a long time?"

"Yes," I said despairingly, for I began to wonder whether we should be
found.

"I'd ha' came shovelling arter him 'fore now. I say, ain't you tired?"

"Tired!" I said. "No, I never thought of feeling tired shut up in this
horrible place. Let's try if we can't get out by the way the smoke
went."

"I've been trying," said Shock; "but it's too high up. You can't reach
it."

"Not if you stood on my shoulders?"

"No," he said. "I looked when you had hold of the candle, and if you
did try you'd only pull the sand down atop of your head."

I knew it, and heaved a deep sigh.

Then there was a long silence, and I was roused out of thoughts about
how we had enjoyed ourselves that morning, and how little we had
imagined that we should have such a termination to our holiday, by a
heavy breathing.

I listened, and there it was quite loud as if some animal were near.

"Do you hear that, Shock?" I whispered.

There was no answer.

"Shock!" I said, "do you hear that noise?"

No answer, and I understood now that in spite of our perilous position
he had fallen fast asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

FINDING A TREASURE.

"Can't be time to get up yet," I thought, and I turned over on my soft
bed. It was too dark, and I was dozing off again when a loud snorting
gasp made me start and throw off the clothes that lay so heavy on me.

Then I stopped short, trembling and puzzled. Where was I? It was very
dark. That was not clothes, but something that slipped and trickled
through my fingers as I grasped at it. My legs felt heavy and numbed,
and this darkness was so strange that I couldn't make it out.

Was I asleep still? I must have been to sleep--heavily asleep, but I
was awake now, and--what did it mean?

A curious feeling of horror was upon me, and I lay perfectly still. I
could not stir for some minutes, and then it all came like a flash, and
I knew that I must have lain listening for some time to Shock breathing
heavily, and then insensibly have fallen asleep, and for how long?

That I could not of course tell, but so long that the sand had gone on
trickling in till it had nearly covered me, as I lay nearest to the
opening. It had been right over my chest, and sloped up and away from,
me, so that my legs were deeply buried, and it required quite a struggle
to get them free, while to my horror as I dragged them out from beneath
the heavy weight more sand came down, and one hard lump ro