The long hollow in the field, with a small quantity of muddy water in the bottom, was by no means the kind of place where one would expect to find a treasure concealed. The fields around that neglected churchyard were uneven, where the foundations of the monastic buildings were now overgrown with rank grass and nettles, and in the centre was this hollow where undoubtedly the pond had once been.
Facing us there ran across the eastern boundary of the field a line of beeches, and then, beyond, the broad, bare, misty fenland, without a tree almost as far as the eye could reach, flat, inhospitable, and uninteresting. Like the Maremma, with which I was so familiar in Tuscany, there lay over everything a light mist—that miasma which in Italy is so deadly to the peasantry; and yet even more barren and more cheerless was it than the wide marshes on the road to Rome. The old windmill, with broken sails and roofless outbuildings, stood forth, the most prominent object in that flat, unbroken landscape, without hedgerow, a pitiful relic of the days when it paid to grind corn, before the advent of steam machinery; while clustered on the north side of the abbey were rows of old-fashioned cottages, mostly built of the stones of the monks’ houses thrown down by Cromwell. The quiet old village of Crowland is still far from the railway, and modern progress has therefore been slow in reaching it.
As I stood beside that weedy hollow with my companion, I was bound to admit that although old Godfrey Lovel might have inhabited the monastery for eighteen years or so, and his chronicle might be proved to be correct on comparison with contemporary history, yet his statement regarding the distance of the fish pond from the grand altar was incorrect.
Walter pointed out that we had measured from a spot where we merely surmised the altar to have been, and therefore we might have mistaken the distance. Nevertheless, we gazed about us in uncertainty. We alone knew the existence of treasure there, being in possession of a secret lost to the world ever since the year of grace 1538.
Was not that in itself sufficient incentive to cause us to make a search?
“This is evidently where Godfrey Lovel hid the Borgia jewels,” remarked Walter Wyman, referring to my transcript of the secret record which he held in his hand. “But he apparently dragged the casket out of the pond on the night before his departure for Scotland.”
“Leaving the abbey treasure still hidden,” I added.
“Certainly,” he said. Then rapidly referring to my transcript, he added: “As far as I can make out, the silver altar and the three chests full of treasure hidden from Cromwell’s men were not placed in the same lake as the Borgia jewels. Old Godfrey was clever enough not to suggest that, fearing that the casket he himself had secreted might be discovered by some prying person. You see he says that the abbey plate and jewels were buried ‘at the opposite end to where, through many years, my own treasure lay well concealed.’ Again he says: ‘Once I heard rumour that Southwell intended to pump out the lakes.’ He speaks in the plural, thus showing that there was more than one fish pond at this place. Of course, they’ve since been filled in, and this ground made comparatively level over the old foundations.”
I glanced at the passages he referred to, and saw that his surmise was correct. There was certainly more than one pond there in Godfrey’s day, and although the Borgia jewels were hidden in the water one hundred and thirty-one paces south-east of the grand altar, yet it did not actually allege that the abbey plate was submerged in the same lake, but at the opposite end. That would be south-west of the grand altar.
I pointed this out to my friend, and, both turning at the same moment, we saw the glint of sunshine upon water at the opposite corner of the rough and broken ground, level with the clock tower, and abutting upon the road which skirted the village itself.