Over and over again we hesitated before breaking up some beautifully-worked cup, though without exception these had been battered and flattened, perhaps three hundred years ago, for the convenience of carriage and hiding from the Spaniards, who had gone west with such a thirst for gold.  Several of the best cups were almost flat, the tough, soft metal having evidently been driven in with blows from stones.

We did not get through our task without alarms; for now and then some kindly-disposed person would call, and then we were obliged to hurriedly conceal our work, smothering the fire, and this perhaps when we were at some particular part of our task.  But there was no help for it, as we were compelled to work by daylight for fear of the glow of our furnace-fire taking attention if we attempted anything of the kind by night.

That melting down was like a nightmare to me, and over and over again I used to ask myself whether the gold were worth all this trouble.  Slave, slave, slave, till our fingers were sore; and now I would be blistering my hands with a small-toothed saw which Tom had bought one day and brought home in triumph for cutting through the gold, and next time toiling away with a great file.

Yes, it seemed as if we were working ourselves to death for this bright yellow metal; and several times over, without being led up to it by me, Tom quite took my view.

“S’pose this here stuff’s going to be very useful, Mas’r Harry,” he said.

“Useful, Tom?”

“Ay!  I mean I hope it’s going to be worth all this work and trouble.  My word, Mas’r Harry, soap-boiling’s nothing to this!”

“Tired, Tom?” I said.

“Tired, Mas’r Harry?  Not I!  But I tell you what I am, and that’s hot.”

“Yes, it is hot work, Tom,” I said.

“Ay, Mas’r Harry, that’s just what it is, ’specially when you gets ladling out the soup and pouring it into the moulds.  Fine rich soup, ain’t it?” he said with a grin.

“The richest of the rich, Tom.”

“Ah! it is, Mas’r Harry; but it is hot work, and no mistake, and it sets me thinking a deal.”

“Well, Tom, what of?” I asked, for we were waiting for the melting.

“’Bout setting up soap-boiling out here, Mas’r Harry,” he said, grinning.

“Well, what about it, Tom?”

“’Twouldn’t do, Mas’r Harry,” said Tom.  “First of all, the work would be a deal too hot; second of all, the trade wouldn’t pay, ’cause the people look as if they never washed.  No, Mas’r Harry, I don’t think the folks here are fond of soap.”

Two months of hard toil did we spend over that melting down.  For first of all, there was the preparation of the furnace; and a very hard task that was, there being such difficulty in getting proper materials.  Stone seemed to go first into scales, and then into powder.  The bricks we obtained cracked; and it was not until my uncle had mixed up some clay in a peculiar manner, and beaten it up into bricks of a big, rough shape, that we managed to get on.  These bricks we built up into the furnace, and then slowly dried by leaving in a small fire; and this we increased till it was hot enough to burn the rough bricks, which, as we increased the fire to a furious pitch, seemed to fuse the whole together into a solid mass.

Then we had our hiding-place to dig out; and all this work had to be done in such a secret way that it used to make me think of Baron Trenck in prison, so careful and watchful were we in all we did.

Industry mastered it all though at last; and, weary as Tom must have been of his job, he began to feel at last that the gold was worth working for.

“I usen’t to think so at one time, Mas’r Harry,” he said; “but since I’ve been working away here, melting of myself away almost as fast as I melted gold, it’s seemed to me as if, when I get home, and Sally Smith knows as I’m a gentleman with a large income of two pound a week, she may be a bit more civil like to me.”

“Very likely, Tom,” I said smiling.

“That’s just what I say, Mas’r Harry ­very likely; that is, you know, if there’s anything more left of me than the ivory.”

“Ivory, Tom?” I said, wondering what he meant.

“Yes, Mas’r Harry ­the bones, you know.  Don’t you see, I mean if I ain’t melted all away.”

Two months, I say, had it taken before the rich metal was all reduced to neat little bars ready for packing up.

Then we had to discuss the question of the size and material of the cases in which we were to carry home our treasure so as not to excite suspicion.

“We must risk suspicion and inquiry too,” said my uncle.  “Our way now, Harry, is to get the stuff packed up and go straight away.”

“I should do it quite openly,” said Lilla quietly, “and if inquiries are made you can say that the chests in which it is packed contain gold.  No one can be suspicious then.  The people will only think that you are very rich, and be the more respectful.”

“You are right, Lilla,” said my uncle.  “We can show our ingots ­I mean your ingots, Harry.  No one can prove how you came by them.”

The result was that we boldly ordered some little cases to be made of the strongest South American oak, and corded together and bound firmly with hoop-iron; and into these, bedding them neatly with the finest sawdust, we packed the little shining bars.