“I think not,” my friend responded. “Let them take the lot. We are playing for bigger stakes.”
“Quite right, Captain Wyman,” added the rector. “They must not discover us at this point.”
After a cursory glance at the big volumes, some of them fastened with heavy bronze clasps, like The Closed Book itself, they ascertained that there was nothing else in the chest, and then three of them returned to their work of excavation, while his lordship commenced to carry the books, in small piles, across the field to the high road where the horse was tied up.
I confess that I would have liked to jump up and secure one of those fine old tomes. I was only restrained by my friends, who were determined, as a matter of policy, to let him cart them away, Mr Mason declaring that in due course he should claim their return, as an outrageous theft had been committed.
Lord Glenelg had made several journeys, backwards and forwards across the fields, when, just as he returned, a stir among the treasure seekers showed us that they had made another discovery, which, a few minutes later, we saw was a fine image of the Virgin, about four feet in height, dark and covered with the clay in which it had been embedded.
As it lay there upon the grass they placed their lanterns beside it, and with their pocket-knives scraped away the clay until it shone bright beneath.
“There was a celebrated image of Our Lady, in silver, here,” remarked Selby, as he scraped diligently. “Perhaps this is it.”
A few seconds later the thick-set man who was assisting, and who was a stranger to me, cried:
“It certainly isn’t silver. Look! It’s only one of those gilded wood things.”
And again there arose a chorus of dissatisfaction and disappointment.