He spoke as soon as he saw that I was awake, laughing and saying: 'How

goes the night, Watchman? This is the second time that I have caught thee
napping, and didst sleep so sound it might have taken a cold pistol's
lips against thy forehead to awake thee.'

I was too full of my story even to beg his pardon, but began at once to
tell him what had happened; and how, by following the hint that Ratsey
dropped, I had made out, as I thought, a secret meaning in these verses.
Elzevir heard me patiently, and with more show of interest towards the
end; and then took the parchment in his hands, reading it carefully, and
checking the errors of numbering by the help of the red prayer-book.

'I believe thou art right,' he said at length; 'for why should the
figures all be false if there is no hidden trickery in it? If't had been
one or two were wrong, I would have said some priest had copied them in
error; for priests are thriftless folk, and had as lief set a thing down
wrong as right; but with all wrong there is no room for chance. So if he
means it, let us see what 'tis he means. First he says 'tis in a well.
But what well? and the depth he gives of fourscore feet is over-deep for
any well near Moonfleet.'

I was for saying it must be the well at the Manor House, but before the
words left my mouth, remembered there was no well at the manor at all,
for the house was watered by a runnel brook that broke out from the woods
above, and jumping down from stone to stone ran through the manor
gardens, and emptied itself into the Fleet below.

'And now I come to think on it,' Elzevir went on, ''tis more likely that
the well he speaks of was not in these parts at all. For see here, this
Blackboard was a spendthrift, squandering all he had, and would most
surely have squandered the jewel too, could he have laid his hands on it.
And yet 'tis said he did not, therefore I think he must have stowed it
safe in some place where afterwards he could not get at it. For if't had
been near Moonfleet, he would have had it up a hundred times. But thou
hast often talked of Blackbeard and his end with Parson Glennie; so speak
up, lad, and let us hear all that thou know'st of these tales. Maybe
'twill help us to come to some judgement.'

So I told him all that Mr. Glennie had told me, how that Colonel John
Mohune, whom men called Blackbeard, was a wastrel from his youth, and
squandered all his substance in riotous living. Thus being at his last
turn, he changed from royalist to rebel, and was set to guard the king in
the castle of Carisbrooke. But there he stooped to a bribe, and took from
his royal prisoner a splendid diamond of the crown to let him go; then,
with the jewel in his pocket, turned traitor again, and showed a file of
soldiers into the room where the king was stuck between the window bars,
escaping. But no one trusted Blackbeard after that, and so he lost his
post, and came back in his age, a broken man, to Moonfleet. There he
rusted out his life, but when he neared his end was filled with fear, and
sent for a clergyman to give him consolation. And 'twas at the parson's
instance that he made a will, and bequeathed the diamond, which was the
only thing he had left, to the Mohune almshouses at Moonfleet. These were
the very houses that he had robbed and let go to ruin, and they never
benefited by his testament, for when it was opened there was the bequest
plain enough, but not a word to say where was the jewel. Some said that
it was all a mockery, and that Blackbeard never had the jewel; others
that the jewel was in his hand when he died, but carried off by some that
stood by. But most thought, and handed down the tale, that being taken
suddenly, he died before he could reveal the safe place of the jewel; and
that in his last throes he struggled hard to speak as if he had some
secret to unburden.

All this I told Elzevir, and he listened close as though some of it was
new to him. When I was speaking of Blackbeard being at Carisbrooke, he
made a little quick move as though to speak, but did not, waiting till I
had finished the tale. Then he broke out with: 'John, the diamond is yet
at Carisbrooke. I wonder I had not thought of Carisbrooke before you
spoke; and there he can get fourscore feet, and twice and thrice
fourscore, if he list, and none to stop him. 'Tis Carisbrooke. I have
heard of that well from childhood, and once saw it when a boy. It is dug
in the Castle Keep, and goes down fifty fathoms or more into the bowels
of the chalk below. It is so deep no man can draw the buckets on a winch,
but they must have an ass inside a tread-wheel to hoist them up. Now,
why this Colonel John Mohune, whom we call Blackbeard, should have chosen
a well at all to hide his jewel in, I cannot say; but given he chose a
well, 'twas odds he would choose Carisbrooke. 'Tis a known place, and I
have heard that people come as far as from London to see the castle and
this well.'

He spoke quick and with more fire than I had known him use before, and I
felt he was right. It seemed indeed natural enough that if Blackbeard was
to hide the diamond in a well, it would be in the well of that very
castle where he had earned it so evilly.

