Chapter Twenty Eight.A Discussion.“A mussy me, Mr Mark, sir, as my old mother used to say. Ah, and she would say it again, poor old soul, if she were alive—bless her—and could see her pretty little curly-headed darling out here in savage Africa. Nice little curly-headed darling, arn’t I, Mr Mark, sir? ‘My beauty,’ she used to call me, when she had made me cry by jigging the comb through my hair, as would always tie itself up into knots like a nigger’s.”“Why, it isn’t curly now, Buck.”“Not a bit, sir; been cut too many times to keep it short, and all the curl got cut off, ha, ha, ha!” And the big, burly fellow burst into a boisterous laugh. “Bless her old heart! She never could have thought that I should grow into a six-footer weighing seventeen stun. Little woman she was—a pretty little woman too,” said Buck proudly. “Fancy her seeing me seventeen stun, and not a bit of fat about me! Ah, it’s ram, sir—rum. Rum as the name of our old village where we used to live down in Essex. Chignal Smealey. Well, sir,” continued the big driver, wiping his beaded forehead, “we have had a pretty good time of it, haven’t we? And I mean to say that we are regular ship-shape. What do you think of it, sir?”“Oh, never mind what I think, Buck. I’ll tell you what father said to the doctor.”“Ah, do, sir.”“He said all you men had worked splendidly.”“Oh, come, that’s nice, sir,” said Buck, beaming.“And that he felt ashamed of having been so idle, doing nothing but look on.”“Idle be sat upon, sir!” cried the bluff fellow. “Why, he’s the boss. What’s a boss got to do but give his orders? Oh, he hasn’t been idle, and as for the doctor, why, he’s never at rest. Look here, Mr Mark, sir; I have journeyed about the world a good deal, same as Dan Mann has. You know I was a sailor and made several voyages before I settled down at Natal and took to driving a twenty-four-in-hand. But in all my wanderings about I never did run up against such a one as the doctor. He seems to know everything. Why, he’s the best shot I ever see. Peter Dance and Bob Bacon are pretty tidy with their guns. I have matched myself agin them more than once when I have been out with them to get something for the pot, and I used to think I could shoot, but they beat me. But that doctor, sir, could if he liked do more with his left hand than I could with my right. You said he used to teach you young gents at home?”“Yes, Buck; anything and everything.”“I suppose so, sir. Greek and Latin and mathics, and all that sort of stuff.”“Yes, Buck,” said Mark, laughing. “All that sort of stuff.”“Ah, he would, sir. He’s a splendid chap at lingo. I know a bit about that. I can get on fine with black Mak when I am in the humour, but that arn’t always, for sometimes my head’s as thick as it’s long.”“Oh, we all feel like that sometimes, Buck,” said Mark. “I know I do. There were some days over my books that I could learn as easily as can be, and sometimes the doctor would say I was quite dense.”“Dense, sir? What’s that?”“Thick-headed.”“Not you, sir,” said Buck, laughing. “But as I was saying, I can get on a bit with black Mak, and I am beginning to pick up a bit better with the little Pig, as you young gents call him; and then there’s old Hot-o’-my-Tot and t’other black. Yes, there’s something alike, as you may say, about the way these black chaps speak; Mak and Pig, for instance. They know each of ’em what t’other says, more than a little. But the doctor, he’s got so much book laming in him; he beats me with them. But I am real glad, sir, that the boss is satisfied, and I should like to tell the other chaps, if I may. I won’t, sir, if you say I oughtn’t to, for I don’t want you to think because you young gentlemen treat me friendly like that I am all chatter and brag.”“Tell them, by all means. Chatter and brag! What nonsense! Why, the doctor says you are a man that anybody could trust.”“Said that, did he, sir?” cried the big fellow, with his eyes twinkling with satisfaction. “Why, that’s as good as what the boss said. Well, I’m not going to tell any of the other fellows that. They would laugh at me, and sarve me right. But we have worked, sir, all of us, to get the place square, and when we have made a regular clearing of all this rag and tangle of rocks and trees—”“Which we never shall, Buck,” cried Mark.“You’re right, sir; never! For I never saw such a place. You can go miles anyway to the nor’ard and find more and more built up stones and walls and what not. Why, once upon a time there must have been hundreds of thousands of people living here, and now—where are they all? All we have seen was that old nigger, as Dan sticks out and argues, when we are having a pipe together of a night, was the last man that was left; and then he always finishes off by shaking his head when I say I wonder how he got away.”“Ah, it was curious,” said Mark.“Not it, sir. He crept away as soon as he thought it was safe. Got into some hole or another. There must be hundreds of places where he could tuck hisself, and we shall dig him out one day, as sure as sure; and that’ll be when we least expect it. But talk about a kraal, sir, for my bullocks! They are as safe as safe, and you have got a regular stable for your ponies, quarters for us as Dan calls a snug forecastle and Peter says is a bothy, and as for yours, you gen’lemen’s being up against that wall, why, it’s splendid, only as I was telling the doctor, sir, I shan’t feel quite happy till we’ve got an extra thatch on. You know, it can rain out here in Africa, sir, and when it does it goes it.”“Well, I daresay we shall get that done, Buck, when we have got time.”“Yes, sir, when we have got time; but that won’t be just yet, and I suppose I shan’t be here to help.”“You not here to help! What do you mean?”“Well, sir, I suppose I wasn’t to chatter about it, but I may tell you; the doctor got talking to me only yesterday about what he calls the supplies, by which he meant wittles for the guns and extra for ourselves.”“Ah,” said Mark.“He said that of course meat was plentiful enough, and there were lots of fish in the river, but we ought to be prepared if we stayed here long to get a fresh lot of flour and mealies, tea, and coffee, and sugar, so as to have enough when the stores begins to run out.”“Yes; I never thought of that,” said Mark.“Ah, but the doctor did, sir. He thinks of everything. Well, sir, he put it to me whether I could pick out a mate and be ready any time to take the waggons and go back to Illakaree.”“There,” cried Mark, “what did I say?”“I d’know, sir. Lots of things.”“I meant about the doctor trusting you. Did you say you’d go.”“Course I did, sir. I don’t want to go, for I’m just right here. This is the sort of thing I like. I am enjying myself here just as much as you young gents. It fits me right down to the ground, and if I do go I shan’t be happy till I get back.”“Ah,” said Mark thoughtfully. “But you said about picking out a mate. Whom should you choose?”“Well, if you come to regular choosing, sir,” said Buck, “I should like to have you—not for a mate, sir, but to be my young boss. I know though that couldn’t be, and I wouldn’t want it, ’cause I know how I should be cutting you off from all the sarching as the doctor wants done. Why, you wouldn’t be here when you hunt out the place where all the gold is buried.”“N–no.”“And the working tools and the pots and pans as the doctor expects to find.”“N–no,” said Mark thoughtfully. “But I say, Buck, do you think there is plenty of gold here somewhere?”“Pretty sure of it, sir. Why, where did that little kiddy of a black get his ornaments from?”“To be sure,” said Mark, still speaking very seriously. “But why is it, then, that he will not say anything about it? He only shakes his head and goes away when one tries to get him to show where he got his bangles from.”“Well, I don’t quite know, sir. There’s a something behind it all. They’re sort of jealous like about having the old things meddled with, I think. Mak showed us the way here, but I never see him begin to sarch like to find anything the old people left, and if you remember he tried all he could to keep us from meddling and looking for the place where we found that old man.”“Oh, the doctor said that was superstition,” said Mark.“Then that’s what it was, sir, if the doctor said so, for he’d know, of course.”“Yes,” said Mark. “I should like to go with you, Buck, but I couldn’t. Whom should you choose?”“Well, sir, I should like to have little Dan.”“Yes, he’d be a capital companion; but—but—but—”“Yes, sir; that’s it. Them buts are a t’r’ble bother sometimes. I know he couldn’t be spared, so I made up my mind for Bob Bacon. He’s a very good sort of chap, and one you can trust. I’d go to sleep if it was him,” and the man looked very fixedly at Mark and meaningly closed one eye. “He wouldn’t go to sleep and let the fire out, sir.”Mark said nothing, but he returned Buck’s fixed look and did not close one eye.“I say, Buck,” he said, “it will be a case of spade and shovel and billhook to-morrow.”“Eh? Will it, sir?”“Yes; the doctor says he won’t keep you men clearing up any more for the present, for he wants to begin digging in one of the likely places he had marked down, to see what we can find.”“That’s right, sir. I am ready, and I know the others are, for we all talk about it a good deal, and as Dan says, seeing what thousands of people must have lived here they couldn’t help leaving something behind.”
“A mussy me, Mr Mark, sir, as my old mother used to say. Ah, and she would say it again, poor old soul, if she were alive—bless her—and could see her pretty little curly-headed darling out here in savage Africa. Nice little curly-headed darling, arn’t I, Mr Mark, sir? ‘My beauty,’ she used to call me, when she had made me cry by jigging the comb through my hair, as would always tie itself up into knots like a nigger’s.”
“Why, it isn’t curly now, Buck.”
“Not a bit, sir; been cut too many times to keep it short, and all the curl got cut off, ha, ha, ha!” And the big, burly fellow burst into a boisterous laugh. “Bless her old heart! She never could have thought that I should grow into a six-footer weighing seventeen stun. Little woman she was—a pretty little woman too,” said Buck proudly. “Fancy her seeing me seventeen stun, and not a bit of fat about me! Ah, it’s ram, sir—rum. Rum as the name of our old village where we used to live down in Essex. Chignal Smealey. Well, sir,” continued the big driver, wiping his beaded forehead, “we have had a pretty good time of it, haven’t we? And I mean to say that we are regular ship-shape. What do you think of it, sir?”
“Oh, never mind what I think, Buck. I’ll tell you what father said to the doctor.”
“Ah, do, sir.”
“He said all you men had worked splendidly.”
“Oh, come, that’s nice, sir,” said Buck, beaming.
“And that he felt ashamed of having been so idle, doing nothing but look on.”
“Idle be sat upon, sir!” cried the bluff fellow. “Why, he’s the boss. What’s a boss got to do but give his orders? Oh, he hasn’t been idle, and as for the doctor, why, he’s never at rest. Look here, Mr Mark, sir; I have journeyed about the world a good deal, same as Dan Mann has. You know I was a sailor and made several voyages before I settled down at Natal and took to driving a twenty-four-in-hand. But in all my wanderings about I never did run up against such a one as the doctor. He seems to know everything. Why, he’s the best shot I ever see. Peter Dance and Bob Bacon are pretty tidy with their guns. I have matched myself agin them more than once when I have been out with them to get something for the pot, and I used to think I could shoot, but they beat me. But that doctor, sir, could if he liked do more with his left hand than I could with my right. You said he used to teach you young gents at home?”
“Yes, Buck; anything and everything.”
“I suppose so, sir. Greek and Latin and mathics, and all that sort of stuff.”
“Yes, Buck,” said Mark, laughing. “All that sort of stuff.”
“Ah, he would, sir. He’s a splendid chap at lingo. I know a bit about that. I can get on fine with black Mak when I am in the humour, but that arn’t always, for sometimes my head’s as thick as it’s long.”
“Oh, we all feel like that sometimes, Buck,” said Mark. “I know I do. There were some days over my books that I could learn as easily as can be, and sometimes the doctor would say I was quite dense.”
“Dense, sir? What’s that?”
“Thick-headed.”
“Not you, sir,” said Buck, laughing. “But as I was saying, I can get on a bit with black Mak, and I am beginning to pick up a bit better with the little Pig, as you young gents call him; and then there’s old Hot-o’-my-Tot and t’other black. Yes, there’s something alike, as you may say, about the way these black chaps speak; Mak and Pig, for instance. They know each of ’em what t’other says, more than a little. But the doctor, he’s got so much book laming in him; he beats me with them. But I am real glad, sir, that the boss is satisfied, and I should like to tell the other chaps, if I may. I won’t, sir, if you say I oughtn’t to, for I don’t want you to think because you young gentlemen treat me friendly like that I am all chatter and brag.”
