The Boys of Grand Pré School / Illustrated

by James De Mille

“Wal,” said Captain Corbet, in a faint voice, “I hardly know; perhaps you’d better dig, an I’ll go over to the fence, and see that no one comes.”

“Go over to the fence!” cried Bart. “What! go out through that row of lights? and after our incantations? Why, Captain Corbet! Don’t you think of anything of the kind. We are seven. It’s a mystic number. You must stay with us.” Captain Corbet heaved a sigh.

“Wal,” said he, “I’ll take one of the spades.”

“I’ll take the pickaxe,” said Bruce. “Very well,” said Bart; “you begin. Stir up the earth, and we’ll all dig. But after the first stroke, remember—not one word!”

Bruce then seized the pickaxe with nervous energy, and raising it, he hurled it into the ground. As it struck, Solomon shuddered, and clasped his hands. Captain Corbet stepped back, and looked wildly around. Again and again Bruce wielded the pickaxe, dashing it into the earth with powerful blows, and then wrenching it so as to pry up the sods. The others looked on in silence. At length he had loosened the earth all about, and to a considerable depth. After this he stood back, and the other boys went to work with their spades. Bruce waited for a little time, and then, dropping the pickaxe, he seized a spade, and plunged it into the ground, and rapidly threw up the soil, doing as much work as any two of the others.

For some time they worked thus. The silence was profound, being only broken by the clash of the spades against the stones, and the hard breathing of the boys. At last they hod dug up all the earth that had been loosened by Bruce, and the hard soil began to present an insuperable barrier to the progress of the spades. Seeing this, Bruce seized the pickaxe once more, and again hurled it with vigorous blows into the ground, loosening the earth all around. At last, as he flung it down with all his force, it struck against something which gave so peculiar a sound that the boys all started, and caught one another’s arms, and looked at one another in the dim moonlight, each trying to see the face of the other. Bruce stopped for an instant, and then, swinging the pickaxe again over his head, he dashed it down with all his force. Again it struck that hard substance under ground, and again there was that peculiar sound. It was a sound that could not be mistaken. It was not such a sound as would be given by a stone, or by a stick of timber; it was something very different. It was hard, ringing,—metallic! And as that sound struck upon the ears of the “B. O. W. C.” there was but one thought, a thought which came simultaneously to the minds of all—the thought that Bruce’s pickaxe had reached the buried treasure. But the pot of gold now became to their imaginations an iron chest filled with coin, and it was against this iron chest that the pickaxe had struck, and it was this iron chest which had given forth the sound.

Yet so schooled were they, so determined upon success, that even the immensity of such a sensation could not make them forget their self-imposed silence. Not one word was spoken. They felt, they thought, but they did not speak.

Suddenly Bruce flung down the pickaxe, and seized his spade. At once all the others rushed forward to join in the task. Bruce was first; his spade was plunged deep into the loosened earth. Bight and left it was flung. The spades of the others were plunged in also. All of them were digging wildly and furiously, and panting heavily with their exertion and their excitement. Each one had felt his spade strike and grate against that hard metallic substance which the pickaxe had struck, and which they now fully believed to be the pot of gold. Each one was in the full swing of eager expectation, when suddenly there came an awful interruption.

They might have been digging five minutes, or an hour; they could never tell exactly. Afterwards, when they talked it over, and compared one another’s impressions, they could not come to any decision, for all idea of time had been lost. Engaged in their work, they took no note of minutes or hours. But while they were working Captain Corbet had stood aloof; he held a spade in his listless hands, but he did not use it. He was looking on nervously, and with a pale face, and his thoughts were such as cannot be described. Solomon also stood, with trembling frame and chattering teeth, a prey to superstitious terror. To Solomon had been committed the care of the lights; yet he did not dare to venture near them. For that matter, he did not dare even look at them. His gaze was fixed on the boys, while at times his eyes would roll fearfully over the dark outline of those dim and sombre woods whose shadows lowered gloomily before him.

Such, then, was the situation,—the boys busy and excited; Captain Corbet nervous, and idle, and fearful; Solomon trembling from head to foot, and overcome with a thousand wild and superstitious fancies,—when suddenly, close beside them, outside of the row of lights, just as their spades struck the metallic substance before mentioned,—suddenly, instantaneously, and without the slightest warning, there arose a sharp, a fearful, a terrible uproar; something midway between a shriek and a peal of thunder; a roar, in fact, so hideous, so wild, so unparalleled in its horrid accompaniments, that it shook the boldest heart in that small but bold company. It rose on high; it seemed to fill all the air; and its awful echoes prolonged themselves afar through the darkness of the midnight scene.