Treasure Hunt Tales: The Star of the South & Captain Antifer. Жюль Верн
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it was time. The nearer he drew towards his goal the more nervous, the more unsociable he became. All his life was centred in this island, this mine of gold and diamonds which belonged to him. To him it was an Ali Baba’s cave which had been transferred to him by law in the very country of the Arabian Nights, whither Kamylk Pasha’s fancy had led him.
“Do you know,” said he one day to his companions, “that if the fortune of this worthy Egyptian had been in ingots of gold, I should have had a good deal of trouble in getting it to St. Malo?”
“So I should think,” said Juhel.
“But,” returned Tregomain, “if we filled our bags, our pockets, and our hat-case—”
“There’s a bargeman’s notion for you. He fancies he can put a million into his pocket!”
“I fancy, my friend—”
“But you have never seen a million in gold?”
“Never. Not even in a dream!”
“Do you know what it weighs?”
“I know nothing about it.”
“Well, I do, for I have had the curiosity to calculate!”
“Tell us.”
“An ingot of gold worth a million would weigh about seventeen thousand seven hundred and seventy-five pounds avoirdupois; and four millions would consequently weigh over seventy-one thousand pounds.”
“Ah!” said the bargeman, “you must have made it too much!”
“Do you know how many men it would take to carry those four millions?”
“How many?”
“Why, three hundred and twenty-three, and as we are but three, you can see what our embarrassment would be when we reached my island? Fortunately my treasure is chiefly composed of diamonds and precious stones—”
“Uncle is right,” said Juhel.
“And I may add,” said Tregomain, “that this excellent Pasha could not have arranged matters more conveniently.”
“Oh! these diamonds!” exclaimed Antifer—“these diamonds are easily sold among the Paris and London jewellers. What a sale, my friends, what a sale! Not all, though, not all—”
“You will only sell a part of them?”
“Yes, bargeman, yes!” replied Antifer, his face convulsed, his eyes glowing like fire. “Yes; and first, I will keep one for myself, a diamond worth forty or fifty thousand pounds say, and I will wear it in my shirt.”
“In your shirt, friend?” said Tregomain. “You will be simply dazzling! No one will be able to look you in the face—”
“And Enogate shall have another,” added Antifer; “that is a little gem to make her pretty—”
“No prettier than she is now!” Juhel hastened to remark.
“Quite so, quite so. And there shall be a third diamond for my sister!”
“Ah! Good Nanon!” said Tregomain. “Do you want somebody to come and propose for her?”
Antifer shrugged his shoulders.
“And there shall be a fourth diamond for you, Juhel, a fine stone you can wear as a pin—”
“Thank you, uncle.”
“And you shall have a fifth, old man.”
“Me? If it had been to put on the figurehead of the Charmante Amélie—”
“No, bargeman, on your finger—a ring—a signet ring—”
“A diamond—on my great red hands—that would suit me as well as socks would a Franciscan!” replied the bargeman, extending an enormous hand much more suited to haul a hawser than to display diamond rings.
“Never mind. It is not impossible that you might find some woman who would—”
“Whom would you suggest? There is a fine fat widow who keeps a grocer’s shop at Saint Servan—”
“Grocer—grocer!” exclaimed Antifer. “What a figure your grocer would make in our family when Enogate has married her prince and Juhel his princess!”
There the conversation ended, and the young captain could not stifle a sigh at the thought that his uncle still encouraged these absurd dreams. What would bring him back to sanity, if misfortune—yes, misfortune—willed it that he should become possessed of these millions of the island!
“Positively he will go out of his mind if this lasts much longer!” said Tregomain to Juhel, when they were alone.
“I am afraid so!” said Juhel, looking at his uncle, who was talking to himself.
Two days afterwards the Oxus arrived at Muscat, and three sailors extracted Ben Omar from the depths of his cabin. But in what a state! He was reduced to a skeleton, or rather to a mummy, for the skin still hung on the bones of the unfortunate notary.
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