“Tell them, by all means. Chatter and brag! What nonsense! Why, the doctor says you are a man that anybody could trust.”
“Said that, did he, sir?” cried the big fellow, with his eyes twinkling with satisfaction. “Why, that’s as good as what the boss said. Well, I’m not going to tell any of the other fellows that. They would laugh at me, and sarve me right. But we have worked, sir, all of us, to get the place square, and when we have made a regular clearing of all this rag and tangle of rocks and trees—”
“Which we never shall, Buck,” cried Mark.
“You’re right, sir; never! For I never saw such a place. You can go miles anyway to the nor’ard and find more and more built up stones and walls and what not. Why, once upon a time there must have been hundreds of thousands of people living here, and now—where are they all? All we have seen was that old nigger, as Dan sticks out and argues, when we are having a pipe together of a night, was the last man that was left; and then he always finishes off by shaking his head when I say I wonder how he got away.”
“Ah, it was curious,” said Mark.
“Not it, sir. He crept away as soon as he thought it was safe. Got into some hole or another. There must be hundreds of places where he could tuck hisself, and we shall dig him out one day, as sure as sure; and that’ll be when we least expect it. But talk about a kraal, sir, for my bullocks! They are as safe as safe, and you have got a regular stable for your ponies, quarters for us as Dan calls a snug forecastle and Peter says is a bothy, and as for yours, you gen’lemen’s being up against that wall, why, it’s splendid, only as I was telling the doctor, sir, I shan’t feel quite happy till we’ve got an extra thatch on. You know, it can rain out here in Africa, sir, and when it does it goes it.”
“Well, I daresay we shall get that done, Buck, when we have got time.”
“Yes, sir, when we have got time; but that won’t be just yet, and I suppose I shan’t be here to help.”
“You not here to help! What do you mean?”
“Well, sir, I suppose I wasn’t to chatter about it, but I may tell you; the doctor got talking to me only yesterday about what he calls the supplies, by which he meant wittles for the guns and extra for ourselves.”
“Ah,” said Mark.
“He said that of course meat was plentiful enough, and there were lots of fish in the river, but we ought to be prepared if we stayed here long to get a fresh lot of flour and mealies, tea, and coffee, and sugar, so as to have enough when the stores begins to run out.”
“Yes; I never thought of that,” said Mark.
“Ah, but the doctor did, sir. He thinks of everything. Well, sir, he put it to me whether I could pick out a mate and be ready any time to take the waggons and go back to Illakaree.”
“There,” cried Mark, “what did I say?”
“I d’know, sir. Lots of things.”
“I meant about the doctor trusting you. Did you say you’d go.”
“Course I did, sir. I don’t want to go, for I’m just right here. This is the sort of thing I like. I am enjying myself here just as much as you young gents. It fits me right down to the ground, and if I do go I shan’t be happy till I get back.”
“Ah,” said Mark thoughtfully. “But you said about picking out a mate. Whom should you choose?”
“Well, if you come to regular choosing, sir,” said Buck, “I should like to have you—not for a mate, sir, but to be my young boss. I know though that couldn’t be, and I wouldn’t want it, ’cause I know how I should be cutting you off from all the sarching as the doctor wants done. Why, you wouldn’t be here when you hunt out the place where all the gold is buried.”
“N–no.”
“And the working tools and the pots and pans as the doctor expects to find.”
“N–no,” said Mark thoughtfully. “But I say, Buck, do you think there is plenty of gold here somewhere?”
“Pretty sure of it, sir. Why, where did that little kiddy of a black get his ornaments from?”
“To be sure,” said Mark, still speaking very seriously. “But why is it, then, that he will not say anything about it? He only shakes his head and goes away when one tries to get him to show where he got his bangles from.”
“Well, I don’t quite know, sir. There’s a something behind it all. They’re sort of jealous like about having the old things meddled with, I think. Mak showed us the way here, but I never see him begin to sarch like to find anything the old people left, and if you remember he tried all he could to keep us from meddling and looking for the place where we found that old man.”
“Oh, the doctor said that was superstition,” said Mark.
“Then that’s what it was, sir, if the doctor said so, for he’d know, of course.”
“Yes,” said Mark. “I should like to go with you, Buck, but I couldn’t. Whom should you choose?”
“Well, sir, I should like to have little Dan.”
“Yes, he’d be a capital companion; but—but—but—”
“Yes, sir; that’s it. Them buts are a t’r’ble bother sometimes. I know he couldn’t be spared, so I made up my mind for Bob Bacon. He’s a very good sort of chap, and one you can trust. I’d go to sleep if it was him,” and the man looked very fixedly at Mark and meaningly closed one eye. “He wouldn’t go to sleep and let the fire out, sir.”
Mark said nothing, but he returned Buck’s fixed look and did not close one eye.
“I say, Buck,” he said, “it will be a case of spade and shovel and billhook to-morrow.”
“Eh? Will it, sir?”
“Yes; the doctor says he won’t keep you men clearing up any more for the present, for he wants to begin digging in one of the likely places he had marked down, to see what we can find.”
“That’s right, sir. I am ready, and I know the others are, for we all talk about it a good deal, and as Dan says, seeing what thousands of people must have lived here they couldn’t help leaving something behind.”
Chapter Twenty Nine.Among the Old Stones.In the clearing away of the abundant growth and selecting a position for their camp, a great stretch of wall was laid bare, one portion of which displayed the chequered pattern and another the herring-bone ornamentation adopted by the ancient people in building up what seemed to be the remains of a great structure which might have been temple, fort, or store.“It is impossible to say what it was until we have cleared away all this crumbled down stone and rubbish that has fallen from the top,” said the doctor. “You see, this is one side of the building; there’s the end; and those two mounds will, I think, prove to be the missing side and end.”And it was here by the chequered wall that the next morning, directly after a very early meal, the first researches were made. The bullocks and ponies had been taken down to the river to drink and driven back into the ruins where they could be under the eye of Dunn Brown and the blacks, and so not likely to stray.Sir James had charge of the rifles, which the boys helped him to carry up to a convenient spot at the top of the enormously wide wall, where he could perform the duty of sentry, his position commanding a wide view of the country round, where he could note the approach of any of the wandering herds and seize an opportunity for adding to the supply of provisions, while at the same time keeping an eye upon the Hottentot and the foreloper and seeing that they did not neglect their task, while, best of all, as he said to the boys, “I can see what you find, and,” he added laughingly, “put all the gold you discover in one of my pockets.”The doctor, full of eagerness, set out what was to be done, appointing each man his duty, digging, cutting away undergrowth, and basketing off the loose, stony rubbish that was turned over, a couple of stout, strong creels having been made by the two keepers. And very soon, and long before the sun was peering down over the wall, to fully light up the great interior where excavating had commenced, the two boys were busy under the doctor’s instructions turning over and examining the rubbish that was carried away to form the commencement of a convenient heap.As this was begun Mak, who had stopped back for a little while to make another addition to his breakfast, came up with the pigmy, when they both selected the spot where they could squat upon the big wall and look down, very serious of aspect, at what was being done.“We ought to make some discoveries here,” said the doctor, rubbing his hands. “This wall is very, very old.”“Think so?” said Sir James.“I am sure so, sir. You see, no cement has been used.”“So I see,” said Sir James, “but I shouldn’t attach anything to that. Why, we have plenty of walls built up of loose stones at home. Don’t you remember those in Wales, boys?”“Yes, uncle, and in Cornwall too,” said Dean.“Not such a wall as this,” said the doctor, with a satisfied smile. “I feel perfectly sure that this goes back to a very early period of civilisation. Now, my lads, we are pretty clear so far as the trees and bushes go. Keep your shovels at work.”“Ay, ay, sir,” cried Dan. “Here, I’ll have first go, messmate. I’ll fill the basket, you’ll carry out.” Buck nodded, and directly after the two men were hard at work, while whenever the sailor’s spade, which he dubbed shovel, came in contact with a big loose stone, one or other of the keepers pounced upon it and bore it to the heap of earth and rubbish that began to grow where Buck emptied his basket.“Farther away; farther away,” said the doctor. “What for, sir?” asked Dean.“Go on, Dean,” cried Mark. “Can’t you see that if they make a big heap close to, it may come crumbling down again and Dan will get covered in?”The sailor chuckled, and threw a shovelful of rubbish, purposely missing the basket and depositing the well aimed beginnings of the hole he was digging upon Dean’s feet.“Oh, I beg your pardon, sir!” he cried apologetically. “Here, you, Buck Denham, what made you put the basket there? You ought to have known it was out of reach. More this way, messmate.”“All right,” said Dean. “I shan’t forget this, Master Dan.—Bother!” And he stepped on one side, seated himself at the foot of the wall, and occupied himself with untying the laces of one shoe and taking out the little bits of grit which refused to be kicked off.“Now, no larking,” said the doctor sharply. “Wait till we have done work.”“Ay, ay, sir!” cried Dan; and digging away with all his might, he very soon after shouted, “Full up, messmate!” Then Buck stooped down, lifted the heavy basket, and bore it away, leaving the empty one in its place.“Stones, lads!” cried the sailor, raising first one and then another with his spade ready for the keepers; and the work went on, with the doctor stepping down into the hole that was soon formed to examine some of the loose earth and rubbish that the sailor dug out ready for the baskets which were kept going to and fro.“We don’t seem to find much, sir,” said Mark, after a time.“No, my lad,” replied the doctor. “All rubbish so far; and most of these pieces of stone have no doubt crumbled down from the wall.”“Eh? Think so, sir?” cried Dan, looking up sharply from where he was now standing nearly up to his middle in the hole.“Oh, yes, there’s no doubt about that,” cried the doctor.“Beg pardon, sir,” said the digger to Dean, “but you might keep a heye on the wall and call out ‘below!’ if you see any more crumbs a-coming, just to give a fellow time to hop out, because, you know Mr Mark says I might be buried, shovel and all.”“Oh, I will keep a sharp look out,” said Dean.“Full up again, mate,” cried Dan; “and look here, Buck; when I get down a bit deeper you had better come and take my place; you’re ’bout twice as long as I am. Stones again, lads!” And he handed up first one and then another on the flat of his spade.“Both square ones, Dean,” cried Mark. “Think they have been chiselled into shape, doctor?”“No, no; selected,” said the doctor, as he carefully examined the block which the boy held. “You see, that’s the under part where it lay in the wall, not weathered a bit. The other side has crumbled away, while the under part is comparatively fresh, and would show chisel marks if it had been chipped.”The work went on for nearly an hour, the sailor having dug away in the most vigorous manner and cleared out a fairly wide, squarish hole, three of whose sides were cut down through earth, the fourth, near the foot of the wall, being bedded together loose stones and rubbish and pretty well open.Almost every spadeful had been carefully examined for traces of the olden occupation, the doctor during the first portion of the time having been constantly stepping down into the hole and out again to examine some suggestive looking piece of rubbish, until Mark’s attention was drawn to Dan, who kept on trying to catch his eye and giving him nods and winks and jerks of the elbow, pointing too again and again at the doctor’s back, but all in vain.“What does he mean by all that?” thought the boy. “Oh, bother your dumb motions! Why don’t you speak?”“Pst!” whispered Dan. “Can’t you see? You tell him. He keeps on a-hindering me, hopping up and down like a cat on hot bricks. You tell him to stop up there and turn over every basketful as they chucks upon the heap.”A delicate hint was given to the doctor, and from that time forward he left the little digger room to work.All at once, just as Buck was depositing his empty basket within Dan’s reach, and the boys were standing at the edge looking on at where the sailor had begun to scrape away some of the loose crumbs, as he called them, from the side of the bottom of the hole, there was a faint rustling sound and the man dropped his spade, stepped back and bounded out of the excavation as actively as a cat.“What’s the matter, mate?” cried Buck, “a arn’t given you a nip?”“Wall’s not crumbling, is it?” cried Mark excitedly.“No, sir. Did you see it?”“See it? See what?”“Dunno, sir. Thought perhaps you gents up there might have ketched sight of it. Summat alive.”