first struck us as
suitable), when we sat down for another rest and time of refreshing, for
we had no peril to dread this time; and now, once more, I began to think
over with damped spirits the possibility of finding what might have been
here concealed. Treasures, the wealth of nations, might have lain
hidden for ages, with the guano continually accumulating to bury them
deeper and deeper; but were they buried there?

I would try and prove it, at all events; and rousing myself from my
musing fit I took a sharp-pointed rod with which I had come provided,
and began to probe the soil, Tom watching me earnestly the while.

But nothing rewarded my endeavours. I probed till I was tired, and then
Tom took up the task, but always for the rod to go down as far as we
liked in the soft, yielding earth.

At last I told him to give up, for the possibility of success seemed out
of the question. Fatigue had robbed me of my sanguine thoughts, and
wearily I led the way back to the mouth of the cave, and we again had a
rest, Tom lighting his pipe, and I gladly seeking the solace of a doze.

Rest and refreshment had their usual effect, and I was soon up again and
at work with the rod, thrusting it down into the sand all over the
place, till in one spot it struck upon something hard, and my heart
leaped; but a little tapping of the hard matter showed that it was
nothing but a mass of rock some four feet below the sand.

I sat down again, hot and ill-tempered; when Tom tapped the ashes out of
his pipe and stood before me.

"Now, what is it you're really after, Mas'r Harry?" he said. "Not gold,
is it? Why don't you be open with a fellow?"

"What makes you ask, Tom?" I said suspiciously.

"Because they do say, Mas'r Harry, that the folks that used to live here
got to bury their stuff, to keep it out of the Don's hands."

Always the same tradition! But I made no answer, for a fresh thought
had struck me--one of those bright ideas that in all ages have been the
making of men's fortunes; and, leaping up, I seized the rod and ran to
where the stream, inky no longer, but clear and bright, ran sparkling in
the subdued light over its sandy bed towards the open sunshine.

Wading in, I turned up my sleeves and began to thrust my iron probe down
here into the soft sand, for I had argued now like this: that after
carefully considering where would be the best place to hide their
treasure, the priests of old might have been cunning enough