On, on; hurry, hurry. The driver was faithful, a sometime brigand and later a harbor boatman; and of all his confederates this one was the only man he dared trust on an errand of this kind.
Evisa. They did not pause. They ate their supper on the way. With three Sardinian donkeys, strong and patient little brutes, with lanterns and shovels and sacks, the two fared into the pines. Aïtone was all familiar ground to the Corsican who, in younger days, had taken his illegal tithe from these hills. They found the range soon enough, but made a dozen mistakes in measurements; and it was long toward midnight, when the oil of the lanterns ran low, that their shovels bore down into the precious pocket. The earth flew. They worked like madmen, with nervous energy and power of will; and when the chest finally came into sight, rotten with age and the soak of earth, they fell back against a tree, on the verge of collapse. The hair was damp on their foreheads, their breath came harshly, almost in sobs.
Suddenly Breitmann fell upon his knees and laughed hysterically, plunged his blistered hands into the shining heap. It played through his fingers in little musical cascades. He rose.
"Pietro, you have been faithful to me. Put your two hands in there."
"Go on! Go on! As much as your two hands can hold is yours. Dig them in deep, man, dig them in deep!"
With a cry Pietro dropped and burrowed into the gold and silver. A dozen times he started to withdraw his hands, but they trembled so that some of the coins would slip and fall. At last, with one desperate plunge, the money running down toward his elbows, he turned aside and let fall his burden on the new earth outside the shallow pit. He rolled beside it, done for, in a fainting state. Breitmann laughed wildly.
"Come, come; we have no time. Put it into your pockets."
"But, _padrone_, I have not counted it!" naively.
"To-morrow, when we make camp for breakfast. Let us hurry."
Quickly Pietro stuffed his pockets. Jabbering in his patois, swearing so many candles to the Virgin for this night's work. Then began the loading of the sacks, and these were finally dumped into the donkey-panniers.
"Now, Pietro, the shortest cut to Ajaccio. First, your hand on your amulet, and oath never to reveal what has happened."