_Farther and farther down, and sudden Revelation of the Truth.--Rising
superior to Circumstances.--The “Pot of Money,” and other
buried Treasures.--They take all these exhumed Treasures to Dr.
Porter.--Singular Reception of the excited Visitors._
IN deep excitement they continued to dig in silence, and thus came
gradually nearer to the object of their search. At last the loose earth
was all thrown out, and only the old hardbound soil was left; while
there, at the bottom of the cavity, lay exposed a portion of an iron
surface, dented now and scratched by the blows which it had received.
It was very rusty; the rust, in fact covered it in great scales, showing
that it must have been buried there for many years. As yet only a few
square inches of the surface were visible, and it was impossible to tell
as yet what it was. But they all felt sure that it was an iron chest.
Bruce now took his pickaxe, and began loosening the hard-bound earth
that surrounded the hole.
“It’s lucky it’s so near the surface,” said Bart.
“I suppose he hadn’t time to bury it any deeper,” said Phil.
“No,” said Arthur; “he must have been hurrying off, you know.”
“Perhaps we won’t be able to lift it,” said Tom. “What’ll we do then?”
“We’ll have to get Solomon and Captain Corbet,” said Phil.
“For that matter,” said Bart, “we can rig up blocks and pulleys, and
hoist it up. We’ll have to dig all around it, though.”
“We may not have it done to-night.”
“If it’s very heavy, we won’t.”
“But we must.”
“O, yes, it wouldn’t do to leave it till morning.”
“Can’t we get lights?”
“If we do get lights, we’d better postpone it till midnight.”
“But we ought to do as much as we can by daylight.”
“O, of course, while the daylight lasts, we’ll keep at it.”
Bruce now laid down his pickaxe, and they went to work with their
shovels, and at last the loose earth was thrown out once more. They had
now uncovered what seemed like one side of the top of the box, and
its edge was plainly apparent. The rest of it was still covered by the
superincumbent soil.
“That’s the edge of the box,” said Bart. “We didn’t hit it fair in the
centre.”
“It’s a good-sized box, too.”
“And it’ll be awfully heavy.”
“I wonder if it is much larger.”
“We’d better uncover the rest of it, so as to see the size of it. There
don’t seem to be any kind of rivets here, or anything of that sort.”
“O, you can’t tell. It’s so covered with rust.”
“Countersunk rivets on an iron plate would be quite concealed if they
were all covered with scales of rust.”
“Come, I’ll dig more on this side,” said Bruce, taking up his pickaxe
again. A few blows directed against the other side served to loosen the
earth there, and the eager boys soon threw it out, and laid bare more of
the surface. Bruce worked away with his pickaxe at the same time. There
was now room for only two to work. The others looked on with beating
hearts.
“Hallo!” cried Bruce, suddenly.
“What?” asked Bart.
“Why, the top’s loose!”
“Loose! Hurrah! We can lift it off then, and get into the box.”
Bruce said nothing, but stooped down. Bart, who had been digging,
stooped down, too. The other boys crowded around.
Bruce dug his fingers into the earth by the edge of the iron, and
rattled it with his hands. Then he tried to lift it up.
It moved!
As it moved, he worked his fingers underneath it, and raised it up on
its edge.
He said not one word, but lifted it up, and held it before the eyes of
the “B. O. W. C.”
And as they looked at it they were struck dumb, and stood paralyzed with
amazement and disgust.
For there, in Bruce’s hands, held up to the light of day, the iron
lid of the iron money-chest, that coffer lid that concealed so much
treasure, buried long ago by the fugitive Frenchman, to be exhumed by
their fortunate hands,--that iron lid which had been the source of so
much excitement and hope, had resolved itself into nothing better than
_a rusty old ploughshare!_
Again holding it till he was tired, Bruce handed it solemnly to Bart.
“Here, Bart,” said he, “I’ll give all my share to you.”
