"Bah," said the German, "you will not find one copper thimble. But it is as Sir Arthur likes—once I have showed him the real method. If he likes to try others, he only loses the gold and the silver, that is all!"
The journey to the Priory was made in silence, each of the party having enough on his mind to employ his thoughts. Edie Ochiltree joined them at the ruins, and when the Antiquary pulled out of his pocket the ram's horn in which the coins had been found, Edie claimed it at once for a snuff-box of his which he had bartered with a miner at Mr. Dousterswivel's excavations in Glen Withershins.
"And that brings it very near a certain friend of ours," said the Antiquary to Sir Arthur. "I trust we shall be as successful to-day without having to pay for it."
It was decided to begin operations at the tomb with the carven figure on top—the same which Sir Arthur and Dousterswivel had disturbed on a former occasion, but which neither the Antiquary nor Edie ever remembered to have seen before. It appeared, however, that a large pile of rubbish, which had formerly filled up the corner of the ruins, must have been dispersed in order to bring it to light.
But the diggers reached the bottom of the grave, without finding either treasure or coffin.
"Some cleverer chield has been before us," said one of the men.
But Edie pushed them impatiently aside, and leaping into the grave, he cried, "Ye are good seekers, but bad finders!"
For the first stroke of his pike-staff into the bottom of the pit hit upon something hard and resisting.
All now crowded around. The labourers resumed their task with good-will, and soon a broad surface of wood was laid bare, and a heavy chest was raised to the surface, the lid of which, being forced with a pickaxe, displayed, beneath coarse canvas bags and under a quantity of oakum, a large number of ingots of solid silver.
The Antiquary inspected them one by one, always expecting that the lower layers would prove to be less valuable. But he was at last obliged to admit that the Baronet had really and truly possessed himself of treasure to the amount of about one thousand pounds.
