Though Angela and I listened to the abbe’s warnings with all respect, they made little impression on our minds.  We regarded them as the vagaries of an old man, whose mind was affected by the feebleness of his body, and a few weeks later he breathed his last.  His death came in the natural order of things, and, as he had outlived his strength, it was for him a happy release; yet, as we had loved him much, we sorrowed for him deeply, and I still honor his memory.  Take him all in all, Abbe Balthazar was the best man I have ever known.

Shortly after we laid him in the ground I made a visit to the diamond ground, the situation of which the abbe had so fully described that I found it without difficulty.  But the undertaking, besides proving much more arduous than I had anticipated, came near to costing me my life.  I took with me an arriero and three mules, one carrying an ample supply of food, and, as I thought, of water, for the abbe had told me that a mountain-stream ran through the valley where I was to look for the diamonds.  As ill-luck would have it, however, the stream was dried up.  Had it not been that I did not like to return empty-handed I should have returned at once, for our stock of water was exhausted and we were two days’ journey from Quipai.

I spent a whole day seeking among the stones and pebbles, and my search was so far successful that I picked up two score diamonds, some of considerable size.  If I could have stayed longer I might have made a still richer harvest; and I had an idea that there were more under than above ground.  But I had stayed too long as it was.  The mules were already suffering for want of water; all three perished before we reached Quipai, and the arriero and myself got home only just alive.

Nevertheless, had not Angelo put her veto on the project, I should have made another visit to the place, provided with a sufficiency of water for the double journey.  I, moreover, thought that with time and proper tools I could find water on the spot.  However, I went not again, and I renounced my design all the more willingly as I knew that the diamonds I had already found were a fortune in themselves.  I added them to my collection of minerals which I kept in my cabinet at Alta Vista.  My Quipais being honest and knowing nothing whatever of precious stones I had no fear of robbers.

For several years after Balthazar’s death nothing occurred to disturb the even tenor of our way, and I had almost forgotten his warnings, and that we were potentially “rich beyond the dreams of avarice,” when one day a runner brought word that two men had landed on the coasts and were on the way to San Cristobal.

This was startling news, and I questioned the messenger closely, but all he could tell me was that the strangers had arrived in a small boat, half famished and terribly thirsty, and had asked, in broken Spanish, to be taken to the chief of the country, and that he had been sent on to inform me of their coming.