" But here he stopped, language was not equal
to the expression of his feelings.

Meanwhile Harold, with a heart full of anxiety, was turning the
lantern this way and that in the hope of discovering some traces of
Sir James's treasure, but naught could he see. There to the left the
masonry had fallen in. He went to it and pulled aside some of the
stones. There was a cavity behind, apparently a passage, leading no
doubt to the secret entrance to the vault, but he could see nothing in
it. Once more he searched. There was nothing. Unless the treasure was
buried somewhere, or hidden away in the passage, it was non-existent.

And yet what was the meaning of that jointed skeleton sitting in the
stone bath? It must have been put there for some purpose, probably to
frighten would-be plunderers away. Could he be sitting on the money?
He rushed to the chest and looked through the bony legs. No, his
pelvis rested on the stone bottom of the kist.

"Well, George, it seems we're done," said Harold, with a ghastly
attempt at a laugh. "There's no treasure here."

"Maybe it's underneath that there stone corn bin," suggested George,
whose teeth were still chattering. "It should be here or hereabouts,
surely."

This was an idea. Helping himself to the shoulder-blade of some
deceased hero, Harold, using it as a trowel, began to scoop away the
soft sand upon which the stone chest stood. He scooped and scooped
manfully, but he could not come to the bottom of the kist.

He stepped back and looked at it. It must be one of two things--either
the hollow at the top was but a shallow cutting in a great block of
stone, or the kist had a false bottom.

He sprang at it. Seizing the giant skeleton by the spine, he jerked it
out of the kist and dropped it on one side in a bristling bony heap.
Just as he did so there came so furious a gust of wind that, buried as
they were in the earth, they literally felt the mound rock beneath it.
Instantly it was followed by a frightful crash overhead.

George collapsed in terror, and for a moment Harold could not for the
life of him think what had happened. He ran to the hole and looked up.
Straight above him he could see the sky, in which the first cold
lights of dawn were quivering. Mrs. Massey's summer-house had been
blown bodily away, and the "ancient British Dwelling Place" was once
more open to the sky, as it had been for centuries.

"The summer-house has gone, George," he said. "Thank goodness that