“Whoop!” roared Texas, “it’s good he’s got long arms! Hooray, we’ve got our treasure!”
“Yes, by Zeus!” cried the Parson, springing up and facing them. His next words almost took them off their feet, and no wonder. “Gentlemen,” he said, solemnly, “we have got a treasure! It’s got a handle!”
The five stared at each other in dumb amazement.
“A handle!” they echoed. “A handle!”
And then Mark flung himself to the ground, and reached in.
When he got up again it was with a look on his face that struck the others into a heap.
“Fellows,” he cried, “as I live, it has got a handle!”
The Parson of course was not in the least surprised; it was what he had been expecting all along. What surprised him was their surprise, and incredulity, and blank amazement. Each one of them must needs stoop and verify Mark’s extraordinary statement, learn that there was something down there with a handle for a fact. And then, as completely subdued and serious as ever were merry jokers they took the spade from the exhausted Stanard and set to work to dig with real earnestness, and in silence. No exclamation they could think of came anywhere near expressing their state of mind.
They widened the hole the Parson had made, and thus exposed one corner of the object, which proved to be a wooden chest, of what size they could not tell. And that discovery completed the indescribable consternation of the five. There never was a joke stopped much more abruptly than that one.
They continued digging; to make a long story short they dug for half an hour steadily, and by that time had succeeded in disclosing the box which was over two feet long and surrounded by hard clay. Having freed it, Mark sprang down and tried to life it; he failed, and they dug the hole yet wider still. Then, fairly burning up with excitement and curiosity and eagerness, the whole five got down into the ditch and lifted out the chest.