“Eh? What’s that?” cried the doctor sharply, from where he was poring over the rubbish which the keepers had last deposited on the heap; and he hurried to the edge of the hole. “What have you found?”“Nowt, sir,” replied the little sailor. “I was just scraping up the crumbs where there’s all the rough stones yonder as I have been leaving so as not to loosen the foundations, when something scuttled along there. Gi’ me quite a turn;” and as he spoke there was a sharpclick, click, from where Sir James sat sentry on the top of the wall.“Humph!” said the doctor. “Mouse or rat.”“Mouse or rat, sir?” said Dan sharply. “What, are there them sort of jockeys here?”“Yes, and all the world round, my lad.”“Fancy that!” cried the sailor, jumping down into the hole again. “Scar’d me like a great gal, Mr Mark, sir;” and evidently ashamed of having been startled, he bent down to pick up the fallen tool, dislodging as he did so some of the loose rubbish, and bounding backwards to raise the spade and hold it ready to strike as with an axe; for just at the foot of the ancient wall the rustling sound began again, and stopped, leaving Dan in the attitude of striking and the rest of the party leaning over with searching eyes in full expectation of seeing some little animal spring out.“What do you make of that, sir?” said the sailor.“Humph! Don’t know. Stand back, all of you,” cried Sir James, as he rose erect from his seat on the top of the wall. “You stop, Dan; the rest leave me a clear course for firing.”“Wait a minute, father,” cried Mark excitedly. “Let me get my piece and change the cartridges.”“No, no,” said Sir James; “one’s enough, and I’ve got a barrel loaded with small shot. I suppose you would like to see what the specimen is, doctor.”“Certainly,” was the reply. “I can make a shrewd guess, though.”“So can I, sir,” said the sailor; “and I can’t abide them things.”“Now then,” said Sir James, as he stood ready. “I won’t hit you, Dan. Reach out with your spade, stir up those loose stones again, and spring back quickly.”“I just will, sir!” said the man to himself, and leaning forward he thrust the spade amongst the loose rubbish; and hopped back with wonderful agility.It was a most effectual thrust, and beyond the noise made by the steel blade of the tool and the rattle of the stones there was a sharp rustling of something disturbed in its lair, and a loud vindictive hiss.“Oh, scissors!” ejaculated the sailor, and swinging up the spade again he held it ready to give a chop; but it was not delivered, for Sir James shouted to him to step out of the hole, lowered himself down from the wall, and joined the others on the edge.“A snake, and a pretty big one too, I expect,” said the doctor. “Python, most likely.”“Pison?” said Dan.“Python, my lad, not pison,” said the doctor. “That class of serpent is harmless. Don’t miss it, Sir James, and don’t shatter its head if you can help it.”“If I shoot it,” said Sir James, “I will not answer for where I shall hit. If you want it as a specimen, take the gun.”“Do you mean it, Sir James?”“Certainly. Catch hold.”“Oh, I say, doctor, let me shoot!” cried Mark excitedly.“No, no, my boy; don’t interfere,” said his father. “No, doctor, don’t give up to him,” for the latter was drawing back. “Now, all of you,” cried Sir James, setting the example, “pick up a stone each, and we will throw till we drive the reptile out.”His orders were obeyed, and for the next five minutes as the doctor stood ready to fire, stone after stone, big and little, were hurled at the foot of the wall, but with no further effect than producing a slight rustling sound, as if the creature had plenty of room in the hollow which formed its lair.“I think I can do it, Sir James,” said Buck.“How, my lad?”“I will get up on the wall, sir, and drop one of them big stones right down over him.”“Good! Do.”“Wish I had thought of that,” said Dean. “I should just like that job.”“Never mind; let Buck try. Send down a big one!” cried Mark.“I just will, sir,” said the man, and climbing quickly up to the top of the wall he edged his way along the stones till he found what he considered a suitable block, loosened it, but not without considerable effort, for it was hard to move, and then turned it over and over till he forced it to the edge of the crumbling wall.“That about right, sir?” he cried.“No; two feet farther along. That’s right! Now then, all ready?”“Yes, sir.”“Give it a gentle push then, when you get the word from me. I want it to fall close in there.”“Right, sir.”There was a moment’s silence in the midst of an excitement which was great for so trifling an incident, and then Sir James said sharply, “Heave!”Down came the stone, and it seemed to the boys as if it occupied seconds of time to pass through the air, and crash down upon the loose rubbish below. A little dust arose, but not sufficient to hide the occupant of the ruined foundations. Then silence again, and the two boys uttered a jeering laugh.“Out crept a mouse,” said the doctor good-humouredly; “but where is it?”“He’s in there, sir,” said Dan, “for I just ketched sight of him. But I’m sure he warn’t a mouse.”“Shall I throw down another stone, sir?” cried Buck, from the top of the wall.“’Tain’t no good, mate,” shouted Dan. “Let me go and stir him out, sir, with the shovel. He’s down some hole, with his tail hanging out. Mebbe I can give him a chop and make him wriggle out back’ards so as to give you plenty of time to shoot.”“Would you mind doing it, my lad?” said the doctor.“Not me, sir, now I knows what it is. You meant it warn’t a stinger, sir, didn’t you?”“It’s only guess work, my lad, but it’s evidently a large serpent, and those with poisonous fangs are mostly small.”“Take care, Dan,” cried Mark, as the sailor prepared to jump down again into the hole.“I just will, sir!”“Yes, but mind this,” said the doctor. “Stir up the stones, and if you see it, give it just a touch or two with the edge of the spade. I don’t want it injured.”“All right, sir,” said the man; and spade in hand he approached the foot of the wall, cautiously holding the tool at arm’s length, all looking on eagerly, while the doctor, armed as he was with the double gun, shared the position with the sailor of the most important figures there.“Ready, sir?” whispered Dan, as he reached forward.“Yes, quite,” replied the doctor.“They are small shot, arn’t they, sir?” said Dan.“Small shot don’t hurt much, do they, Bob?” cried Mark, laughing.“No, sir. I have got one left in my neck now.”“Don’t you be afraid of my shot,” replied the doctor. “I shall not hit you. But take care of yourself if you start the serpent.”“Right, sir. Here goes!” cried the sailor; and giving the spade a powerful thrust in amongst the stones, he twisted it about, and then started back, for a large scaly head darted out in his direction.
In the clearing away of the abundant growth and selecting a position for their camp, a great stretch of wall was laid bare, one portion of which displayed the chequered pattern and another the herring-bone ornamentation adopted by the ancient people in building up what seemed to be the remains of a great structure which might have been temple, fort, or store.
“It is impossible to say what it was until we have cleared away all this crumbled down stone and rubbish that has fallen from the top,” said the doctor. “You see, this is one side of the building; there’s the end; and those two mounds will, I think, prove to be the missing side and end.”
And it was here by the chequered wall that the next morning, directly after a very early meal, the first researches were made. The bullocks and ponies had been taken down to the river to drink and driven back into the ruins where they could be under the eye of Dunn Brown and the blacks, and so not likely to stray.
Sir James had charge of the rifles, which the boys helped him to carry up to a convenient spot at the top of the enormously wide wall, where he could perform the duty of sentry, his position commanding a wide view of the country round, where he could note the approach of any of the wandering herds and seize an opportunity for adding to the supply of provisions, while at the same time keeping an eye upon the Hottentot and the foreloper and seeing that they did not neglect their task, while, best of all, as he said to the boys, “I can see what you find, and,” he added laughingly, “put all the gold you discover in one of my pockets.”
The doctor, full of eagerness, set out what was to be done, appointing each man his duty, digging, cutting away undergrowth, and basketing off the loose, stony rubbish that was turned over, a couple of stout, strong creels having been made by the two keepers. And very soon, and long before the sun was peering down over the wall, to fully light up the great interior where excavating had commenced, the two boys were busy under the doctor’s instructions turning over and examining the rubbish that was carried away to form the commencement of a convenient heap.
As this was begun Mak, who had stopped back for a little while to make another addition to his breakfast, came up with the pigmy, when they both selected the spot where they could squat upon the big wall and look down, very serious of aspect, at what was being done.
“We ought to make some discoveries here,” said the doctor, rubbing his hands. “This wall is very, very old.”
“Think so?” said Sir James.
“I am sure so, sir. You see, no cement has been used.”
“So I see,” said Sir James, “but I shouldn’t attach anything to that. Why, we have plenty of walls built up of loose stones at home. Don’t you remember those in Wales, boys?”
“Yes, uncle, and in Cornwall too,” said Dean.
“Not such a wall as this,” said the doctor, with a satisfied smile. “I feel perfectly sure that this goes back to a very early period of civilisation. Now, my lads, we are pretty clear so far as the trees and bushes go. Keep your shovels at work.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” cried Dan. “Here, I’ll have first go, messmate. I’ll fill the basket, you’ll carry out.” Buck nodded, and directly after the two men were hard at work, while whenever the sailor’s spade, which he dubbed shovel, came in contact with a big loose stone, one or other of the keepers pounced upon it and bore it to the heap of earth and rubbish that began to grow where Buck emptied his basket.
“Farther away; farther away,” said the doctor. “What for, sir?” asked Dean.
“Go on, Dean,” cried Mark. “Can’t you see that if they make a big heap close to, it may come crumbling down again and Dan will get covered in?”
The sailor chuckled, and threw a shovelful of rubbish, purposely missing the basket and depositing the well aimed beginnings of the hole he was digging upon Dean’s feet.
“Oh, I beg your pardon, sir!” he cried apologetically. “Here, you, Buck Denham, what made you put the basket there? You ought to have known it was out of reach. More this way, messmate.”
“All right,” said Dean. “I shan’t forget this, Master Dan.—Bother!” And he stepped on one side, seated himself at the foot of the wall, and occupied himself with untying the laces of one shoe and taking out the little bits of grit which refused to be kicked off.
“Now, no larking,” said the doctor sharply. “Wait till we have done work.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” cried Dan; and digging away with all his might, he very soon after shouted, “Full up, messmate!” Then Buck stooped down, lifted the heavy basket, and bore it away, leaving the empty one in its place.
“Stones, lads!” cried the sailor, raising first one and then another with his spade ready for the keepers; and the work went on, with the doctor stepping down into the hole that was soon formed to examine some of the loose earth and rubbish that the sailor dug out ready for the baskets which were kept going to and fro.
“We don’t seem to find much, sir,” said Mark, after a time.
“No, my lad,” replied the doctor. “All rubbish so far; and most of these pieces of stone have no doubt crumbled down from the wall.”
“Eh? Think so, sir?” cried Dan, looking up sharply from where he was now standing nearly up to his middle in the hole.
“Oh, yes, there’s no doubt about that,” cried the doctor.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the digger to Dean, “but you might keep a heye on the wall and call out ‘below!’ if you see any more crumbs a-coming, just to give a fellow time to hop out, because, you know Mr Mark says I might be buried, shovel and all.”
“Oh, I will keep a sharp look out,” said Dean.
“Full up again, mate,” cried Dan; “and look here, Buck; when I get down a bit deeper you had better come and take my place; you’re ’bout twice as long as I am. Stones again, lads!” And he handed up first one and then another on the flat of his spade.
“Both square ones, Dean,” cried Mark. “Think they have been chiselled into shape, doctor?”
“No, no; selected,” said the doctor, as he carefully examined the block which the boy held. “You see, that’s the under part where it lay in the wall, not weathered a bit. The other side has crumbled away, while the under part is comparatively fresh, and would show chisel marks if it had been chipped.”
The work went on for nearly an hour, the sailor having dug away in the most vigorous manner and cleared out a fairly wide, squarish hole, three of whose sides were cut down through earth, the fourth, near the foot of the wall, being bedded together loose stones and rubbish and pretty well open.
Almost every spadeful had been carefully examined for traces of the olden occupation, the doctor during the first portion of the time having been constantly stepping down into the hole and out again to examine some suggestive looking piece of rubbish, until Mark’s attention was drawn to Dan, who kept on trying to catch his eye and giving him nods and winks and jerks of the elbow, pointing too again and again at the doctor’s back, but all in vain.
