If there had been water beyond, it would have given him notice by oozing round the rock as he loosened it.

The brief rush of foul gas, which always followed the opening of one of these hollows, he avoided by lying flat on the ground until he felt the air about him sweeter again.
Then, enlarging the aperture with his pick, he scrambled through into this chamber now first opened since time began.
It was like many he had seen before, but considerably larger.

Holding his light at arm's length, above his head, a million little eyes twinkled back at him as the rays shot to and fro on the pointed facets of the rock crystals which hung from the roof and started out of the walls and ground.
The gleaming fingers seemed all pointed straight at him.

Was it in mockery or in acknowledgment of his prowess?
For, in among the pointing fingers, it seemed to him that the silver-bearing veins ran thick as the setting of an ancient jewel, twisted and curling and winding in and out so that his eyes were dazzled with the wonder of it all.
"A man! A man at last! Since time began we have awaited him, and this is he at last!" so those myriad eyes and pointing fingers seemed to cry to him.
And up above, the roar and growl of the sea sounded closer than ever before.
But he had found his treasure and he heeded nought beside.

Here, of a surety, he said to himself, was the silver heart from which the scattered veins had been projected.