“A what job?” said Chris.
“Unked, my lad. That’s what a Somersetshire chap I once knew used to call anything dismal and melancholy. This is going to be an unked job this morning, I can tell you, for if it wasn’t for the feeling of curiosity to know all about these people I should be ready to pitch it over.”
“Well, do,” said Chris, “and leave it to Ned and me.”
“’Tisn’t a fit job for boys,” said Griggs.
“It isn’t a fit job for anybody,” said Ned, “but we’d do it because it’s learned and wonderful. Oh, I think it’s very fine.”
“P’r’aps it is,” said Griggs coolly, “but you’re not going to take the job out of my hands, and so I tell you. Just hark at him, Chris; he has got the idea in his head that he’s going to discover swords with golden sheaths, and belts thick with precious stones; helmets with plumes of feathers, and rich and costly armour.”
“Not such a noodle,” said Ned, whose cheeks had turned very red, for though not so extravagant as the American painted, he was fain to own to himself that he had some such ideas in connection with the dusky warriors who had stormed the place.
“I got thinking a deal of it though last night after I lay down,” said Griggs, who did not care to carry his taunts any further after seeing the colour of Ned’s face, “and I was precious glad that I didn’t go down with only a few matches for light. I got dreaming about it afterwards.”
“What, about the old fighting men? The dead?”
“No. About what might be there all alive.”