"You won't be touched by me if you behave yourself, although you do deserve half-killing. But mind, if I catch you playing any more pranks, I shall just do as I said—strangle you. See those fingers? They're lengthy, and they're ve-ry strong. Sabe?"
Down he came, heralded by a brown tricklet of soil and a few stones. He knelt at the edge of the opening for a moment, and I saw his white face peering down with "funk" writ big all over it. But he soon mastered his scruples, and dropped through on to the flooring beside me, though a nervous upward lifting of one elbow showed that he wouldn't have been surprised at getting a blow. However, I didn't meddle with him, but only bade him curtly enough light that candle.
The sulphur match spluttered and stank, and I'm blessed if his fingers didn't tremble so much when it came to lighting the wick that he dropped the burning splinter altogether. I grabbed the things impatiently enough out of his hands, got a light, and led the way.
The walls beside us sloped in towards the top, where they were bridged by flat slabs some foot or eighteen inches above my head. The passage had been built before men knew of the arch. Under foot the ground was hard and dry, and as I should guess, we passed over some dozen yards of it before we came into the chamber. That was built in much the same way, with the courses overlapping, and the top crowned with a great flat flag instead of a keystone. But with the architecture of the Talayot we bothered our heads little then, and indeed our solitary candle showed it up but poorly. Right opposite the entrance a strip of the wall had been plastered, and at that the schoolmaster and I sprang with a simultaneous rush.
There was some writing on it!
Steadying the flame in the hollow of my hand, I held it near and withdrew the guard.
"Good God," shrieked Weems, "what's that!"
The one word I saw was—Hereingefallen, scrawled in white letters, and on the ground beneath was a piece of billiard chalk. There was nothing on the plastered surface beside, except the scratchings of a knife-blade. Some one had been there, read the Recipe, and then obliterated every letter.
In a flash these things occurred to me, and I turned to see my companion collapse on to the ground like an empty sack. It required an effort to avoid following his example. The shock was a cruel one.
The thing had been there. The old diary had lied in no single item. And here the treasure had been snatched away from us when it was almost within our grasp. And—then came the most strange conclusion of all—by some one who knew we were to follow.