| PAGE | |
| “Landed with Both Knees upon the Middleof our Jailer’s Back” | [ Frontispiece] |
| “I Waved the Light to and fro in Frontof me” | [ 70] |
| “He Looked down upon the Two UnsuspectingCampers” | [ 107] |
| “Drop that!” | [ 164] |
| “Out Came a Little Patch of Yellow Gold.” | [ 247] |
| “It was with a Feeling of Awe that weGathered around the Dead Man” | [ 312] |
THE TREASURE
OF MUSHROOM ROCK
CHAPTER I
MOSELEY’S
ONE windy night in April, some five-and-twenty years ago, the young moon, peeping now and then between the scudding wisps of cloud, seemed to be maintaining a careful watch upon a little incident which was taking place outside the windows of Moseley’s school—a large brick building standing in a walled enclosure.
Save for the roaring of the wind in the elm-trees, no sound was to be heard until, presently, the clock in the old church-tower struck eleven. As if the striking of the hour had been a signal, a boy suddenly appeared, stepping softly from the shadow of the enclosure wall. Picking up a small pebble, he cast it up at one of the windows. The window opened immediately and a second boy appeared. The one below gave two clicks with his tongue; whereupon the boy above let fall from the window a white bundle, which, instead of dropping upon the ground, unfolded itself and hung suspended. In the half-darkness the object looked very like two sheets knotted together to form a rope. That it was indeed intended to serve as a rope became at once evident, for the second boy, getting astride of the window-ledge, seized the sheet with one hand, and letting go his hold of the ledge came squirming and twisting down to the ground.
Having paused for an instant to listen, the two boys tiptoed away and were presently lost in the shadow. A moment later they reappeared on the top of the wall, dropped upon the outer side, stood still again for an instant to listen and peer about, and then, seemingly satisfied that there was nobody moving, they turned their faces southward and went running, pit-pat, down the white chalk road until they vanished among the trees at the bottom of the hill.
How it came about that Percy Goodall, an American boy, and I, Tom Swayne, an English boy, were running away together that windy night in April from Moseley’s school in the south of England, what led to our flight, and what came of it, form the subjects of the tale I have set out to chronicle; having been urged to undertake the task by Percy’s father and mine, and by our kind old friend, Sir Anthony Ringwood.