Santiago's digging at the Pyramids and being beaten

Santiago, having crossed the Sahara Desert and learned the Language of the World from the alchemist, finally reaches the Pyramids of Egypt. The sight of the solemn and majestic structures, illuminated by the light of the full moon and the brightness of the desert, brings him to his knees in tears. He thanks God for making him believe in his destiny and for leading him to meet a king, a merchant, an Englishman, and an alchemist, and above all for having met a woman of the desert who told him that love would never keep a man from his destiny. He reminds himself that no project is completed until its objective has been achieved. Looking at the sands around him, he sees a scarab beetle scuttling through the sand where his tears have fallen; during his time in the desert, he had learned that in Egypt, the scarab beetles are a symbol of God. Taking this as another omen, he begins to dig into the dune at the place where his tears fell, as his heart had whispered to him: "Be aware of the place where you are brought to tears. That's where I am, and that's where your treasure is." Throughout the night he digs, but finds nothing. He feels weighted down by the centuries of time since the Pyramids had been built, but he does not stop. He struggles to continue digging as he fights the wind, which often blows the sand back into the excavation. His hands are abraded and exhausted, but he listens to his heart, which had told him to dig where his tears fell.

The Attack and the Confession

As Santiago attempts to pull out the rocks he encounters, he hears footsteps. Several figures approach him, their backs to the moonlight, so he can see neither their eyes nor their faces. One of them demands to know what he is doing there. Terrified, Santiago does not answer; he has found where his treasure was and is frightened at what might happen. The figures identify themselves as refugees from the tribal wars who need money, and they ask what he is hiding. When Santiago says he is not hiding anything, one of them seizes him and yanks him back out of the hole. Another, searching his bags, finds the piece of gold that the alchemist had given him at the Coptic monastery. The moon shines on the face of the Arab who has seized him, and in the man's eyes Santiago sees death. The men, believing he has more gold hidden in the ground, force him to continue digging, but he finds nothing. As the sun rises, they begin to beat him. He is bruised and bleeding, his clothing torn to shreds, and he feels that death is near. Finally, screaming at the men, he confesses that he is digging for treasure. Despite his mouth being bleeding and swollen, he tells his attackers that he had twice dreamed of a treasure hidden near the Pyramids of Egypt.

The Leader's Revelation

The man who appears to be the leader of the group speaks to one of the others, saying to leave him, that he doesn't have anything else and must have stolen the gold. Santiago falls to the sand, nearly unconscious. The leader shakes him and says they are leaving. But before they go, he comes back to Santiago and delivers a speech that completely reverses the meaning of the entire quest. He tells Santiago that he will live and learn that a man shouldn't be so stupid. He reveals that two years earlier, right there on that same spot, he himself had had a recurrent dream. In his dream, he was told to travel to the fields of Spain and look for a ruined church where shepherds and their sheep slept. In the dream, there was a sycamore growing out of the ruins of the sacristy, and he was told that if he dug at the roots of the sycamore, he would find a hidden treasure. But, he declares, he is not so stupid as to cross an entire desert just because of a recurrent dream. Then they disappear.

The Joy of Understanding

Santiago stands up shakily and looks once more at the Pyramids. They seem to laugh at him, and he laughs back, his heart bursting with joy. Because now he knows where his treasure is. The leader's words have given him the final piece of the puzzle: the treasure was never in Egypt, but back in the abandoned church in Andalusia where his journey began, under the sycamore tree that grew from the ruins of the sacristy. The beating, the robbery, and the confession have all been the instrument of his final revelation. The alchemist had warned him that before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way, and that every search begins with beginner's luck and ends with the victor's being severely tested. Santiago has passed that test. He now understands that the path was written in the omens, and that there was no way he could go wrong. He will return to the abandoned church, dig at the base of the sycamore, and find the chest of Spanish gold coins, precious stones, gold masks, and stone statues that had been waiting for him all along.