The bottom of the treasure-hole was filled with bundles of what had once been costly garments of silk, velvet, satin, cloth with gold braid, and wonderfully fine linen; but these were now useless, for time had quite spoiled them. Among these raiments of a bygone age were a number of copes, chasubles, stoles, and such-like ecclesiastic raiment; there was also a beautifully worked mitre, and as these were in good condition we kept them. Their preservation was evidently owing to their being contained in a bullock's hide, which was sewn together apparently by the sinews of the same animal.
Then we came upon a whole pile of sashes, and breeches, and boots, and goodness knows what in the way of wearing apparel, all in a state of dry rot; in fact, they made such a dust that we ascended to terra firma for a few minutes to get it out of our throats.
We now appeared to have cleared the place, but what of the "petite fées"? Had we seen them or what were they? To make sure we had secured everything, we cleared the hole completely out, and in doing so luckily saw the end of a box protruding from the side of the treasure chamber. A kind of cave or tunnel had been made for the reception of this chest, and it was a wonder we did not miss seeing it altogether.
No doubt it contained the "petite fées," whatever they were; but to our astonishment it was so heavy we could not move it. We therefore set to work, and cleared away the surrounding earth, and by dint of hard tugging in the confined space, we at length drew it from its hiding place into the centre of the pit. It was securely locked with two huge padlocks.
We concluded we would hoist it out of its bed and examine it at our leisure above ground. To compass this we had to erect a kind of tripod of three long pieces of deal, which had evidently at some time been top-sail yards of some vessel probably wrecked on rocky Jethou. From this we suspended a block and fall, and soon had our iron chest safely above ground.
About this time an unaccountable feeling seized us both; I know not what it was, but it appeared to us that we were doing something wrong, violating the grave of the dead man near us, or something of the kind.
We seemed to feel that the bones should again be buried as quickly as possible, for fear someone should see us at our task. Why this feeling came over us I know not, but it did, so we fastened the rope attached to the block round the waist of the grinning skeleton, and commenced to lower him into his last home again; but he saved us further trouble by breaking in two just above the hips and falling into the bottom of the well-like hole. We quickly covered him with old clothes and hid him from view.
It was a work of some difficulty to get the iron chest to the house, but this we accomplished at last with the donkey's help, and having brought in the other goods, we cleared up for the day, completely tired out.
At nine o'clock, an hour after supper, we retired to bed, each of us fancying we should have our rest stopped by hideous dreams; but we were mistaken, for we slept like the dead in the pit till six o'clock, when we arose much refreshed by our long night's rest.
It was raining fast, and as the drops pattered on the window pane, they seemed like tears for the poor fellow lying unburied in the hole yonder; but we let him lie unburied, as we knew he was past all harm from catarrh or rheumatism, and every other ailment of this world.