eived much change in greasy bronze.
"_Dos reales_" was the price of that piece of lavish entertainment, the
old twopence-halfpenny still holding sway in out-districts against the
more modern decimal notation.

[2] A _peseta_ is worth rather less than a franc at the usual
rate of exchange.

And then a guide was wanted.

Every able-bodied man amongst the villagers offered his services for
nothing. His time and all that he possessed was entirely at the
disposition of the senores. The choice was embarrassing. But at last
one rope-sandalled hero was selected, and the trio set off into the
night between the great rubble walls. The most of their luggage had
been left to go to Mahon by mule pannier on the morrow. They only took
one small box with them, slung by a strap over Sadi's shoulders. But
the guide carried pick and shovel.

They struck the main road and held on along it till they reached the
cemetery, and there struck off through Alayor, and on down the narrow
lanes to Talaiti de Talt. Sadi and the Spaniard dug, and being used to
the exercise, and working in the cool of the night, deepened their pit
rapidly. Only the stars watched them at their labours. Pether was not
able to look on; he could only listen.

As day was beginning to gray the sky the entrance tunnel was unroofed,
and down the two foreigners dropped into it, Sadi leading. The man of
the soil feared ghosts and crouched at the lip of the hole. Also, being
ignorant of all other tongues save Minorquin, he understood no word of
what was being said beneath him.

But of a sudden a noiseless light of blinding whiteness flared out from
the inside of the Talayot; and after an interval of black-velvet gloom
it flashed out again. His fears still were strong, but curiosity
trampled them under foot, and the man in the rope sandals dropped
noiselessly on to the floor of the tunnel. Again the intense white
glare shone out, and the watcher saw words of writing on the farther
wall of the Talayot, and him of the spectacles holding his wooden box
so as to face them. Afterwards, by the light of a candle, he who had
made the flashes scraped this lettering from the plaster with his
knife, and his companion, laughing, scribbled something else on the
blank place. And then, as the cold earthy atmosphere was beginning to
make him sweat, the son of the soil climbed out again.

"Great Caesar!" exclaimed Haigh, when the narrative had reached this
point. "I'm beginnin