Before long we had broken into the hollow, but again only disappointment awaited us. It was merely one of those little long cupboards which are so often seen beside the fireplaces in old houses. Upon the shelf within was plenty of dust, but only one object, a well-preserved halfpenny bearing the effigy of King Charles II.
“That’s for luck!” Seal cried humorously. “Let’s try upstairs, lads.”
So up we went, all three of us, and attacked the hollow place in that outer wall. The task was not so easy as that we had just concluded, for it seemed that only a small portion of the wall had been filled with plaster, the rest being very hard concrete, which we had to chip out laboriously with hammer and chisel.
The skipper was, however, enthusiastic in his new sphere. From navigating the Thrush he had turned housebreaker, and the fact that the treasure might be there concealed added a keen zest to the work of investigation. He worked, puffing and blowing, until the perspiration rolled off his great furrowed face. The part he had attacked was a particularly hard piece of concrete, which he was painfully chipping out. The plaster we had already removed disclosed a sheet of rusty iron, probably placed over a door, and its discovery had excited the skipper greatly. He expressed himself confident that we were on the verge of a discovery. And so we were.
The dust we raised was suffocating, while the chips of concrete flying in all directions proved a source of considerable danger to one’s eyes. A piece went into Reilly’s left eye, but we quickly dislodged it, and we continued to work on, eager to ascertain what was concealed behind that iron-cased door.
The previous door we had opened had been a labour in vain, but the iron upon this one had raised our hopes, and we all worked with a will, cutting out of the wall a piece nearly four feet square.
Seal with our long crowbar attacked the iron itself. When he struck it the hollow sound was like an explosion.
“There’s a room in here, I’m sure!” cried the skipper.
Then, while we continued, he set to work with the measuring tape, taking the distance from the door of the room to the wall we were attacking, and afterwards measuring inside the room from the door to the end wall. He found a considerable difference in the measurements, by which his excitement was increased.
We worked on without breathing space, for the eager anticipation was contagious. Yet we were compelled to progress by slow degrees and to chip away bit by bit of that hard concrete which they knew how to make so well centuries ago. It was almost as durable as stone itself.