we
were not in it, or we should have gone too."

"Oh, Lord, sir," groaned the unhappy George, "this is an awful
business. It's like a judgment."

"It might have been if we had been up above instead of safe down
here," he answered. "Come, bring that other lantern."

George roused himself, and together they bent over the now empty kist,
examining it closely.

The stone bottom was not of quite the same colour as the walls of the
chest, and there was a crack across it. Harold felt in his pocket and
drew out his knife, which had at the back of it one of those strong
iron hooks that are used to extract stones from the hoofs of horses.
This hook he worked into the crack and managed before it broke to pull
up a fragment of stone. Then, looking round, he found a long sharp
flint among the rubbish where the wall had fallen in. This he inserted
in the hole and they both levered away at it.

Half of the cracked stone came up a few inches, far enough to allow
them to get their fingers underneath it. So it /was/ a false bottom.

"Catch hold," gasped the Colonel, "and pull for your life."

George did as he was bid, and setting their knees against the hollowed
stone, they tugged till their muscles cracked.

"It's a-moving," said George. "Now thin, Colonel."

Next second they both found themselves on the flat of their backs. The
stone had given with a run.

Up sprang Harold like a kitten. The broken stone was standing edgeways
in the kist. There was something soft beneath it.

"The light, George," he said hoarsely.

Beneath the stone were some layers of rotten linen.

Was it a shroud, or what?

They pulled the linen out by handfuls. One! two! three!

/Oh, great heaven!/

There, under the linen, were row on row of shining gold coins set
edgeways.

For a moment everything swam before Harold's eyes, and his heart
stopped beating. As for George, he muttered something inaudible about
its being a "master one," and collapsed.

With trembling fingers Harold managed to pick out two pieces of gold
which had been disturbed by the upheaval of the stone, and held them
to the light. He was a skilled numismatist, and had no difficulty in
recognising them. One was a beautiful three-pound piece of Charles I.,
and the other a Spur Rial of James I.

That proved it. There was no doubt that this was the treasure hidden
by Sir James de la Molle. He it must have been also who had conceived
the idea of putting a false bottom to the kis