“The treasure is here, I feel sure,” he exclaimed a dozen times, in his deep voice. “We’ll find it, as sure as my name’s Job Seal.”
The existence of those secret chambers had certainly raised our hopes, yet we only longed for sight of that cipher plan which the drunken Knutton had sold to our enemies. The only consolation we had was that the plan in question was just as useless to them as it was to us.
That night, after several tots of the spirit which the skipper had brought us, we retired to bed. The night was a perfect one, bright moonlight without a leaf stirring, one of those calm nights when it seems a pity to turn in.
I sleep heavily as a rule, and I must have been in bed three hours or so when a touch on the shoulder suddenly awakened me, and I saw in the moonlight the skipper, in his shirt and trousers, standing by me. A revolver shone in his right hand.
“Wake up, doctor,” he whispered. “There’s something going on in this house.”
He had already awakened Reilly, who was noiselessly slipping on his clothes.
I started up and stared at him, as yet only half awake.
“Don’t kick up a row,” Seal urged, in a deep whisper. “Listen, do you hear anything?”
A curious noise fell on my ear like slow sawing.
“It’s rats,” I declared. “This place is worse than the Thrush for them.”