“Oh! Oh! Oh, fellows! Look a-here!” His voice shook. His eyes stared wide. They crept nearer and caught big breaths.
There in the old chest, carelessly thrown together, uncovered, unprotected, lay a glittering wealth of strange gold and silver treasures. Knobs, cups, odd pierced, shallow saucers, countless rings as big as small cookies, plain bars of metal, heavy rods.
The Head Captain’s eyes shone feverishly, he breathed quick.
“Here, here, here!” he whispered, and thrust his hands into the box. He ladled out a handful to the Vicar. For a moment she shrank away; and then, as a shallow, carved gold-colored thing touched her hand, her cheeks heated red, she seized it and hid it in her pocket.
“Gimme another,” she begged softly, “gimme that shiny, little cup!”
If there had been any doubt as to the heavenly reality of the thing, it was all over now. No more need the Head Captain’s swelling words fill out the bare gaps of the actual state of the case. Here were the things—this was no pretend-game. Here was danger, here was crime, here was glittering wealth all unguarded, and no one knew but them!
They gloated over the chest; their hot fingers handled eagerly every ring and big chain. Only the Lieutenant, sucking in his breath, excitedly broke the ecstatic silence.
The Head Captain first mastered himself.
“Hm, that’s enough—from here!” he commanded with dreadful implication. “Come on. They’ll kill us if they catch us! Soft, now. Don’t breathe so loud, Vicar!”
Off in a different direction he led them, having closed the box softly, and instead of making for the stairs, stopped before three square openings in the floor. He lay flat on his stomach and peered down one. It opened directly above the manger, and when he had cast down two armfuls of hay and measured the distance with his eye, they saw that he meant to drop through, and realized that his blood was up, and heaven knew where he would stop that day.