“What does he mean by all that?” thought the boy. “Oh, bother your dumb motions! Why don’t you speak?”
“Pst!” whispered Dan. “Can’t you see? You tell him. He keeps on a-hindering me, hopping up and down like a cat on hot bricks. You tell him to stop up there and turn over every basketful as they chucks upon the heap.”
A delicate hint was given to the doctor, and from that time forward he left the little digger room to work.
All at once, just as Buck was depositing his empty basket within Dan’s reach, and the boys were standing at the edge looking on at where the sailor had begun to scrape away some of the loose crumbs, as he called them, from the side of the bottom of the hole, there was a faint rustling sound and the man dropped his spade, stepped back and bounded out of the excavation as actively as a cat.
“What’s the matter, mate?” cried Buck, “a arn’t given you a nip?”
“Wall’s not crumbling, is it?” cried Mark excitedly.
“No, sir. Did you see it?”
“See it? See what?”
“Dunno, sir. Thought perhaps you gents up there might have ketched sight of it. Summat alive.”
“Eh? What’s that?” cried the doctor sharply, from where he was poring over the rubbish which the keepers had last deposited on the heap; and he hurried to the edge of the hole. “What have you found?”
“Nowt, sir,” replied the little sailor. “I was just scraping up the crumbs where there’s all the rough stones yonder as I have been leaving so as not to loosen the foundations, when something scuttled along there. Gi’ me quite a turn;” and as he spoke there was a sharpclick, click, from where Sir James sat sentry on the top of the wall.
“Humph!” said the doctor. “Mouse or rat.”
“Mouse or rat, sir?” said Dan sharply. “What, are there them sort of jockeys here?”
“Yes, and all the world round, my lad.”
“Fancy that!” cried the sailor, jumping down into the hole again. “Scar’d me like a great gal, Mr Mark, sir;” and evidently ashamed of having been startled, he bent down to pick up the fallen tool, dislodging as he did so some of the loose rubbish, and bounding backwards to raise the spade and hold it ready to strike as with an axe; for just at the foot of the ancient wall the rustling sound began again, and stopped, leaving Dan in the attitude of striking and the rest of the party leaning over with searching eyes in full expectation of seeing some little animal spring out.
“What do you make of that, sir?” said the sailor.
“Humph! Don’t know. Stand back, all of you,” cried Sir James, as he rose erect from his seat on the top of the wall. “You stop, Dan; the rest leave me a clear course for firing.”
“Wait a minute, father,” cried Mark excitedly. “Let me get my piece and change the cartridges.”
“No, no,” said Sir James; “one’s enough, and I’ve got a barrel loaded with small shot. I suppose you would like to see what the specimen is, doctor.”
“Certainly,” was the reply. “I can make a shrewd guess, though.”
“So can I, sir,” said the sailor; “and I can’t abide them things.”
“Now then,” said Sir James, as he stood ready. “I won’t hit you, Dan. Reach out with your spade, stir up those loose stones again, and spring back quickly.”
“I just will, sir!” said the man to himself, and leaning forward he thrust the spade amongst the loose rubbish; and hopped back with wonderful agility.
It was a most effectual thrust, and beyond the noise made by the steel blade of the tool and the rattle of the stones there was a sharp rustling of something disturbed in its lair, and a loud vindictive hiss.
“Oh, scissors!” ejaculated the sailor, and swinging up the spade again he held it ready to give a chop; but it was not delivered, for Sir James shouted to him to step out of the hole, lowered himself down from the wall, and joined the others on the edge.
“A snake, and a pretty big one too, I expect,” said the doctor. “Python, most likely.”
“Pison?” said Dan.
“Python, my lad, not pison,” said the doctor. “That class of serpent is harmless. Don’t miss it, Sir James, and don’t shatter its head if you can help it.”
“If I shoot it,” said Sir James, “I will not answer for where I shall hit. If you want it as a specimen, take the gun.”
“Do you mean it, Sir James?”
“Certainly. Catch hold.”
“Oh, I say, doctor, let me shoot!” cried Mark excitedly.
“No, no, my boy; don’t interfere,” said his father. “No, doctor, don’t give up to him,” for the latter was drawing back. “Now, all of you,” cried Sir James, setting the example, “pick up a stone each, and we will throw till we drive the reptile out.”
His orders were obeyed, and for the next five minutes as the doctor stood ready to fire, stone after stone, big and little, were hurled at the foot of the wall, but with no further effect than producing a slight rustling sound, as if the creature had plenty of room in the hollow which formed its lair.
“I think I can do it, Sir James,” said Buck.
“How, my lad?”
“I will get up on the wall, sir, and drop one of them big stones right down over him.”
“Good! Do.”
“Wish I had thought of that,” said Dean. “I should just like that job.”
“Never mind; let Buck try. Send down a big one!” cried Mark.
“I just will, sir,” said the man, and climbing quickly up to the top of the wall he edged his way along the stones till he found what he considered a suitable block, loosened it, but not without considerable effort, for it was hard to move, and then turned it over and over till he forced it to the edge of the crumbling wall.
“That about right, sir?” he cried.
“No; two feet farther along. That’s right! Now then, all ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give it a gentle push then, when you get the word from me. I want it to fall close in there.”
“Right, sir.”
There was a moment’s silence in the midst of an excitement which was great for so trifling an incident, and then Sir James said sharply, “Heave!”
Down came the stone, and it seemed to the boys as if it occupied seconds of time to pass through the air, and crash down upon the loose rubbish below. A little dust arose, but not sufficient to hide the occupant of the ruined foundations. Then silence again, and the two boys uttered a jeering laugh.
“Out crept a mouse,” said the doctor good-humouredly; “but where is it?”
“He’s in there, sir,” said Dan, “for I just ketched sight of him. But I’m sure he warn’t a mouse.”
“Shall I throw down another stone, sir?” cried Buck, from the top of the wall.
“’Tain’t no good, mate,” shouted Dan. “Let me go and stir him out, sir, with the shovel. He’s down some hole, with his tail hanging out. Mebbe I can give him a chop and make him wriggle out back’ards so as to give you plenty of time to shoot.”
“Would you mind doing it, my lad?” said the doctor.
“Not me, sir, now I knows what it is. You meant it warn’t a stinger, sir, didn’t you?”
“It’s only guess work, my lad, but it’s evidently a large serpent, and those with poisonous fangs are mostly small.”
“Take care, Dan,” cried Mark, as the sailor prepared to jump down again into the hole.
“I just will, sir!”
“Yes, but mind this,” said the doctor. “Stir up the stones, and if you see it, give it just a touch or two with the edge of the spade. I don’t want it injured.”
“All right, sir,” said the man; and spade in hand he approached the foot of the wall, cautiously holding the tool at arm’s length, all looking on eagerly, while the doctor, armed as he was with the double gun, shared the position with the sailor of the most important figures there.
“Ready, sir?” whispered Dan, as he reached forward.
“Yes, quite,” replied the doctor.
“They are small shot, arn’t they, sir?” said Dan.
“Small shot don’t hurt much, do they, Bob?” cried Mark, laughing.
“No, sir. I have got one left in my neck now.”
“Don’t you be afraid of my shot,” replied the doctor. “I shall not hit you. But take care of yourself if you start the serpent.”
“Right, sir. Here goes!” cried the sailor; and giving the spade a powerful thrust in amongst the stones, he twisted it about, and then started back, for a large scaly head darted out in his direction.
Chapter Thirty.A Reptilean Fight.There was the loud report of the rifle, and then all that was visible was the slowly rising smoke.“Missed him, sir?” cried Mark excitedly.“Seems like it, my lad,” was the reply, and the doctor opened the breech of the piece to slip in a fresh cartridge. “But I only had a glance, and—”“Oh, murder!” cried Dan. “Here, let me get out of it,” and he scrambled from the hole, for the doctor’s words were silenced by a rushing sound, and through the fainter growing smoke were visible the writhings of a great serpent whose head seemed to have turned its tail into a huge whip with which the reptile had begun to thrash about in all directions, leaving no doubt about the doctor’s shot having had effect.“Shouldn’t like to be licked with such a flogger as that. My eye, Buck, messmate, fancy what it would be if he had nine tails! But look out, everyone; let’s get to the top of the wall before he comes out among us.”Bang!For just when the heavy blows delivered around the sides of the hole were at their height the doctor fired again, his shot being followed by a rush on the part of the serpent, which flung itself out of the excavation, scattering its enemies in different directions as they made for shelter from the startling assault.“Fire again, doctor! Fire again!” cried Mark, from half way up the wall.“I want a chance first,” was the reply, from the top of the heap that the men had formed. “He’s making for the other side of the enclosure. Well, I suppose I must follow him up.”“Take care,” said Sir James, who as it happened had made for where a couple of rifles were leaning against the wall. “Let me come with you.”“And me,” cried Dean, who possessed himself of the other piece.“Yes, but where do I come in?” said Mark. “Here, Buck, run to camp and get another rifle.”“No, no,” said Sir James. “Three of us are too many. Here, what does the dwarf mean?” For the little fellow, who was making his way along the crumbling top of the wall, suddenly stopped short and mutely answered Sir James’s question by pointing with his spear to where the bushes were thickest. “We shan’t be able to see it there,” continued Sir James.As if the pigmy understood his words, he dropped down quickly, joined the doctor, gave him an intelligent glance with his piercing dark eyes, and then, spear in hand, made his way through the bushes to the other side of the clump in which, the wounded serpent had sought for shelter.“You had better leave it to me to finish the work,” said the doctor, following the little black.“Yes,” said Mark. “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”“Snake soup,” said Dean, laughing; “and I don’t know that I want to go.”“I do,” cried Mark. “Here, hand over that rifle.”“Shan’t. I want to defend myself. Get behind me, if you are afraid.”“You wait,” cried Mark sharply.“Quiet, there!” cried Sir James. “No one but the doctor is to fire. I don’t want the beater to be injured amongst those thick bushes.”There was a few moments’ silence, for the faint rustling that had been made by the reptile in its retreat through the thick growth had now entirely ceased.“It’s all over,” cried Buck.“Not it, messmate,” said Dan. “Them things arn’t got nine tails, but they’ve got nine lives. Even if you cut ’em up you have to kill each piece, and then it won’t die till after the sun goes down.”“Lu-lu-lu-lu-lu!” cried the pigmy, from where he was hidden on the other side of the clump.It was evidently intended to mean, “Look out, doctor,” for the boys caught sight for a moment of his raised spear, which disappeared directly, and it was patent to all that it was being plunged again and again in among the tangled growth.The next moment the blows were resumed, as the serpent began to flog the bushes. There was another report from the doctor’s piece; the bushes all about were in motion for a minute or two, and then the noise of the reptile’s writhing ceased.“Killed him, doctor?” cried Mark.“Can’t say, my boy,” was the reply, “but I am afraid I have completely spoiled my specimen.”“Never mind, sir,” said Dean; “it will be all right for the soup. But do you think it’s safe to go near? I want to see what the monster’s like.”“So do I,” cried Mark; “but we will soon have him out. Here, Buck, step in, lay hold and haul him out into the open.”“Where’s that, Mark?” said his father, smiling.“Well, where it’s most open, dad. Now then, you Buck, look alive!”“No, thank you, sir,” said the man, grinning. “I don’t want to see him.”“Bah!” cried Mark. “You are afraid.”“That’s right, sir; I am—’orrid. You tell Dan, sir. He’ll go in with his sharp spade and cut him up in chunks and shovel them out a bit at a time. Snakes is nasty things to touch. Here, go on, messmate. Don’t you hear as the young gents wants to see it?”“You go on! They didn’t ask me to do it,” said the sailor; “and he arn’t dead yet.”“Yah! What a fellow you are! Who’s a-going to wait till it’s dark and the thing’s made up its mind to die? Go on in.”“There arn’t room to get a good sight of it,” said Dan. “Cut his head off, then. One good chop would do it.”