What we saw was a circular chamber formed of tree-trunks at the sides and roofed with masses of green leaves. The central trees had been cleared away by some means, for a large mahogany stump was used for a table and its beautifully polished surface proclaimed that it had been a live tree when sawed through. Also there were several seats formed from stumps in various parts of the room, and one or two benches and a couch had been manufactured very cleverly from polished mahogany wood.  
But these were by no means the chief wonder of the place. The walls were thickly covered with climbing vines, which reached in graceful festoons to the overhanging central boughs; but these were all the creation of man rather than of nature, for they were formed from virgin gold.
 
242
Also the ornaments scattered about the place, the mountings of the furniture, swinging lamps and tabourettes, all were of gold, and never have I beheld the equal of their exquisite workmanship or unique designing. The tracery of every leaf of the golden bower imitated accurately nature itself, the veins and stems being so perfect as to cause one to marvel. Not only had a vast amount of pure gold been used in this work, but years must have been consumed in its execution.
 
“Oh, Tcharn!” cried Ilalah, in a shocked tone, as soon as she had recovered from the wonder of her first look; “you have broken the law!”
 
“It is true,” answered the arrow-maker, calmly.
 
“Why did you do it?” she asked.
 
243
“The yellow metal is very beautiful,” said he, looking upon the golden bower with loving eyes; “and it is soft, and easy to work into many pretty forms. Years ago, when I began to gather the metal for my arrows and spears, I found in our mountains much of the forbidden gold, and it cried out to me to take it and love it, and I could not resist. So I brought it here, where no white man could ever see it and where not even your father was likely to come and charge me with my crime. My princess, you and your friends are the first to know my secret, and it is safe in your care because you are yourself breaking the law and defying the king.”
 
“In what way?” asked Ilalah.
 
“In seeking the pebbles that are denied our people, and in befriending the whites who have been condemned by us for centuries.”
 
She was silent for a moment. Then she said, bravely:
 
“Tcharn, such laws are unjust. I will break them because they are my father’s laws and not my own. When I come to rule my people I will make other laws that are more reasonable—and then I will forgive you for your gold-work.”
 
“Oh, Ilalah!” exclaimed Moit; “how can you rule these Indians when you have promised to come with me, and be my queen?”
 
She drew her hand across her eyes as if bewildered, and then smiled sweetly into her lover’s face.
 
244
“How easy it is to forget,” she said, “when one has always been accustomed to a certain life. I will go with you, and I will never rule my people.”
 
“You are wrong, my princess,” declared the dwarf, eagerly. “What to you is the white man’s land? You will rule us indeed, and that in a brief space of time!”
 
“No, my friend,” she said, “the house that moves will carry me away with my white chief, and in a new land I will help him to rule his own people.”
 
The arrow-maker looked at her with a dreamy, prophetic expression upon his wizened features.
 
“Man knows little,” said he, “but the Serpent of Wisdom knows much. In my forest the serpent dwells, and it has told me secrets of the days to come. Soon you will be the Queen of the Techlas, and the White Chief will be but your slave. I see you ruling wisely and with justice, as you have promised, but still upholding the traditions of your race. You will never leave the San Blas country, my Ilalah.”
 
She laughed, brightly.
 
“Are you then a seer, my cousin?” she asked.
 
245
The dwarf started, as if suddenly awakened, and his eyes lost their speculative gaze.
 
“Sometimes the vision comes to me,” he said; “how or why I know not. But always I see truly.”
 
Duncan Moit did not understand this dialogue, which had been conducted in the native tongue. He had been examining, with the appreciation of a skilled workman, the beautiful creations of the Indian goldsmith. But now our uneasy looks and the significant glances of Nux and Bryonia attracted his attention, and he turned to ask an explanation.
 
The princess evaded the subject, saying lightly that the dwarf had been trying to excuse himself for breaking the law and employing the forbidden gold in his decorations. I turned to Tcharn and again demanded:
 
“Show us the pebbles.”
 
246
At once he drew a basket woven of rushes from beneath a bench and turned out its contents on the top of the great table. A heap of stones was disclosed, the appearance of which at first disappointed me. They were of many shapes and sizes and had surfaces resembling ground glass. In the semi gloom of the bower and amid the shining gold tracery of its ornamentation the “pebbles” seemed uninteresting enough.
 
But Moit pounced upon the treasure with exclamations of wonder, examining them eagerly. Either the German or the arrow-maker had chipped some of them in places, and then the clear, sparkling brilliancy of the diamonds was fully demonstrated.
 
“They are magnificent!” cried the inventor. “I have never seen gems so pure in color or of such remarkable size and perfect form.”
 
I compared them mentally with the stones I had found in the roll of bark taken from the dead man’s pocket, and decided that these were indeed in no way inferior.
 
The dwarf opened a golden cabinet and brought us three more diamonds. These had been cut into facets and polished, and were amazingly brilliant. I am sure Tcharn had never seen the usual method of diamond-cutting, and perhaps knew nothing of the esteem in which civilized nations held these superb pebbles of pure carbon; so it is remarkable that he had intuitively found the only means of exhibiting the full beauty of the stones.
 
247
“Will you give me these, my cousin?” asked the princess.
 
For answer he swept them all into the basket and placed it in her hands. She turned and with a pleased smile gave the treasure to Moit.
 
“At last,” said I, with a sigh of relief, “we have accomplished the object of our adventure.”
 
“At last,” said Duncan, “I have enough money to patent my inventions and to give the machine to the world in all its perfection!”
 
“But we mus’ get out o’ here, Mars’ Sam,” observed Bry, gravely.
 
“That is true,” I replied. “And I hope now that we have no further reason for staying that we shall have little difficulty in passing the lines of our enemies.”
 
We confided to the arrow-maker a portion of our adventures, and told him how Nalig-Nad had seemed determined to destroy us.............