Moore, busy still with his gun, gave a corresponding chuckle, and remarked:
"Begorra, lad!... if we could get a few out one at a time on moonlight nights, and fill up the blooming holes again, we shouldn't want any blasted machinery for our gold mine, except a pickaxe and a shovel."
"We'd want a bit of pluck, though. The ghosts of the corpses might come dancing round to have their say in the matter."
"We'd chance the ghosties. Shure! if they've been hanging round for three or four thousand years, they'd maybe like a new sensation by this time."
Stanley put on "The Stars and Stripes," wound up the gramophone, and slid into his lounge chair again.
Moore glanced up as the music started.
"What!... that thing again!... I'm beginning to feel like those old ghosts about it. The same moth-eaten tune for three or four thousand years. I'd like a new sensation."
"It can't be much staler than cleaning that old gun."
"Shure, she's a daisy." The Irishman looked tenderly at his treasure. "An' she just loves me to be fondlin' her like."
"If it weren't for the Major I don't know what is to prevent us proving the old man's theory," said Stanley, evidently harping again on his corpses.