“Not me! I know all about these things. They gets tight hold and twissens theirselves round till they have squeezed all the wind out of you. Here, I say, Mak; you understand these insecks; get hold of him and pull him out.”The black looked at him laughingly and went forward, spear in hand, but at that moment there was a rustling and crackling amongst the thick growth, and everyone but the doctor, who stood firm ready for another shot, began to retreat, but stopped as they realised the fact that the pigmy had stuck his spear upright through one of the bushes, and had seized hold of the serpent, to begin trying to haul it out.There was a faint suggestion of writhing, a grunting ejaculation or two, and a few words as if of appeal or command, which had the effect of making Mak step forward to the pigmy’s help, and together the blacks hauled the dying reptile to where the morning’s work had been going on.“Well, I am disappointed,” cried Mark. “It’s only a little one, after all.”“Little one!” said the doctor, as he bent over the stretched out prize. “Why, it’s a good twelve feet long! A python, evidently.”“And pretty thick,” said Dean; “quite as thick round as my leg,” and raising his foot he planted it upon the serpent near to its tail. “Oh!” he shouted, as he started back, for at his touch the reptile drew itself up together almost in a knot, and then stretched itself out again, to the great delight of the two blacks.“Well, I don’t see anything to laugh at,” said Dean, and he looked rather discomfited, while the doctor went on, “Beautifully marked. Not unlike the Australian carpet snake; but quite spoiled as a specimen.”“Not a nice thing to take home, doctor,” said Mark.“The skin would not have been very heavy,” said the doctor, smiling.“Well, no,” said Mark. “I say, Dean, carpet snake! How many skins would it take to make one carpet?”“Beg pardon, sir,” said Dan; “think these ’ere have got any stings in their tails?”“No. Why?”“Because he managed to catch me a flip across the lynes, and I’ve got a sort of fancy that it’s beginning to prickle, though I can’t say as it warn’t a thorn.”“Ha, ha!” laughed Mark.“I don’t think about it, my lad,” said the doctor, “and you may just as well get rid of that popular fallacy.”“But some of them do sting, sir,” said Buck, “because I did hear of a fellow being killed by one in a precious little time.”“Not by a sting, my man,” said the doctor, “but by a bite from some small serpent that had poison fangs.”“Then don’t no snakes have stings in their tails, sir?”“No, my man; you must turn to insects or scorpions for dangers of that class.”“Ho!” said Dan thoughtfully, as he stood looking down at the slowly heaving length at his feet. “Well, I never knowed that before. But if I had ha’ knowed that this ’ere customer had got his nest in among them ol’ stones just where I was digging I should have mutinied against orders and sent old Buck. Beg pardon, sir, but could you say if this ’ere was a cock or a hen?”“No, I couldn’t,” said the doctor, laughing. “Why do you ask?”“I was only wondering, sir, whether him or she had a messmate down in the hole.”“You may take it for granted that if that serpent had a companion it has escaped by now.”“Well, that’s a comfort, sir.”“Oh, I see,” said the doctor, with a peculiar look at the boys; “you were thinking that we were wasting a good deal of time over this business instead of digging down.”“That I warn’t, sir,” said the sailor indignantly; and then catching the twinkle in the doctor’s eye, he winked at him in return. “I wouldn’t be so unfair towards my messmates, sir,” he hastened to say. “There’s Buck Denham been for ever so long wanting to handle the shovel, and I was just a-going to say it would rest me a bit to take a turn with the basket when my gentleman here said he was at home. Now, Buck, mate, let’s get on.”“That’s his way of poking fun, Mr Dean, sir,” said Buck, turning to the boys. “Rum chap, ain’t he? He’s got a lot of comic in him sometimes. He do make me laugh. No, Dan, mate, you stick to the spade; you don’t have so far to stoop as I should, and I shouldn’t like you to get a crick in your back by heaving up them loads, which are pretty lumpy sometimes; and I will say that for you:—you did always fill them for me, as much as they would hold.”“Well,” said Sir James good-humouredly, “settle it between you, my lads, for the doctor is, I am sure, anxious to go on.”“Thank you, Sir James; I am. Still, this is an interesting episode, and one that I am sure the boys would not have liked to miss.”“That we shouldn’t,” they cried, in a breath. “But what’s going to be done with the snake?” said Dean. “It won’t be in the way.”“No,” said Mark, “and I suppose it isn’t likely to come to life again; but it won’t do to have it lying there in the sun.”“No,” echoed Dean, with a look of disgust; “it smells bad enough even now.”“Look here,” said Mark, “we will get rid of it at once. Take it away, Mak;” and partly by signs he explained his wishes.The black smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and spoke to his little companion, who turned an enquiring look upon Mark, who nodded at once as if to say, Yes, I wish it.A word or two passed between the two, and Mak turned to Dan, signing to him that he wanted him to come with him.“What does he want, Dan?” cried Dean. “Knife, sir. All right, messmate; I’ll come.” The pigmy had started off, dodging in and out amongst the thick bushes, and stopped directly after by a long stout cane, which he caught hold of and dragged out straight, signing to the little sailor to use his knife.“Cut it off down there, little ’un?—There you are, then. Now trim off all them leaves?—Will that do for you? Want to tie it up in a bundle, do you? ’Cause if you do I wish you joy of it. Better let it twist itself up into a knot.”But Dan had misunderstood the pigmy’s wishes, for as soon as the long cane was clear he caught it up, turned back with Mak to where the serpent lay, and waited while the big black pierced a hole in the serpent’s neck. The cane was passed through, and then each taking hold of one end, they dragged the reptile over the ground out of the opening of the kraal, and then onward to where the kopje ended in a little precipice by which the bright stream of the river glided fast. Here they stood swinging it backwards and forwards a few times, let go together, and the nearly dead serpent fell into the water with a splash and was swept away.“That’s an end of him, then, Dean,” said Mark. “Come on; let’s get back. I want to find something before we give up for to-day;” and hurrying on, leaving the two blacks to follow at their leisure, and, as it struck the boys, rather unwillingly, the excavation was reached.“Come along,” said the doctor. “I have been waiting for you before I began, for I did not want you to miss whatever we find next. Now, Denham.”Buck seized the spade, leaped into the hole, and began to ply the tool energetically, while the two keepers used the baskets, and Dan danced about, as active as a cat, seizing the stones that were thrown out; and in this way the hole was deepened.“You don’t seem to find anything,” said Sir James.“We haven’t got to the bottom yet,” replied the doctor.“Perhaps there is no bottom,” said Mark, laughing.“Don’t you see,” said the doctor, “that we are standing in the interior of some old building? It must have had some form of paving for the bottom, and what we are clearing away is the rubbish that has fallen in. Go on Denham. We shall find something before long.”The doctor was right, for before many minutes had elapsed the big driver, who drove the spade in energetically and with all his strength, suddenly shouted, “Bottom!” and stood tapping the spade down upon something hard.“Only another stone, messmate,” cried Dan.“Nay; smooth, hard bottom,” said Buck. “Look here;” and after lifting out several spadefuls of the loose stuff he scraped the tool backwards and forwards over what seemed to be a perfectly level surface.“You are quite right, Denham,” said the doctor excitedly, “and you have proved my words. Now then, Dance; jump down with that shovel and help Denham clear out the loose stuff.”This took some little time, but at last the two men stood up in the square hole, which was thoroughly cleared out, and exposed the level flooring of the old building beneath one of whose walls they had been at work.“What?” cried the doctor, in answer to a question. “How far does it go? It is impossible to say without clearing out the whole extent of the place. What is the bottom, Denham—slabs of stone or bricks?”“Neither, sir. As far as I can make out it’s a kind of cement.”“Then that proves that the building can’t be as old as we thought,” said Sir James.“Oh, no,” said the doctor. “Cement in some form or another is very ancient;” and he paused for a few minutes while the last baskets of rubbish which had been thrown out were carefully examined.“Nothing here,” said the doctor. “Now, Denham, I want that iron bar that you use to make the holes for the tent pegs.”“Hop pitcher? Here, Bob, mate, run to the waggon and fetch it.”The interval of time taken by the younger keeper to fetch the big pointed crowbar was utilised for further search, during which the two blacks came back and stood a little aloof, watching curiously the acts of their white companions.“That’s right, mate,” replied Denham.—“Oh, well, if you like; jump down, then. The boss wants a hole picked, I suppose, for you to break up a bit of the floor here to see what it’s like.”The keeper was handy enough with the fresh tool, and after picking out a good many small pieces of what proved to be powdered granite, consolidated probably by lime, or perhaps only by time itself, he called for one of the stones that had been thrown out, laid it by the side of the hole he had picked, and then thrusting down the iron bar and using the stone as a fulcrum, he levered out a good-sized piece of the hard cement.“Throw it up here,” cried the doctor, who caught it deftly and held it in the sunshine, examining it carefully. “No,” he said, in rather a disappointed tone.“Here’s a bigger bit here, sir,” said Bob, “as seems loose. Yes, out you come!” And pressing his lever down hard, he brought up a great flake of the flooring, nearly a foot long and some inches wide. This he handed to Buck, who examined it casually as he bore it to the side of the hole and handed it to the doctor.“It’s broken up granite, sir, for certain,” he said, “and this other side sparkles just like—”He was going to say something, but the doctor excitedly, so to speak, snatched the word from his lips.“Yes,” he cried—“gold!”The two boys started forward excitedly.
There was the loud report of the rifle, and then all that was visible was the slowly rising smoke.
“Missed him, sir?” cried Mark excitedly.
“Seems like it, my lad,” was the reply, and the doctor opened the breech of the piece to slip in a fresh cartridge. “But I only had a glance, and—”
“Oh, murder!” cried Dan. “Here, let me get out of it,” and he scrambled from the hole, for the doctor’s words were silenced by a rushing sound, and through the fainter growing smoke were visible the writhings of a great serpent whose head seemed to have turned its tail into a huge whip with which the reptile had begun to thrash about in all directions, leaving no doubt about the doctor’s shot having had effect.
“Shouldn’t like to be licked with such a flogger as that. My eye, Buck, messmate, fancy what it would be if he had nine tails! But look out, everyone; let’s get to the top of the wall before he comes out among us.”
Bang!
For just when the heavy blows delivered around the sides of the hole were at their height the doctor fired again, his shot being followed by a rush on the part of the serpent, which flung itself out of the excavation, scattering its enemies in different directions as they made for shelter from the startling assault.
“Fire again, doctor! Fire again!” cried Mark, from half way up the wall.
“I want a chance first,” was the reply, from the top of the heap that the men had formed. “He’s making for the other side of the enclosure. Well, I suppose I must follow him up.”
“Take care,” said Sir James, who as it happened had made for where a couple of rifles were leaning against the wall. “Let me come with you.”
“And me,” cried Dean, who possessed himself of the other piece.
“Yes, but where do I come in?” said Mark. “Here, Buck, run to camp and get another rifle.”
“No, no,” said Sir James. “Three of us are too many. Here, what does the dwarf mean?” For the little fellow, who was making his way along the crumbling top of the wall, suddenly stopped short and mutely answered Sir James’s question by pointing with his spear to where the bushes were thickest. “We shan’t be able to see it there,” continued Sir James.
As if the pigmy understood his words, he dropped down quickly, joined the doctor, gave him an intelligent glance with his piercing dark eyes, and then, spear in hand, made his way through the bushes to the other side of the clump in which, the wounded serpent had sought for shelter.
“You had better leave it to me to finish the work,” said the doctor, following the little black.
“Yes,” said Mark. “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”
“Snake soup,” said Dean, laughing; “and I don’t know that I want to go.”
“I do,” cried Mark. “Here, hand over that rifle.”
“Shan’t. I want to defend myself. Get behind me, if you are afraid.”
“You wait,” cried Mark sharply.
“Quiet, there!” cried Sir James. “No one but the doctor is to fire. I don’t want the beater to be injured amongst those thick bushes.”
There was a few moments’ silence, for the faint rustling that had been made by the reptile in its retreat through the thick growth had now entirely ceased.
“It’s all over,” cried Buck.
