oanings and moanings from eddies in
the bottom of the well, as if the spirits that kept watch over me jewel
were yammering together that one should be so near it; and clear above
them all I heard Grace's voice, sweet and grave, 'Have a care, have a
care how you touch the treasure; it was evilly come by, and will bring a
curse with it.'

But I had set foot on this way now, and must go through with it, so when
the bucket stopped some six feet lower down, I fell again to diligently
examining the walls. They were still built of the shallow bricks, and
scanning them course by course as before, I could at first see nothing,
but as I moved my eyes downward they were brought up by a mark scratched
on a brick, close to the hanging plummet-line.

Now, however lightly a man may glance through a book, yet if his own
name, or even only one nice it, should be printed on the page, his
eyes will instantly be stopped by it; so too, if his name be mentioned
by others in their speech, though it should be whispered never so low,
his ears will catch it. Thus it was with this mark, for though it was
very slight, so that I think not one in a thousand would ever have
noticed it at all, yet it stopped my eyes and brought up my thoughts
suddenly, because I knew by instinct that it had something to do with
me and what I sought.

The sides of this well are not moist, green, or clammy, like the sides of
some others where damp and noxious exhalations abound, but dry and clean;
for it is said that there are below hidden entrances and exits for the
water, which keep it always moving. So these bricks were also dry and
clean, and this mark as sharp as if made yesterday, though the issue
showed that 'twas put there a very long time ago. Now the mark was not
deeply or regularly graven, but roughly scratched, as I have known boys
score their names, or alphabet letters, or a date, on the alabaster
figures that lie in Moonfleet Church. And here, too, was scored a letter
of the alphabet, a plain 'Y', and would have passed for nothing more
perhaps to any not born in Moonfleet; but to me it was the _cross-pall,_
or black 'Y' of the Mohunes, under whose shadow we were all brought up.
So as soon as I saw that, I knew I was near what I sought, and that
Colonel John Mohune had put this sign there a century ago, either by his
own hands or by those of a servant; and then I thought of Mr. Glennie's
story, that the Colonel's conscience was always unquiet, because of