"but, professor maxon," said lieutenant may, "men will suffer all these things and more for gold.""gold!" cried the professor."why, man, that is a box of books on biology and eugenics.""my god!" exclaimed may, "and von horn was accredited to be one of the shrewdest swindlers and adventurers in america! but come, we may as well return to the cutter--my men will carry the chest.""no!" exclaimed professor maxon with a vehemence the other could not understand."let them bury it again where it lies.it and what it contains have been the cause of sufficient misery and suffering and crime.
let it lie where it is in the heart of savage borneo, and pray to god that no man ever finds it, and that i shall forget forever that which is in it."on the morning of the third day following the death of von horn the new mexico steamed away from the coast of borneo.upon her deck, looking back toward the verdure clad hills, stood virginia and bulan.
"thank heaven," exclaimed the girl fervently, "that we are leaving it behind us forever.""amen," replied bulan, "but yet, had it not been for borneo i might never have found you.""we should have met elsewhere then, bulan," said the girl in a low voice, "for we were made for one another.
no power on earth could have kept us apart.in your true guise you would have found me--i am sure of it.""it is maddening, virginia," said the man, "to be constantly straining every resource of my memory in futile endeavor to catch and hold one fleeting clue to my past.why, dear, do you realize that i may have been a fugitive from justice, as was von horn, a vile criminal perhaps.it is awful, virginia, to contemplate the horrible possibilities of my lost past.""no, bulan, you could never have been a criminal,"replied the loyal girl, "but there is one possibility that has been haunting me constantly.it frightens me just to think of it--it is," and the girl lowered her voice as though she feared to say the thing she dreaded most, "it is that you may have loved another--that--that you may even be married."