"Toto," answered the voice sullenly.
"Yes. That means Theodore, I suppose. Now make haste, for I am tired of waiting. What are you, and how did you get in?"
"I was the mason of the palace, until the devil flew away with the people who lived in it. I know all the secrets of the house. I can be very useful to you."
"That changes matters, my friend. I have no doubt you can be useful if you like, though we have managed to find one of the secrets without you. It happens to be the only one we wanted to know."
"No," answered Toto. "There are two others. You do not know how I got in, and you do not know how to manage the 'lost water.'"
"That is true," said Malipieri. "But if I let you out you may do me harm, by talking before it is time. The government is not to know of this discovery until I am ready."
"The government!" exclaimed Toto contemptuously, from his hiding-place.
"May an apoplexy seize it! Do you take me for a spy? I am a Christian."
"I begin to think he is, sir," put in Masin, knocking the ash from his pipe.
"I think so, too," said Malipieri. "Throw away that iron, Masin. He shall show himself, at all events, and if we like his face we can talk to him here."
Masin dropped the drill with a clang. Toto's hairy hand appeared, grasping the golden wrist of the statue, as he raised himself to approach the hole.