“Not it, messmate,” said Dan. “Them things arn’t got nine tails, but they’ve got nine lives. Even if you cut ’em up you have to kill each piece, and then it won’t die till after the sun goes down.”
“Lu-lu-lu-lu-lu!” cried the pigmy, from where he was hidden on the other side of the clump.
It was evidently intended to mean, “Look out, doctor,” for the boys caught sight for a moment of his raised spear, which disappeared directly, and it was patent to all that it was being plunged again and again in among the tangled growth.
The next moment the blows were resumed, as the serpent began to flog the bushes. There was another report from the doctor’s piece; the bushes all about were in motion for a minute or two, and then the noise of the reptile’s writhing ceased.
“Killed him, doctor?” cried Mark.
“Can’t say, my boy,” was the reply, “but I am afraid I have completely spoiled my specimen.”
“Never mind, sir,” said Dean; “it will be all right for the soup. But do you think it’s safe to go near? I want to see what the monster’s like.”
“So do I,” cried Mark; “but we will soon have him out. Here, Buck, step in, lay hold and haul him out into the open.”
“Where’s that, Mark?” said his father, smiling.
“Well, where it’s most open, dad. Now then, you Buck, look alive!”
“No, thank you, sir,” said the man, grinning. “I don’t want to see him.”
“Bah!” cried Mark. “You are afraid.”
“That’s right, sir; I am—’orrid. You tell Dan, sir. He’ll go in with his sharp spade and cut him up in chunks and shovel them out a bit at a time. Snakes is nasty things to touch. Here, go on, messmate. Don’t you hear as the young gents wants to see it?”
“You go on! They didn’t ask me to do it,” said the sailor; “and he arn’t dead yet.”
“Yah! What a fellow you are! Who’s a-going to wait till it’s dark and the thing’s made up its mind to die? Go on in.”
“There arn’t room to get a good sight of it,” said Dan. “Cut his head off, then. One good chop would do it.”
“Not me! I know all about these things. They gets tight hold and twissens theirselves round till they have squeezed all the wind out of you. Here, I say, Mak; you understand these insecks; get hold of him and pull him out.”
The black looked at him laughingly and went forward, spear in hand, but at that moment there was a rustling and crackling amongst the thick growth, and everyone but the doctor, who stood firm ready for another shot, began to retreat, but stopped as they realised the fact that the pigmy had stuck his spear upright through one of the bushes, and had seized hold of the serpent, to begin trying to haul it out.
There was a faint suggestion of writhing, a grunting ejaculation or two, and a few words as if of appeal or command, which had the effect of making Mak step forward to the pigmy’s help, and together the blacks hauled the dying reptile to where the morning’s work had been going on.
“Well, I am disappointed,” cried Mark. “It’s only a little one, after all.”
“Little one!” said the doctor, as he bent over the stretched out prize. “Why, it’s a good twelve feet long! A python, evidently.”
“And pretty thick,” said Dean; “quite as thick round as my leg,” and raising his foot he planted it upon the serpent near to its tail. “Oh!” he shouted, as he started back, for at his touch the reptile drew itself up together almost in a knot, and then stretched itself out again, to the great delight of the two blacks.
“Well, I don’t see anything to laugh at,” said Dean, and he looked rather discomfited, while the doctor went on, “Beautifully marked. Not unlike the Australian carpet snake; but quite spoiled as a specimen.”
“Not a nice thing to take home, doctor,” said Mark.
“The skin would not have been very heavy,” said the doctor, smiling.
“Well, no,” said Mark. “I say, Dean, carpet snake! How many skins would it take to make one carpet?”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Dan; “think these ’ere have got any stings in their tails?”
“No. Why?”
“Because he managed to catch me a flip across the lynes, and I’ve got a sort of fancy that it’s beginning to prickle, though I can’t say as it warn’t a thorn.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Mark.
“I don’t think about it, my lad,” said the doctor, “and you may just as well get rid of that popular fallacy.”
“But some of them do sting, sir,” said Buck, “because I did hear of a fellow being killed by one in a precious little time.”
“Not by a sting, my man,” said the doctor, “but by a bite from some small serpent that had poison fangs.”
“Then don’t no snakes have stings in their tails, sir?”
“No, my man; you must turn to insects or scorpions for dangers of that class.”
“Ho!” said Dan thoughtfully, as he stood looking down at the slowly heaving length at his feet. “Well, I never knowed that before. But if I had ha’ knowed that this ’ere customer had got his nest in among them ol’ stones just where I was digging I should have mutinied against orders and sent old Buck. Beg pardon, sir, but could you say if this ’ere was a cock or a hen?”
“No, I couldn’t,” said the doctor, laughing. “Why do you ask?”
“I was only wondering, sir, whether him or she had a messmate down in the hole.”
“You may take it for granted that if that serpent had a companion it has escaped by now.”
“Well, that’s a comfort, sir.”
“Oh, I see,” said the doctor, with a peculiar look at the boys; “you were thinking that we were wasting a good deal of time over this business instead of digging down.”
“That I warn’t, sir,” said the sailor indignantly; and then catching the twinkle in the doctor’s eye, he winked at him in return. “I wouldn’t be so unfair towards my messmates, sir,” he hastened to say. “There’s Buck Denham been for ever so long wanting to handle the shovel, and I was just a-going to say it would rest me a bit to take a turn with the basket when my gentleman here said he was at home. Now, Buck, mate, let’s get on.”
“That’s his way of poking fun, Mr Dean, sir,” said Buck, turning to the boys. “Rum chap, ain’t he? He’s got a lot of comic in him sometimes. He do make me laugh. No, Dan, mate, you stick to the spade; you don’t have so far to stoop as I should, and I shouldn’t like you to get a crick in your back by heaving up them loads, which are pretty lumpy sometimes; and I will say that for you:—you did always fill them for me, as much as they would hold.”
“Well,” said Sir James good-humouredly, “settle it between you, my lads, for the doctor is, I am sure, anxious to go on.”
“Thank you, Sir James; I am. Still, this is an interesting episode, and one that I am sure the boys would not have liked to miss.”
“That we shouldn’t,” they cried, in a breath. “But what’s going to be done with the snake?” said Dean. “It won’t be in the way.”
“No,” said Mark, “and I suppose it isn’t likely to come to life again; but it won’t do to have it lying there in the sun.”
“No,” echoed Dean, with a look of disgust; “it smells bad enough even now.”
“Look here,” said Mark, “we will get rid of it at once. Take it away, Mak;” and partly by signs he explained his wishes.
The black smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and spoke to his little companion, who turned an enquiring look upon Mark, who nodded at once as if to say, Yes, I wish it.
A word or two passed between the two, and Mak turned to Dan, signing to him that he wanted him to come with him.
“What does he want, Dan?” cried Dean. “Knife, sir. All right, messmate; I’ll come.” The pigmy had started off, dodging in and out amongst the thick bushes, and stopped directly after by a long stout cane, which he caught hold of and dragged out straight, signing to the little sailor to use his knife.
“Cut it off down there, little ’un?—There you are, then. Now trim off all them leaves?—Will that do for you? Want to tie it up in a bundle, do you? ’Cause if you do I wish you joy of it. Better let it twist itself up into a knot.”
But Dan had misunderstood the pigmy’s wishes, for as soon as the long cane was clear he caught it up, turned back with Mak to where the serpent lay, and waited while the big black pierced a hole in the serpent’s neck. The cane was passed through, and then each taking hold of one end, they dragged the reptile over the ground out of the opening of the kraal, and then onward to where the kopje ended in a little precipice by which the bright stream of the river glided fast. Here they stood swinging it backwards and forwards a few times, let go together, and the nearly dead serpent fell into the water with a splash and was swept away.
“That’s an end of him, then, Dean,” said Mark. “Come on; let’s get back. I want to find something before we give up for to-day;” and hurrying on, leaving the two blacks to follow at their leisure, and, as it struck the boys, rather unwillingly, the excavation was reached.
“Come along,” said the doctor. “I have been waiting for you before I began, for I did not want you to miss whatever we find next. Now, Denham.”
Buck seized the spade, leaped into the hole, and began to ply the tool energetically, while the two keepers used the baskets, and Dan danced about, as active as a cat, seizing the stones that were thrown out; and in this way the hole was deepened.
“You don’t seem to find anything,” said Sir James.
“We haven’t got to the bottom yet,” replied the doctor.
“Perhaps there is no bottom,” said Mark, laughing.
“Don’t you see,” said the doctor, “that we are standing in the interior of some old building? It must have had some form of paving for the bottom, and what we are clearing away is the rubbish that has fallen in. Go on Denham. We shall find something before long.”
The doctor was right, for before many minutes had elapsed the big driver, who drove the spade in energetically and with all his strength, suddenly shouted, “Bottom!” and stood tapping the spade down upon something hard.
“Only another stone, messmate,” cried Dan.
“Nay; smooth, hard bottom,” said Buck. “Look here;” and after lifting out several spadefuls of the loose stuff he scraped the tool backwards and forwards over what seemed to be a perfectly level surface.
“You are quite right, Denham,” said the doctor excitedly, “and you have proved my words. Now then, Dance; jump down with that shovel and help Denham clear out the loose stuff.”
This took some little time, but at last the two men stood up in the square hole, which was thoroughly cleared out, and exposed the level flooring of the old building beneath one of whose walls they had been at work.
“What?” cried the doctor, in answer to a question. “How far does it go? It is impossible to say without clearing out the whole extent of the place. What is the bottom, Denham—slabs of stone or bricks?”
“Neither, sir. As far as I can make out it’s a kind of cement.”
“Then that proves that the building can’t be as old as we thought,” said Sir James.
“Oh, no,” said the doctor. “Cement in some form or another is very ancient;” and he paused for a few minutes while the last baskets of rubbish which had been thrown out were carefully examined.
“Nothing here,” said the doctor. “Now, Denham, I want that iron bar that you use to make the holes for the tent pegs.”
“Hop pitcher? Here, Bob, mate, run to the waggon and fetch it.”
The interval of time taken by the younger keeper to fetch the big pointed crowbar was utilised for further search, during which the two blacks came back and stood a little aloof, watching curiously the acts of their white companions.
“That’s right, mate,” replied Denham.—“Oh, well, if you like; jump down, then. The boss wants a hole picked, I suppose, for you to break up a bit of the floor here to see what it’s like.”
The keeper was handy enough with the fresh tool, and after picking out a good many small pieces of what proved to be powdered granite, consolidated probably by lime, or perhaps only by time itself, he called for one of the stones that had been thrown out, laid it by the side of the hole he had picked, and then thrusting down the iron bar and using the stone as a fulcrum, he levered out a good-sized piece of the hard cement.
“Throw it up here,” cried the doctor, who caught it deftly and held it in the sunshine, examining it carefully. “No,” he said, in rather a disappointed tone.
“Here’s a bigger bit here, sir,” said Bob, “as seems loose. Yes, out you come!” And pressing his lever down hard, he brought up a great flake of the flooring, nearly a foot long and some inches wide. This he handed to Buck, who examined it casually as he bore it to the side of the hole and handed it to the doctor.
“It’s broken up granite, sir, for certain,” he said, “and this other side sparkles just like—”
He was going to say something, but the doctor excitedly, so to speak, snatched the word from his lips.
“Yes,” he cried—“gold!”
The two boys started forward excitedly.
