vanished from the chemist’s sight. When the poor man looked around him, the cavern also had disappeared, and he would have believed all that had passed to have been but an illusion had not the piece of gold which he still held in his hand satisfied him of its reality.
Thoughtfully he went home, carefully observing every step of the path by which he returned, and marking the neighbouring trees. On the third day he hastened with impatience up the mountain,—he found the trees which he had marked,—he recognised the foot-path,—he beheld the dark rocks at a distance,—and now he tried to place himself on the appointed spot by observing the bearings of the distant objects. The steeple of Hermsdorf already appeared on the left of the Kynast, but he looked in vain for the steeple of Warmburg rising above the ruins which crowned it. At last, after long and toilsome search, he reached a spot from whence he could perceive the latter object;—but then the steeple of Hermsdorf had sunk behind the mountain. The treasure-seeker became feverishly anxious,—he shifted his position,—now he moved lower down, now climbed farther up the ascent,—now he advanced towards the right, now towards the left,—sometimes he got two objects in the right position, but on looking round for the others, they had vanished; the perspiration streamed over his agitated features,—his eyes rolled wildly,—he threw his strained looks across the country,—“There now, I have it!” he would exclaim, and for a moment his countenance brightened up; but on looking again the deceitful land-marks had shifted their position. Thus tortured by the dreadful agony of high-wrought but perpetually dissappointed expectation, he continued gazing wildly across the distant country till the dusky twilight had concealed every object from his sight, and despair had risen to a pitch of madness. The poor wretch’s brain began to burn wildly, and he descended from the mountain a raving maniac; but every third day during the rest of his miserable life he sought to trace the position of the objects pointed out to
