The area to be investigated was of the same shape as our African treasure-field, but smaller by half, for which mercy I was grateful to destiny; for even half the old area was quite sufficient for the digging of two men, unless they happened to desire to dig themselves into their own graves, which Jack and I certainly did not.
Needless to say, Jack now felt no compunction about taking his turn with the spade, for I might fairly consider myself the only competitor now left "in the running." Poor Clutterbuck murdered; young Strong eaten; James Strong in Siberia, or on the way there—there were none left to contest my claims.
So Jack dug with me, and very hard work he found it, and very stiff he felt at the end of the first profitless day; so that I was able to screw out of him a kind of apology for his want of sympathy with my stiffness at Ngami. We had half intended to set a decoy for wolves, of which there were said to be a few on the island; but we were both too tired for anything of the sort, and preferred to sleep, wrapped in our blankets, over a fire in the forest, as in the African days, only with dark pines waving over our heads, and a sharper air biting at the exposed parts of our persons, instead of strange palmy and ferny trees, and prickly-pears and kei apples, and a soft, hothouse kind of air around us.
On the second day we toiled from morn till dewy eve, but found nothing to repay us, and by that time the surface of our ground was upheaved from end to end to the depth of a spade-head. Then we determined to spend the third day in trying various experiments.
We were full of excellent ideas, but the same thoughts had unfortunately not occurred to old Clutterbuck while hiding his treasure.
First of all, we procured from the village a ball of string; they had plenty there, for the making and mending of nets.
Then we fastened an end to one of the posts and carried a line across diagonally to a second, and from a third across to the fourth, as from A to B and from C to D in the chart—
A C
E
D B
Where the strings crossed at E, we dug a deep hole and had great hopes for the result. But it seemed that this excellent plan had not occurred to Mr. Clutterbuck; he had not concealed his wealth in accordance with our ingenious geometrical device. Then we went and borrowed a horse and a plough from the fisherfolk, who had a field or two near the village for the growing of their rye and potatoes. And with that plough we turned up every scrap of our acre of land, and began to grow desperate because there was not a vestige of treasure or anything else but sandy soil and a few worms.
Then we sat down to reflect, and gnashed our teeth, and took in vain the name of old Clutterbuck who had beguiled us to this forsaken island to dig for treasure which he had never buried.