But nothing rewarded my endeavours. I probed till I was tired, and then Tom took up the task, but always for the rod to go down as far as we liked in the soft, yielding earth.
At last I told him to give up, for the possibility of success seemed out of the question. Fatigue had robbed me of my sanguine thoughts, and wearily I led the way back to the mouth of the cave, and we again had a rest, Tom lighting his pipe, and I gladly seeking the solace of a doze.
Rest and refreshment had their usual effect, and I was soon up again and at work with the rod, thrusting it down into the sand all over the place, till in one spot it struck upon something hard, and my heart leaped; but a little tapping of the hard matter showed that it was nothing but a mass of rock some four feet below the sand.
I sat down again, hot and ill-tempered; when Tom tapped the ashes out of his pipe and stood before me.
“Now, what is it you’re really after, Mas’r Harry?” he said. “Not gold, is it? Why don’t you be open with a fellow?”
“What makes you ask, Tom?” I said suspiciously.
“Because they do say, Mas’r Harry, that the folks that used to live here got to bury their stuff, to keep it out of the Don’s hands.”
Always the same tradition! But I made no answer, for a fresh thought had struck me—one of those bright ideas that in all ages have been the making of men’s fortunes; and, leaping up, I seized the rod and ran to where the stream, inky no longer, but clear and bright, ran sparkling in the subdued light over its sandy bed towards the open sunshine.
Wading in, I turned up my sleeves and began to thrust my iron probe down here into the soft sand, for I had argued now like this: that after carefully considering where would be the best place to hide their treasure, the priests of old might have been cunning enough to think that the simpler the concealment the less likely for it to be searched, and thus with the dim mysterious caverns beyond offering all kinds of profundities—spots that could certainly be suspected—they might have chosen the open mouth of the Cave, and buried that which they sought to save in the bed of the little stream.
The thought seemed to take away my breath for a few moments, it came so vividly; the next minute I was wading about, thrusting the rod down as far as I could in the wet sand; but always with the same result—the iron went down easily to my hand and was as easily withdrawn.