And at a glance I descried two packing-cases, rather small and squat, but the pair of them together the very thing for me.

To my amazement, however, I could at first move neither one nor the other of these small boxes.

Was it that I was weak as water, or that they were heavier than lead?
At last I managed to get one of them in my arms--only to drop it with a thud.

A side started; a thin sprinkling of yellow dust glittered on the earth.

I fetched the lantern: it was gold-dust from Bendigo or from Ballarat.
To me there was horror unspeakable, yet withal a morbid fascination, in the spectacle of the actual booty for which so many lives had been sacrificed before my eyes.