“And I present all that you give me and all my own to Tom,” said Bart,
taking it and passing it on to Tom.
Tom took it and handed it to Arthur.
“I make it over to you, Arthur,” said he.
“And I make it over to Phil,” said Arthur.
Phil took it.
“Very well,” said he. “I hereby give and bequeath all my right, title,
and interest, in and to the said ploughshare, to the Academy Museum,
its curators and officials, to have and to hold forevermore, amen, and
anything to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding.”
By this time the boys had recovered from their astonishment,
disappointment, and disgust.
“That comes of being so sanguine,” said Bart. “Boys, why would you allow
yourselves to grow so excited?”
“Fancy a fugitive Acadian solemnly burying his plough.”
“It was all he had, poor wretch, I dare say.”
“But why bury it in his cellar? Why not in his potato field?”
“For my part, I don’t believe in the Acadian French.”
“I think they’re humbugs.”
“And this is all that remains of the wealth of ‘Benedict Bellefontaine,
the wealthiest farmer in Grand Pré!”
“Perhaps he intended it as a quiet hint to show those who were in a
hurry to get rich the true source of wealth. The plough is that, you
know; so the copy-books all say, at any rate.”
“Well, I’m glad we’ve got even this. It makes archæologists of us. We’ll
make it a present to the Museum, The doctor’ll be delighted. Perhaps
he’ll give us an extra holiday. Every scale of rust will be precious
in his eyes; and he’ll paste a nice label on it, with all our names
immortalized, and the date of the discovery. It will be the chief
treasure of the Museum. Where’ll David Diggs’s crystal be, or
Billymack’s moss agate, or Jiggins’s petrifactions, beside our plough?”
“I wonder if we couldn’t find something else, so as to make a handsome
thing out of it. An old rusty nail would be better than nothing.”
“That’s a capital idea,” cried Bruce, seizing his pickaxe again. “Never
say die, boys. We’ll go back covered with glory, after all, and our
names will be handed down to future generations of boys yet to come to
the old place.”
Saying this, Bruce began working away once more with his pickaxe; and
the others, excited by this new idea, and the prospect of gaining some
kind of a reward for all their toil, took their shovels again, and
waited till Bruce should loosen the earth sufficiently for them to dig
it.
At length this was done, and they began to shovel it out. They had not
worked five minutes before Tom cried,--
“Hallo! here’s something, at any rate.”
Saying this, he stooped down and picked something out of the ground,
which he showed the boys. They examined it eagerly, and saw that it was
a colter, probably belonging to the plough, from which the ploughshare
had been taken. Scarcely had he handed this to the boys than he saw
lying at his feet an iron bolt. This encouraged them all the more. The
colter and the bolt were placed beside the ploughshare, and they worked
on vigorously, each one hoping to make some discovery of his own.
In a little while Bruce struck something, which, on examination, proved
to be the end of a chain. After diligent labor he succeeded in detaching
it all from the ground, and laid it down upon the grass. It was an ox
chain, about six feet long.
This, of course, only increased their excitement; so they all went to
work again.
At last Phil, with all his strength, dragged something out of the
ground, and with a shout put it down beside the other things. It was
a small iron pot, which had been used for cooking. It was now full of
earth, and Phil, seizing the colter, began to pick it out.
“This is the famous pot,” cried Phil, with a laugh; “but the money
inside has all turned to dust because we dug it in the daytime.”
“Money?” cried Arthur. “Don’t laugh about money. What do you say to
that?”
And he held out on his open palm three very dirty coins. What they were
they could not tell, whether silver, or iron, or what. They looked like
very dirty round stones. The boys took them and examined them carefully.
Bart drew his knife, and scraped off the rust and canker.
“More of old Benedict Bellefontaine,” said he, at last. “We can’t make
anything out of him. See here!”
And holding out the coin, he showed where he had scraped it. There they
could read, faintly marked, letters, which formed the following:--