with endless mysterious terrors, though it
possessed terrors enough, as we well knew, without the aid of
superstition. But all the same, there was the chance of others having
an object in watching us, so every spadeful was thrown out in silence,
every word spoken in a whisper. The night came on impenetrably black
and obscure, but we worked on, feeling our way lower and lower, taking
turn and turn, till once more we stood in the pit we had dug, and
commenced groping about with our hands, for the spades told us that we
had come to whatever was buried.

"More of these yaller stones," said Tom.

We threw out as quietly as we could a couple of hundred rough lumps
about the size of those fragments of granite used for macadamising a
modern road.

"Tom," I said, after trying about with my spade, "there's something more
here. I believe those pieces were put in to deceive whoever searched."

"Let me clear out a little more of the sand, Mas'r Harry."

He threw out a few more spadefuls, filling the spade each time with his
hands so as to throw out nothing more than sand; and then once more we
began to feel about.

"What's that, Tom?" I whispered hastily.

I knew by his exclamation that he had found something particular.

"Nothin' at all," said Tom sulkily.

"I insist upon knowing what it is," I cried angrily, as I caught him by
the arm.

For--it must have been the influence of the gold--I again felt
suspicious.

"There it is, then," said Tom gruffly, "ketch hold."

I eagerly took that which he had handed to me, and then with a shudder
of disgust hurled it away, as the gravedigger scene in "Hamlet" flashed
across my mind; and then we worked on in silence.

"Bones," said Tom, "flint-knife things, and, hallo! what's that you've
got, Mas'r Harry?" he exclaimed in a sharp whisper.

In my turn I had uttered an exclamation as my hands came in contact with
a flat heavy piece of metal, which, upon being balanced upon a finger
and tapped, gave forth a sonorous ring.

"I don't know, Tom," I whispered huskily, "but--but it feels like what
we are in search of."

"Do you think it is gold, Mas'r Harry?" he hissed in a voice that told
of his own excitement.

"Gold or silver, Tom," I said in a choking voice.

Then I felt faint. Suspicions of a horrible nature seemed to float
across my brain. "Suppose," I thought, "Tom should murder me now to
possess himself of the treasure, load the mules, and then bury me in the
grav