Gathered excitedly around us
were the officials of the bank, summoned hastily from above, and
watchmen in plain clothes, and watchmen in uniforms of gray. Great
bars as thick as my leg protected us. Walls of chilled steel rising
from solid rock stood between our treasure and the outer world.
Until then I had not known how tremendous the nervous strain had
been; but now it came home to me. I mopped the perspiration from my
forehead, I drew a deep breath.
"Edgar," I exclaimed happily, "I congratulate you!" I found Edgar
extending toward me a two-dollar bill. "You gave the chauffeur two
dollars,"' he said. "The fare was really one dollar eighty; so you
owe me twenty cents."
Mechanically I laid two dimes upon the table.
"All the other expenses," continued Edgar, "which I agreed to pay,
I have paid." He made a peremptory gesture. "I won't detain you any
longer," he said. "Good-night!"
"Good-night!" I cried. "Don't I see the treasure?" Against the
walls of chilled steel my voice rose like that of a tortured soul.
"Don't I touch it!" I yelled. "Don't I even get a squint? "
Even the watchmen looked sorry for me.
"You do not!" said Edgar calmly. "You have fulfilled your part of
the agreement. I have fulfilled mine. A year from now you can write
the story." As I moved in a dazed state toward the steel door, his
voice halted me.
"And you can say in your story," called Edgar," that there is only
one way to get a buried treasure.
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