s, Tom," I said. And
he did as he was bid, handling the little ingots as if they were so much
lead. "And, Tom, I want your advice. I've come to the conclusion that
it is not prudent to take all this through the woods at night, with
Indians about."

"That's sense, that is," said Tom, interrupting.

"I think, Tom, we'll hide it--all but this, which we'll take back; and
then we can come well prepared some other time, to carry the rest away."

"Good, Mas'r Harry; but where'll we hide it?"

"That's what I'm thinking, Tom," I said. "Where do you think would be a
good place?"

"Well, Mas'r Harry, I shouldn't bury it, because that's the way it was
hidden afore; nor I wouldn't chuck it down the big gulf place, as you
call it; it would be safe enough, only we couldn't get it again."

"Don't fool, Tom," I said impatiently.

"Who's a fooling?" said Tom gruffly. "Tell you what, Mas'r Harry, I
don't think those Indian chaps would ever have the pluck to go right in
where we've been. What do you think of the way under the arch on the
raft?"

"The very idea that struck me, Tom," I said.

Then I told him my plans--the result being that, at the end of a couple
of hours, the little raft was prepared, launched, laden with our
packages, and once more, with candles stuck in their clay sticks, we
were poling ourselves along very slowly in the black tunnel.

The lights flashed on roof, and from off the water, which rippled over
the bamboos and soaked us through and through; but we pressed slowly and
steadily on till we must have been half-way to the vault of the troubled
waters, when I whispered to Tom to stop.

We were now in a part where the tunnel widened out to thirty or forty
feet, though the roof was not more than a foot above our heads, and
remarkable for the streaks of a creamy spar which banded it in every
direction.

"Tom," I said in a whisper, as I glanced round to see that we were
alone, "could we do better than this?"

As I spoke I was trying the depth with my bamboo pole, to find that,
wherever I reached, there was not more than five feet of water.

"But suppose it's that shivering sand, and it swallers it up, Mas'r
Harry?"

"But it's hard rock, Tom. Feel," I whispered.

There was no mistaking the firmness of the bottom; so, carefully marking
the spot by a cross which I scored on the roof with my knife, we softly
dropped in six golden packages over the side of our little raft, which
seemed ready to leap