“Is it, now, sor? Sure and didn’t I help fit up the place for ye when ye first came, an’ by the captain’s orders? Sure and I know all about it. ‘Dinny, me boy,’ me mother used to say to me, ‘ye haven’t got a watch and ye’ve got no money, but ye may have both some day, so beware of thayves and robbers; and whiniver ye go to slape in a sthrange place, be sure ye look under the bed.’ An’ yer mother niver gave you that advice, sor?”
He walked to the couch and threw up the skins which covered it, revealing what seemed to be a low, square bench of stone, whose top was one enormous slab.
“Now, sor,” said Dinny, “would ye moind thrying to lift that?”
Humphrey stepped quickly to his side, bent down, seized the projecting slab, tried to raise it, and then straightened himself and shook his head.
“A dozen men could not raise it, Dinny,” he said.
“No, sor, but a Kelly can. Look here.”
He bent down, placed his shoulder to one corner, gave a thrust, and the whole top glided round as if on a pivot, and revealed an opening dimly lit apparently from below.
“There, sor,” he said, “I dishcovered that by accident when I was here alone wan day. I pushed a big stone against that corner and it gave way, and when I pushed the whole place opened, and down there’s as good a hiding-place as a man need have.”
“Dinny,” cried Humphrey, excitedly, “and doesn’t the captain know of this?”
“Sure and I think the last man who knew of it died before the flood, sor, and it hasn’t been opened since.”