Chapter Thirty One.An Explosion.“Yes,” said the doctor, as he scanned some little specks of the pale yellow glistening metal, and the two blacks crept silently closer, “this is gold, sure enough.”“I don’t know much about these things,” said Sir James, examining the big flake carefully, “but I didn’t think that it was possible to find gold in cement. If it had been quartz rock, doctor—”“Ah, you are thinking of gold ore, Sir James,” said the doctor, taking out his knife and opening it. “These are scraps of manufactured gold.”“Why, who could have manufactured them,” said Mark sharply.“We must go to history for that,” replied the doctor, “and the only people I can suggest would be the Phoenicians; but I may be quite wrong, for gold has been searched for and used by most ancient people.—Allow me, Sir James;” and he took back the piece of cement and with the point of his knife picked out a little rivet, which he tried with a sharp blade. “Yes,” he said; “pure gold. You see it’s quite soft. Why, I can cut it almost as easily as a piece of lead. Here’s another little rivet. I should say this has been a piece cut off a length of gold wire.”“But what would they want such little bits as that for?” asked Dean.“For the purpose I name, as rivets, to fasten down gold plates. There are more and more of them here—and look at this corner where the cement has broken. Here’s a scrap of thin hammered plate of gold. Why, boys, we have come to the place where our little friend yonder must have obtained his gold wire ornaments.”“But it isn’t likely,” said Mark, “that we should come by chance and dig down in the right place.”“No, I don’t think this can be the right place, but I do think that we have come to the ruins where this precious metal is found.”“But that means,” said Mark, now speaking excitedly, “that we have come to a place where there must be quantities of such things.”“I think so too,” said the doctor. “We have certainly made a very curious discovery—one which may help us to find out who the people were who raised these walls. What do you say, Sir James? Should we be satisfied with what we have found, or leave it all for to-day?”“I will go by what the boys say,” said Sir James. “What do you think, boys?”“Oh, go on!” cried the lads together, and as they spoke Mark caught sight of the pigmy leaning forward as if to draw his big companion’s attention to what was going on.“Go on, then, doctor,” cried Sir James.“Well, then,” said the doctor, “what I should like to do now would be to bore right through this cement—tamp it, as the mining people call it—then ram in the contents of a couple or three cartridges and fire them with a fuse.”“You mean and blow the floor to pieces?”“Exactly,” said the doctor. “It will save a great deal of time and labour, and show us whether it is worth while continuing our researches here.”“Oh, go on, then,” cried Mark.Bob Bacon set to work the next minute tamping a hole diagonally down from where the large piece of cement had been taken out.The doctor had been under the expectation that they were nearly through the cement floor, but the iron bar was driven down lower and lower, re-pounding the granite into dust, which was fished out by means of a cleaning rod, till the hole was about eighteen inches deep, measuring from the surface of the floor. Then gunpowder was put in and rammed down pretty hard, and the question arose, What was to be done for a fuse?“Here, I can soon manage that, gentlemen,” said Dan the handy. “I want a drop of water.”“I have some in my flask,” said the doctor.“Bit of string,” continued Dan; and he fished out a piece directly from his trousers’ pocket, and after the doctor had poured a little water into the cup of his flask the little sailor thrust in a piece of string, let it soak for a few minutes, and then drew it through his fingers to squeeze out as much of the water as he could and send it well through the partly untwisted fibres.“Now, Mr Mark, sir, got a blank cartridge?”“No, but I can soon take the ball out of one.”This the boy did, and after removing the wad he poured a little of the dry powder into Dan’s palm. The piece of string was roughly rolled up, laid upon the pinch or two of powder, and then the little sailor placed his palms together and gave them a circular, millstone-like movement one over the other till all the powder was absorbed and his hands as black as ink.“There, gentlemen,” he said, passing the string two or three times through his fingers, “that’s nearly dry now, and if it’s shoved down the hole, one end left out, and the hole stopped with a bit of clay—”“Where are you going to get your clay, mate?” said Bob Bacon.“Oh, I don’t know,” said the man. “Never mind the clay. You can make baskets.”“What’s that got to do with it?” growled Bob.“Not much, but pull out your knife and find a good soft bit of wood that you can turn into a peg.”This was soon done, and laying the string fuse a little way along the cement floor, Dan declared the mine to be ready.“Only wants everybody to stand clear, gentlemen,” said the little fellow, “and somebody to go down with a match, and then run. Then up she goes; and that’s my job.”“Oh, I’ll do that,” cried Mark, and he pulled out a little silver box of matches that he had in his pocket.“Steady, Mr Mark, sir—steady!” cried the little fellow.“Clear out, everybody!” cried Mark.The doctor opened his lips to speak angrily, but on second thoughts he followed those who were in the hole and had begun making for a safe distance from the explosion that was to come.“Spring out the moment you have lit the fuse,” he shouted.“All right,” cried Mark impetuously, as, bending down, he rapidly struck a wax match and held it to the string fuse; and then—he could not have explained why—stood over it as if affected by some nightmare-like feeling, watching the tiny sparkling of the damp powder as it began to run along the string towards the hole.“Mr Mark!” shouted the little sailor. “Run—run!”The boy started violently, turned to look at the speaker, then back at the faint sparkling of the fuse, and then stared helplessly again after those who were now standing some little distance away.“Yah! Run!” yelled Buck Denham, and as he shouted he snatched off Dean’s hat and sent it skimming like a boomerang right away over the bushes, though, unlike a boomerang, it did not come back.It affected his purpose, though, for startled by the driver’s fierce yell, and his attention being taken by the flying hat, Mark made a dash, climbed out of the hole, rose to his feet, and had begun to run for safety, when the explosion came with a roar; and it was as if a giant had suddenly given the boy a tremendous push which sent him flying into the nearest bushes, out of which he was struggling when Dean and Buck Denham came running through the smoke and fragments of earth and cement which were falling all around.“Oh, Mark, don’t say you are hurt!”“Why not?” said Mark slowly, as he snatched at Buck’s extended hand and struggled out from amongst the thorns. “I am, I tell you,” continued the boy.“Not much, sir, are you?” said the driver. “Only a bit pricked, eh?”“Well, I don’t know,” said Mark slowly, as he began to squirm and alter the set of his clothes. “Yes, pricked a bit, though.”“And a good job it’s no worse, sir.”“Here, you,” cried Dean angrily, for the excitement of the incident had brought on a curious attack of irritation. “You, Buck Denham, how dare you snatch off my hat like that and send it flying!”“Eh?” said the man, staring. “Oh, ah, so I did.”“Then don’t do it again, sir!” And then turning hurriedly away with a feeling of annoyance at his display of fault-finding with one who he felt now had probably saved his cousin from serious hurt, he went on after his hat, but only to meet the pigmy half way to the spot whereit had fallen, holding out the missing straw at the end of Mak’s spear.“Are you hurt much, Mark?” said the doctor sternly; and the words were echoed by Sir James, who came hurrying up.“Oh, no,” said the boy hastily, feeling half annoyed now at the bearing of those near; and then he stood looking at his father’s frowning countenance and listened to the doctor’s sternly uttered whisper.“Foolishly impetuous and thoughtless,” said the doctor. “How often have I told you to try to think before you act!”“I—I’m very sorry, sir,” faltered Mark. “And so am I,” said the doctor gravely, as he turned away. “Now, Denham,” he continued, in his natural tones, speaking as if to put an end to the incident by those last words, “how has the fuse acted?”“Splendid, sir,” replied the man, who had followed Dan down into the hole. “There’s no end of pieces loose ready for you to have a look at them. Yah! Mind where you are coming to, my lads!” he continued, to the two keepers, who had now followed him down into the hole. “Don’t trample. Get your baskets and bring them to the edge here, and me and Dan’ll hand you out the bits to lay ready for the boss to look over. Here’s one or two of them, Dr Robertson, sir, as has got a touch of gold in them.”And so it proved, for as the pieces were carefully picked up and passed on for the doctor to examine, he found more of the little eighth or quarter of an inch long scraps of wire, and in addition, here and there in the fragments of cement, tiny wedge-like tacks of the precious metal.“Doesn’t seem much,” said Mark, “after all. It would take ten times as many scraps as we have found to weigh a sovereign.”“I don’t know about your calculation,” said the doctor, speaking cheerfully now, for his angry feeling had passed away. “From one point of view we might say the whole find was of no value, but from another—the archaeological point of view—valuable indeed. But by the way, boys, I don’t like those two blacks looking so glum at us. It’s almost as if they felt contempt for the white man seeming so anxious to find gold.”“Here’s another bit, sir,” cried Buck Denham. “The powder chucked it right over here, close to the wall.”As he spoke the man held a good-sized fragment of the cement pressed against his side with one hand, and began to climb out of the hole.“No, no, thank you, sir,” he said, as Mark stooped down to take the piece of cement; and then in a whisper, “I wanted for them blacks not to see it; but they have got eyes like needles, and I think they did. Don’t look round at them. These chaps have got ideas of their own. See that, doctor, sir?” He turned the fragment over now, as he stood with his back turned to Mak and the pigmy. “See that, sir?”“Yes,” said the doctor; “that explains what I was talking about just now. Their ideas are that to disturb the bones of the dead may mean mischief or injury to themselves. I believe that is what they think. Look, Sir James;” and he held the fragment so that his chief could see that, fixed in the cement like a fossil, there was a large portion of a human bone.“Yes,” said Sir James. “Possibly there has been fighting here.”“No, sir, I don’t think that,” said the doctor. “What we have found before, and this, seem to point to the fact that we have hit upon one of the old dwellings, for it is the custom among some of the nations to bury their dead beneath the floor of their homes, and to cover them over with a fresh floor before another family can occupy the old place.”“Fresh floor?” cried Mark eagerly.“Yes, and we have seen confirmation of what I have read, for these scraps of gold and the bone must have been covered-in with the wet cement for it to be bedded within like this.”“This is rather gruesome, doctor,” said Sir James.“Yes, sir, but I think you must agree that it is very interesting, teaching us as it does the habits and customs of people who lived many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years ago.”“Yes,” said Sir James; “but it is rather ghoulish to disturb their remains. What are you going to do now?”“I was going to confirm my notions by going down into the pit and trying to make sure whether there are any more remains; and if there are, I propose that we shall refrain from doing anything that may arouse the prejudices of the blacks.”“How?” said Sir James.“By having that hole filled up again, for I feel convinced that we shall find plenty to satisfy our desires without interfering with such relics as these.”“I quite agree,” said Sir James.“Here, come with me, Denham,” said the doctor, and without heeding the two blacks, who stood aloof, leaning upon their spears close under the wall, the doctor, closely followed by Denham and the boys, descended into the deep square hole, where the sides of the round cavity torn out by the charge of powder were examined for a few minutes, and then word was given and the men set to work with alacrity to fill up the great hole again.“I say, Mark,” said Dean, who had been looking on, quietly observant, while the work progressed, for as there was no trampling down, that which had been dug out kept on rising, till the hole was filled and rose up above the edges in a loose heap, “have you noticed Mak?”“Yes,” said Mark, “and the Pig too. As usual, the doctor’s right. The more the hole gets filled up the more they seem to grow good-tempered again. Yes, they didn’t like it, and the doctor’s always right.”“But I say, Mark, you didn’t think so when he gave you such a snubbing for rushing forward to fire the train.”“Yes, I did,” said Mark, in a whisper. “I did think so, and I think so now, and that’s what makes it feel so hard.”It is impossible to say whether the doctor, who was supposed to be always right, had any idea of what the boys were saying, but just then in his cheeriest tones he cried, “Come along, boys; don’t stop talking. We have done work enough for one day. Let’s go and see what Dan has ready for us in the way of cooking. I feel half starved, don’t you?”“But Dan is helping to finish the covering in.”“Oh, no, he is not,” said the doctor. “Brown came and fetched him half an hour ago. He has been keeping up the fire, and I daresay we shall not have to wait for our evening meal.”The doctor started off, and the boys before following him went back to where the two blacks were standing waiting, to gaze at them with half questioning looks.“Come along, Mak,” cried Mark cheerily. “Come along, pigmy;” and he made signs suggesting something to eat.—“Oh, it’s all right again,” he said. “They don’t mind now. Why, black Mak’s face came out all in one big smile.”“Yes,” said Dean, “and the little Pig looked as if he would like to rub his head against you just like the old Manor House cat when we had been out.”
“Yes,” said the doctor, as he scanned some little specks of the pale yellow glistening metal, and the two blacks crept silently closer, “this is gold, sure enough.”
“I don’t know much about these things,” said Sir James, examining the big flake carefully, “but I didn’t think that it was possible to find gold in cement. If it had been quartz rock, doctor—”
“Ah, you are thinking of gold ore, Sir James,” said the doctor, taking out his knife and opening it. “These are scraps of manufactured gold.”
