Soon it was almost done; but before we set the last bricks, which were
shaped in squares like the clay lump that we use for the building of
farmeries and hinds' houses in Norfolk, I thrust a torch through the
opening and looked for the last time at the treasure chamber that was
also a dead-house. There lay the glittering gems; there, stood upon a
jar, gleamed the golden head of Montezuma, of which the emerald eyes
seemed to glare at me, and there, his back resting against this same
jar, and his arms encircling two others to the right and left, was the
dead man. But he was no longer dead, or so it seemed to me; at the
least his eyes that were shut had opened, and they stared at me like the
emerald eyes of the golden statue above him, only more fearfully.

Very hastily I withdrew the torch, and we finished in silence. When it
was done we withdrew to the end of the passage and looked up the shaft,
and I for one was glad to see the stars shining in heaven above me. Then
we made a double loop in the rope, and at a signal were hauled up
till we hung over the ledge where the black mass of marble rested, the
tombstone of Montezuma's treasure, and of him who sleeps among it.

This stone, that was nicely balanced, we pushed with our hands and feet
till presently it fell forward with a heavy sound, and catching on the
ridge of brick which had been prepared to receive it, shut the treasure
shaft in such a fashion that those who would enter it again must take
powder with them.

Then we were dragged up, and came to the surface of the earth in safety.

Now one asked of the Aztec noble who had gone down with us and returned
no more.