“A little more and it won’t matter which way up we plant Coccinea,” he remarked.
“That is the depth we are aiming for,” replied Carrados.
Elsie and her husband exchanged glances. Then Bellmark drove his spade through another layer of earth.
“Three feet,” he announced, when he had cleared it.
Carrados advanced to the very edge of the opening.
“I think that if you would loosen another six inches with the fork we might consider the ground prepared,” he decided.
Bellmark changed his tools and began to break up the soil. Presently the steel prongs grated on some obstruction.
“Gently,” directed the blind watcher. “I think you will find a half-pound cocoa tin at the end of your fork.”
“Well, how on earth you spotted that——!” was wrung from Bellmark admiringly, as he cleared away the encrusting earth. “But I believe you are about right.” He threw up the object to his wife, who was risking a catastrophe in her eagerness to miss no detail. “Anything in it besides soil, Elsie?”
“She cannot open it yet,” remarked Carrados. “It is soldered down.”