The story of the treasure cave
" I should love it," said I, quite ignorant and reckless.
" Very good. I'll bring you the accomplice to-morrow
morning."
And so I got involved.
The accomplice was a young Lur of eighteen or so who had
been taken in early days from his own place and civilized.
The process, I thought, had not gone very deep; not much
beyond 'arak and cigarettes, a European shirt without the
collar, and a passionate desire for life in Ferangistan with a
Ferangi wife whose exact nationality was to be determined
later, when the treasure was found.
The treasure was in a cave in the hills.
Now no one has travelled at all in the Near East, especially
since the revival of archaeology, without hearing of buried
treasures at every other step. The finding of a single gold
coin, or a copper one for that matter if it looks like gold, will
fill a whole district with rumours. So I was sceptical about
the treasure. But as the tale unfolded itself and, like mummies
in their funeral bands, facts began to emerge from wrappings
of irrelevance, I began to see something more positive than
the usual report, and finally came to agree with my friend
at the party, and to think that " there was something in it."
The father of young Hasan, my accomplice, was the head,
or one of the heads, of a small tribe tucked away in the folds
of Kebir Kuh, in the country still marked on the maps as un-
surveyed. Some years ago a tribesman had come to the boy
with a story: he had been caught by a storm on the slopes of
the mountain, had taken refuge in a cavern of which these
limestone hills are full, had seen a glitter in its depths, and
had found twenty cases of gold ornaments, daggers, coins
and idols. He had taken what he could conceal beneath his
abba, and handed half a dozen daggers and a handful of jewels
to his young master. Hasan had never been there, but he