'And a mere nothing we got for them,' replied the grumbler. 'Are you certain you remember where we buried the rest of the collection?'
'Under this stone here, by the big tree, and it has evidently never been moved since we left it. See, the cranberries are already beginning to grow round it.'
'Which shall we take this time? I wish we could get the stuff all sold and done with!'
'So do I! but we cannot take too much to one country. If we make a good haul in America, we will return, and try and see what we can do in England with the rest.'
'If we cannot dig now, what are we to do?' asked the tall man, disgustedly.
'We must go on to the Observatory, and pass the time there. There is nothing else to be done.'
When they had quite gone, Franz raised himself slowly. There was the great stone, just as the short man had said, and underneath it were evidently most of the treasures stolen from Baron Rosenthal. What was the best thing to do? If he dug the treasures up and hid them elsewhere, they would be safe, but then the thieves would probably escape. If he went straight back to Freistadt by train and warned the police, Herr Groos would think he was lost, and there would be such a hue and cry in the woods that the strangers would probably hear of it and have their suspicions aroused.
Then an inspiration came to him. He would telegraph to Hugo in cypher, and then, even if Baron Rosenthal himself were not there, Hugo would have the sense to arrange matters. It took him some time to concoct his telegram, and put it into cypher. It ran as follows:—
'A tall man in grey and a shorter man in brown, with butterfly nets and big specimen cases, will reach Freistadt station at ten-thirty. Have them arrested, as their cases contain some of your father's silver, and the rest is hidden in the woods.—Franz.'
Visitors were always allowed to use the telegraph at the Observatory on the top of the hill, and so he decided to go there at once and send off his message. Then a fresh danger occurred to him. The two strangers were going to the little inn by the Observatory. If they chanced to see his telegram, or even asked to look at it, he would arouse their suspicions if he declined to show it, and yet, if the short stranger were as clever as he professed to be, he would probably decipher it and learn everything. So he wrote a companion message, using some of the same words and figures as in the cypher one, but arranging them so that they could not possibly be translated to make sense.