"Ah! there's some one about, Mas'r Harry, I'm 'fear'd," whispered Tom.
"I wish we'd covered the stuff up again. What do you say to taking a
light and going right in?"
Tom's advice seemed so sensible that we ran back, fetched a candle and
the matches, got a light, and then carefully examined the cave, peering
wherever it seemed possible for any one to hide.
But our search was in vain, though we penetrated right to the point on
the great gulf, and peered into the dark arch. As far as we could see
all was silent, solemn, and grand, and we had nothing to fear from
behind us while we worked.
"Well, it's been a deal of bother, Mas'r Harry; but it's better than
thinking every moment that there's some one going to jump out on you."
The mules were quiet as we passed them on our way back, and we then
inspected the valley from the spot we called our observatory, but all
was still; and hastily seizing a spade, I was once more digging away,
Tom casting aside the sand I threw out.
The edge of the spade touched something now every time I thrust it in.
I had but to stoop and force in my fingers to feel the buried object;
but moved by that spirit which induces people to examine so carefully
the outside of a strange letter, when the interior is at their disposal,
I feasted expectancy for a few minutes longer, telling myself that I
would carefully clear out all the sand before I tried to ascertain what
our treasure might be.
That was an exciting period, and I can picture it all even now: the
great cave, with its vast arch protruding right over the barrier, so
that we were toiling in the shadow of the huge vault, filled by day with
an ever-deepening golden mellow gloom--a gloom deepening into blackness
in the far depths; the trickling water, fresh from its mysterious source
in the great amphitheatre; our splashed and stained figures, toiling
together now in the pit we had dug; and the friendly scuffle which took
place when, the sand being well cleared out, Tom stooped, but only to be
arrested by my hand.
"No," I exclaimed, "let me, Tom!"
Then, with painfully throbbing heart I bent down, the blood seeming to
flush to my head so as to nearly blind me.
The next moment my fingers were groping about amongst the sand and
water.
"Be quick, Mas'r Harry, please, or I shall bust!" cried Tom, just as my
fingers encountered something hard.
With a cry of joy I rose up, to exhibit to the staring eyes of Tom Bulk
a glittering yellow stone.
"Gold, Tom--gold!" I exclaimed. "And here's more and more!"
I stooped down, to bring up two, three, four more lumps of the same
glittering yellow stone.
"No, 'tain't, Mas'r Harry," said Tom, gruffly, as he turned over one of
the fragments in his hand. "That ain't gold at all; that's what they
calls mica. I allers reclect the name, cause it's the same as one of
the prophets we used to read about at school. You might get plenty of
that in the rocks, without much trouble. It's just the same stuff as
some mates of mine once got out of a gravel pit at home, and they took
it to the watchmaker in the town, and they says to him, `What's that
gold worth?' they says. `Which gold?' he says. `Why, that,' they says.
`That's no more gold than you are,' he says; `that's mica.' And then
he told them that they might allers tell gold in a moment, by pulling
out a knife and trying to cut it, when if it was gold it would cut easy
like, just the same as a piece of lead. Try that, Mas'r Harry."
Snatching out my knife, I cut at one of the pieces of yellow stone, to
find it splinter under the keen edge of my blade.
"I'll swear, though, that the pynt of that rod hit something else
besides them bits of stone, Mas'r Harry. Try again; or, no--let me
try."
The disappointment was so keen, that for a few moments I was speechless,
and offered no opposition to Tom, who began to grope about with both
hands to bring up dozens more pieces of the micaceous rock, and then a
piece of flint that seemed to have been chipped into shape, and then a
long obsidian blade.
"We're a-coming to something after all, Mas'r Harry," said Tom. "Here's
a cur'osity, and here--here--here's--pah! I don't like handling them."
As he spoke, Tom held out to my view three or four blackened bones,
which he threw down again amongst the sand and water at the bottom.
"We shall come to the leaden coffin after all, Mas'r Harry," he said.
"This has been a berryin' place after a fight, p'r'aps; but is it worth
while to disturb it?"
I did not answer, for my attention had been taken up by a slight sound
towards the interior of the cave.
"Here, quick, Tom!" I exclaimed.
He leaped out in an instant, just as, with a fierce rush, the pent-up
water conquered our little dam, took to its old bed, and swept down sand
and soil, filling up our pit in a few minutes as it bore all before it,
and then subsided quietly into its former course, the sand sucking up
the moisture where it had levelled; and to a casual observer the cave
seemed as if it had been untouched for ages.
"Well that's pleasant, certainly," said Tom coolly; "but 'taint so bad
as it might have been. We haven't got wet. Never mind, Mas'r Harry,
we'll have it out again by-and-by. There's more in that hole yet than
we have seen. Them bits of yaller stuff weren't put in for nothing.
But let's go up again to the prog and have a good feed before we begin
again; and, suppose you bring your spade?"
I followed Tom mechanically, spade in hand, to where, behind a mass of
rock, we had made our storehouse, and seating ourselves in the gloomy
shade I was busily opening my wallet, when Tom, who was getting some
maize for the mules, suddenly pressed my shoulder and pointing in the
direction of the cave's mouth, I heard him whisper the one word:
"Look!"
I looked, with my eyes seeming to be glued to the spot, as slowly there
appeared above the rugged line formed by the top of the rocky barrier a
human head, another, and another, with intervals of a dozen yards
between each; and then they remained motionless, gazing straight forward
into the great cavern.