“It’s down there,” he said.
“What is?”
“The chest. Look over. Don’t you see it?”
“I kin see something,” answered Jack, “but it might be a lump o’ coal, or any old thing. What makes you think it’s th’ chest?”
“I know it is,” Jed asserted. “You wait here till I git th’ ropes,” and he hurried away toward the mouth of the tunnel.
Jack, holding the lantern at arm’s length and shading his eyes with his other hand, leaned over the pit and stared down long and earnestly. But strain his eyes as he might, he could discern no details of the oblong mass below. That it should be the chest seemed too great a miracle.
But Jed was back in a moment, a coil of rope in his hand.
“Now I’ll show you,” he said, and laying down the rope, took from his pocket another of the oil-saturated balls, lighted it and dropped it into the pit.
It struck the bottom and sputtered for a moment, then burned clear and bright.