“Why, who could have manufactured them,” said Mark sharply.
“We must go to history for that,” replied the doctor, “and the only people I can suggest would be the Phoenicians; but I may be quite wrong, for gold has been searched for and used by most ancient people.—Allow me, Sir James;” and he took back the piece of cement and with the point of his knife picked out a little rivet, which he tried with a sharp blade. “Yes,” he said; “pure gold. You see it’s quite soft. Why, I can cut it almost as easily as a piece of lead. Here’s another little rivet. I should say this has been a piece cut off a length of gold wire.”
“But what would they want such little bits as that for?” asked Dean.
“For the purpose I name, as rivets, to fasten down gold plates. There are more and more of them here—and look at this corner where the cement has broken. Here’s a scrap of thin hammered plate of gold. Why, boys, we have come to the place where our little friend yonder must have obtained his gold wire ornaments.”
“But it isn’t likely,” said Mark, “that we should come by chance and dig down in the right place.”
“No, I don’t think this can be the right place, but I do think that we have come to the ruins where this precious metal is found.”
“But that means,” said Mark, now speaking excitedly, “that we have come to a place where there must be quantities of such things.”
“I think so too,” said the doctor. “We have certainly made a very curious discovery—one which may help us to find out who the people were who raised these walls. What do you say, Sir James? Should we be satisfied with what we have found, or leave it all for to-day?”
“I will go by what the boys say,” said Sir James. “What do you think, boys?”
“Oh, go on!” cried the lads together, and as they spoke Mark caught sight of the pigmy leaning forward as if to draw his big companion’s attention to what was going on.
“Go on, then, doctor,” cried Sir James.
“Well, then,” said the doctor, “what I should like to do now would be to bore right through this cement—tamp it, as the mining people call it—then ram in the contents of a couple or three cartridges and fire them with a fuse.”
“You mean and blow the floor to pieces?”
“Exactly,” said the doctor. “It will save a great deal of time and labour, and show us whether it is worth while continuing our researches here.”
“Oh, go on, then,” cried Mark.
Bob Bacon set to work the next minute tamping a hole diagonally down from where the large piece of cement had been taken out.
The doctor had been under the expectation that they were nearly through the cement floor, but the iron bar was driven down lower and lower, re-pounding the granite into dust, which was fished out by means of a cleaning rod, till the hole was about eighteen inches deep, measuring from the surface of the floor. Then gunpowder was put in and rammed down pretty hard, and the question arose, What was to be done for a fuse?
“Here, I can soon manage that, gentlemen,” said Dan the handy. “I want a drop of water.”
“I have some in my flask,” said the doctor.
“Bit of string,” continued Dan; and he fished out a piece directly from his trousers’ pocket, and after the doctor had poured a little water into the cup of his flask the little sailor thrust in a piece of string, let it soak for a few minutes, and then drew it through his fingers to squeeze out as much of the water as he could and send it well through the partly untwisted fibres.
“Now, Mr Mark, sir, got a blank cartridge?”
“No, but I can soon take the ball out of one.”
This the boy did, and after removing the wad he poured a little of the dry powder into Dan’s palm. The piece of string was roughly rolled up, laid upon the pinch or two of powder, and then the little sailor placed his palms together and gave them a circular, millstone-like movement one over the other till all the powder was absorbed and his hands as black as ink.
“There, gentlemen,” he said, passing the string two or three times through his fingers, “that’s nearly dry now, and if it’s shoved down the hole, one end left out, and the hole stopped with a bit of clay—”
“Where are you going to get your clay, mate?” said Bob Bacon.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the man. “Never mind the clay. You can make baskets.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” growled Bob.
“Not much, but pull out your knife and find a good soft bit of wood that you can turn into a peg.”
This was soon done, and laying the string fuse a little way along the cement floor, Dan declared the mine to be ready.
“Only wants everybody to stand clear, gentlemen,” said the little fellow, “and somebody to go down with a match, and then run. Then up she goes; and that’s my job.”
“Oh, I’ll do that,” cried Mark, and he pulled out a little silver box of matches that he had in his pocket.
“Steady, Mr Mark, sir—steady!” cried the little fellow.
“Clear out, everybody!” cried Mark.
The doctor opened his lips to speak angrily, but on second thoughts he followed those who were in the hole and had begun making for a safe distance from the explosion that was to come.
“Spring out the moment you have lit the fuse,” he shouted.
“All right,” cried Mark impetuously, as, bending down, he rapidly struck a wax match and held it to the string fuse; and then—he could not have explained why—stood over it as if affected by some nightmare-like feeling, watching the tiny sparkling of the damp powder as it began to run along the string towards the hole.
“Mr Mark!” shouted the little sailor. “Run—run!”
The boy started violently, turned to look at the speaker, then back at the faint sparkling of the fuse, and then stared helplessly again after those who were now standing some little distance away.
“Yah! Run!” yelled Buck Denham, and as he shouted he snatched off Dean’s hat and sent it skimming like a boomerang right away over the bushes, though, unlike a boomerang, it did not come back.
It affected his purpose, though, for startled by the driver’s fierce yell, and his attention being taken by the flying hat, Mark made a dash, climbed out of the hole, rose to his feet, and had begun to run for safety, when the explosion came with a roar; and it was as if a giant had suddenly given the boy a tremendous push which sent him flying into the nearest bushes, out of which he was struggling when Dean and Buck Denham came running through the smoke and fragments of earth and cement which were falling all around.
“Oh, Mark, don’t say you are hurt!”
“Why not?” said Mark slowly, as he snatched at Buck’s extended hand and struggled out from amongst the thorns. “I am, I tell you,” continued the boy.
“Not much, sir, are you?” said the driver. “Only a bit pricked, eh?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Mark slowly, as he began to squirm and alter the set of his clothes. “Yes, pricked a bit, though.”
“And a good job it’s no worse, sir.”
“Here, you,” cried Dean angrily, for the excitement of the incident had brought on a curious attack of irritation. “You, Buck Denham, how dare you snatch off my hat like that and send it flying!”
“Eh?” said the man, staring. “Oh, ah, so I did.”
“Then don’t do it again, sir!” And then turning hurriedly away with a feeling of annoyance at his display of fault-finding with one who he felt now had probably saved his cousin from serious hurt, he went on after his hat, but only to meet the pigmy half way to the spot whereit had fallen, holding out the missing straw at the end of Mak’s spear.
“Are you hurt much, Mark?” said the doctor sternly; and the words were echoed by Sir James, who came hurrying up.
“Oh, no,” said the boy hastily, feeling half annoyed now at the bearing of those near; and then he stood looking at his father’s frowning countenance and listened to the doctor’s sternly uttered whisper.
“Foolishly impetuous and thoughtless,” said the doctor. “How often have I told you to try to think before you act!”
“I—I’m very sorry, sir,” faltered Mark. “And so am I,” said the doctor gravely, as he turned away. “Now, Denham,” he continued, in his natural tones, speaking as if to put an end to the incident by those last words, “how has the fuse acted?”
“Splendid, sir,” replied the man, who had followed Dan down into the hole. “There’s no end of pieces loose ready for you to have a look at them. Yah! Mind where you are coming to, my lads!” he continued, to the two keepers, who had now followed him down into the hole. “Don’t trample. Get your baskets and bring them to the edge here, and me and Dan’ll hand you out the bits to lay ready for the boss to look over. Here’s one or two of them, Dr Robertson, sir, as has got a touch of gold in them.”
And so it proved, for as the pieces were carefully picked up and passed on for the doctor to examine, he found more of the little eighth or quarter of an inch long scraps of wire, and in addition, here and there in the fragments of cement, tiny wedge-like tacks of the precious metal.
“Doesn’t seem much,” said Mark, “after all. It would take ten times as many scraps as we have found to weigh a sovereign.”
“I don’t know about your calculation,” said the doctor, speaking cheerfully now, for his angry feeling had passed away. “From one point of view we might say the whole find was of no value, but from another—the archaeological point of view—valuable indeed. But by the way, boys, I don’t like those two blacks looking so glum at us. It’s almost as if they felt contempt for the white man seeming so anxious to find gold.”
“Here’s another bit, sir,” cried Buck Denham. “The powder chucked it right over here, close to the wall.”
As he spoke the man held a good-sized fragment of the cement pressed against his side with one hand, and began to climb out of the hole.
“No, no, thank you, sir,” he said, as Mark stooped down to take the piece of cement; and then in a whisper, “I wanted for them blacks not to see it; but they have got eyes like needles, and I think they did. Don’t look round at them. These chaps have got ideas of their own. See that, doctor, sir?” He turned the fragment over now, as he stood with his back turned to Mak and the pigmy. “See that, sir?”
“Yes,” said the doctor; “that explains what I was talking about just now. Their ideas are that to disturb the bones of the dead may mean mischief or injury to themselves. I believe that is what they think. Look, Sir James;” and he held the fragment so that his chief could see that, fixed in the cement like a fossil, there was a large portion of a human bone.
“Yes,” said Sir James. “Possibly there has been fighting here.”
“No, sir, I don’t think that,” said the doctor. “What we have found before, and this, seem to point to the fact that we have hit upon one of the old dwellings, for it is the custom among some of the nations to bury their dead beneath the floor of their homes, and to cover them over with a fresh floor before another family can occupy the old place.”
“Fresh floor?” cried Mark eagerly.
“Yes, and we have seen confirmation of what I have read, for these scraps of gold and the bone must have been covered-in with the wet cement for it to be bedded within like this.”
“This is rather gruesome, doctor,” said Sir James.
“Yes, sir, but I think you must agree that it is very interesting, teaching us as it does the habits and customs of people who lived many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years ago.”
“Yes,” said Sir James; “but it is rather ghoulish to disturb their remains. What are you going to do now?”
“I was going to confirm my notions by going down into the pit and trying to make sure whether there are any more remains; and if there are, I propose that we shall refrain from doing anything that may arouse the prejudices of the blacks.”
“How?” said Sir James.
“By having that hole filled up again, for I feel convinced that we shall find plenty to satisfy our desires without interfering with such relics as these.”
“I quite agree,” said Sir James.
“Here, come with me, Denham,” said the doctor, and without heeding the two blacks, who stood aloof, leaning upon their spears close under the wall, the doctor, closely followed by Denham and the boys, descended into the deep square hole, where the sides of the round cavity torn out by the charge of powder were examined for a few minutes, and then word was given and the men set to work with alacrity to fill up the great hole again.
“I say, Mark,” said Dean, who had been looking on, quietly observant, while the work progressed, for as there was no trampling down, that which had been dug out kept on rising, till the hole was filled and rose up above the edges in a loose heap, “have you noticed Mak?”
“Yes,” said Mark, “and the Pig too. As usual, the doctor’s right. The more the hole gets filled up the more they seem to grow good-tempered again. Yes, they didn’t like it, and the doctor’s always right.”
“But I say, Mark, you didn’t think so when he gave you such a snubbing for rushing forward to fire the train.”
“Yes, I did,” said Mark, in a whisper. “I did think so, and I think so now, and that’s what makes it feel so hard.”
It is impossible to say whether the doctor, who was supposed to be always right, had any idea of what the boys were saying, but just then in his cheeriest tones he cried, “Come along, boys; don’t stop talking. We have done work enough for one day. Let’s go and see what Dan has ready for us in the way of cooking. I feel half starved, don’t you?”
“But Dan is helping to finish the covering in.”
“Oh, no, he is not,” said the doctor. “Brown came and fetched him half an hour ago. He has been keeping up the fire, and I daresay we shall not have to wait for our evening meal.”
The doctor started off, and the boys before following him went back to where the two blacks were standing waiting, to gaze at them with half questioning looks.
“Come along, Mak,” cried Mark cheerily. “Come along, pigmy;” and he made signs suggesting something to eat.—“Oh, it’s all right again,” he said. “They don’t mind now. Why, black Mak’s face came out all in one big smile.”
“Yes,” said Dean, “and the little Pig looked as if he would like to rub his head against you just like the old Manor House cat when we had been out.”