"Professor! Jack! Come here!"
"Oh, Dad," called Betty, "here's a funny inscription on the wall."
We dropped into the water, and waded inland for some twenty-odd paces to where they were standing, with their torches bearing on a patch of marble let into the rough face of the right-hand wall. Hugh was working with his knife-point, scraping away the moss and fungi that partially obscured the letters.
"I saw it by accident," bubbled Betty. "We went up a long way to where the roof gets much lower, and we heard water rushing ahead of us, so Hugh said we ought to turn back. My light just happened to catch on this piece of stone here as we passed it. There was one row of letters quite clear, but the others were all overgrown with this slimy stuff. What does it say, Dad?"
"It's Greek right enough," added Hugh, still scraping industriously. "I can make out a word here and there, but it doesn't seem to be the same language I boned at school. Just a moment, sir, and I'll have the whole inscription cleared."
I peered over their shoulders at the deeply-carven lines of angular characters.
The stone was about three or four feet square, and below it was another similar one. Above the lettering was an elaborately scrolled cross. From it my eyes sought my uncle's face, and were held at once by the astonishment I saw mirrored there.
"Most amazing!" he muttered to himself.