Something was telling Santiago not to walk straight ahead into the darkness. He groped at the wall of the cave and treaded on the muddy slope. He climbed down for about thirty meters before his flashlight shone on even ground. He stared back at where he had come from, and was horrified at the sight of a steep cliff a dozen times his height. If he did not keep close to the wall, he would be digging his grave instead of gold. The cave was a fully enclosed cathedral. It did not have a huge doorway in front. The only opening it had was a small window on top of the bell tower.
He continued exploring the cave. In a short while, the beam of light from his flashlight hit something lightly colored. He examined it closely. It was an oddly shaped column that stood taller than he. It looked like a very tall coral, but its surface was smooth and as white as milk. It looked soft and even edible, but when Santiago touched it, his finger curled at the hardness of the stone. It felt much more compact than concrete.
Santiago wondered if he could sell the thing, if it would fetch as high as the price of gold. He thought right away, though, that cutting the oddly shaped column is much more difficult than digging a hole. He walked on—and found hundreds of similar stone formations, competing with one another in size and grandeur and strangeness. Santiago trembled in awe. God seemed to have coated the whole interior of the cave with thick, divine white paint. It was his secret playground. Santiago fell to his knees. At last, he found the treasure he had been looking for. It was not in the form of gold, and it was something he would not want to sell.
Now, eight years since, Santiago visits the cave regularly, taking along with him tourists, spelunkers, and speleologists. The tourists usually whine on the long and torturous trip. Santiago assists them with their needs and just smiles to himself. He witnesses such a situation often. He knows that when the visitors reach the cave, they will utter one pleasant interjection after another and say all the hardship is worth it. He receives a modest commission from the fee that visitors pay the local government. It's just enough to get by, but he's not complaining. He's happy. He's got something more precious than gold, something priceless. In the cave, people tell him they have not seen anything more beautiful.
