The Spook fixed the 12th of September for the treasure-hunt. At 2 p.m. on that day, by the Spook’s orders, Mundey (who wanted to share in the joke) waited with me outside the woodshed by the Majors’ house. The Pimple came fussing up.
“Good morning, Mundey! Morning, Jones! You are ready?”
“Yes,” we answered.
“Let me see.” Moïse consulted his record of the séance. “The shavings for fire? The cord to bind your hands? The cloaks? The ink and saucer?” he ticked off each item as we produced them.
“What about your companion, Moïse?” Mundey asked. “The Spook said there must be two of you.”
“Soon the Cook will be here,” the Pimple said, “and like myself he is carrying hidden steel. Feel! A bayonet”—he thrust forward a stiff leg. Inside the trouser-leg, according to the Spook’s instructions, he was wearing a naked bayonet which reached well below the knee.
I was a little disappointed that the Commandant’s Cook should be the fourth, for I had hoped the Spook’s orders might bring out Kiazim Bey himself. But the Cook was no ordinary cook—he was the confidant as well as the orderly of our Commandant, was practically Second in Command of the camp, and was altogether as big a rascal as ever wore baggy trousers. The Pimple’s selection of this man to accompany us instead of one of the regular sentries was another proof that the Commandant was in the know.
“Do you think there will be danger?” Moïse asked.
Mundey, with a fine air of martyrdom, shrugged his shoulders. “One never knows in these things,” he said carelessly, “but if we follow instructions it should be all right.”
“Oh, I hope so,” said the Pimple. “Why do you think the Spook says, ‘the Treasure is by Arms Guarded’? Why does he insist that first we find the arms? Why not lead us straight to the treasure?”