'When he says the "well north",' continued Elzevir, ''tis clear he means
to take a compass and mark north by needle, and at eighty feet in the
well-side below that point will lie the treasure. I fixed yesterday with
the _Bonaventure's_ men that they should lie underneath this ledge
tomorrow sennight, if the sea be smooth, and take us off on the
spring-tide. At midnight is their hour, and I said eight days on, to give
thy leg a week wherewith to strengthen. I thought to make for St. Malo,
and leave thee at the _Eperon d'Or_ with old Chauvelais, where thou
couldst learn to patter French until these evil times have blown by. But
now, if thou art set to hunt this treasure up, and hast a mind to run thy
head into a noose; why, I am not so old but that I too can play the fool,
and we will let St. Malo be, and make for Carisbrooke. I know the castle;
it is not two miles distant from Newport, and at Newport we can lie at
the Bugle, which is an inn addicted to the contraband. The king's writ
runs but lamely in the Channel Isles and Wight, and if we wear some other
kit than this, maybe we shall find Newport as safe as St. Malo.'

This was just what I wanted, and so we settled there and then that we
would get the _Bonaventure_ to land us in the Isle of Wight instead of at
St. Malo. Since man first walked upon this earth, a tale of buried
treasure must have had a master-power to stir his blood, and mine was
hotly stirred. Even Elzevir, though he did not show it, was moved, I
thought, at heart; and we chafed in our cave prison, and those eight days
went wearily enough. Yet 'twas not time lost, for every day my leg grew
stronger; and like a wolf which I saw once in a cage at Dorchester Fair,
I spent hours in marching round the cave to kill the time and put more
vigour in my steps. Ratsey did not visit us again, but in spite of what
he said, met Elzevir more than once, and got money for him from
Dorchester and many other things he needed. It was after meeting Ratsey
that Elzevir came back one night, bringing a long whip in one hand, and
in the other a bundle which held clothes to mask us in the next scene.
There was a carter's smock for him, white and quilted over with
needlework, such as carters wear on the Down farms, and for me a smaller
one, and hats and leather leggings all to match. We tried them on, and
were for all the world carter and carter's boy; and I laughed long to see
Elzevir stand there and practise how to crack his whip and cry 'Who-ho'
as carters do to horses. And for all he was so grave, there was a smile
on his face too, and he showed me how to twist a wisp of straw out of the
bed to bind above my ankles at the bottom of the leggings. He had cut off
his beard, and yet lost nothing of his looks; for his jaw and deep chin
showed firm and powerful. And as for me, we made a broth of young walnut
leaves and twigs, and tanned my hands and face with it a ruddy brown, so
that I looked a different lad.




CHAPTER 13

AN INTERVIEW

No human creature stirred to go or come,
No face looked forth from shut or open casement,
No chimney smoked, there was no sign of home
From parapet to basement--_Hood_


And so the days went on, until there came to be but two nights more
before we were to leave our cave. Now I have said that the delay chafed
us, because we were impatient to get at the treasure; but there was
something else that vexed me and made me more unquiet with every day that
passed. And this was that I had resolved to see Grace before I left these
parts, and yet knew not how to tell it to Elzevir. But on this evening,
seeing the time was grown so short, I knew that I must speak or drop my
purpose, and so spoke.

We were sitting like the sea-birds on the ledge outside our cave, looking
towards St. Alban's Head and watching the last glow of sunset. The
evening vapours began to sweep down Channel, and Elzevir shrugged his
shoulders. 'The night turns chill,' he said, and got up to go back to the
cave. So then I thought my time was come, and following him inside said:

'Dear Master Elzevir, you have watched over me all this while and tended
me kinder than any father could his son; and 'tis to you I owe my life,
and that my leg is strong again. Yet I am restless this night, and beg
that you will give me leave to climb the shaft and walk abroad. It is two
months and more that I have been in the cave and seen nothing but stone
walls, and I would gladly tread once more upon the Down.'

'Say not that I have saved thy life,' Elzevir broke in; ''twas I who
brought thy life in danger; and but for me thou mightst even now be
lying snug abed at Moonfleet, instead of hiding in the chambers of these
rocks. So speak not of that, but if thou hast a mind to air thyself an
hour, I see little harm in it. These wayward fancies fall on men as they
get better of sickness; and I must go tonight to that ruined house of
which I spoke to thee, to fetch a pocket compass Master Ratsey was to put
there. So thou canst come with me and smell the night air on the Down.'

He had agreed more readily than I looked for, and so I pushed the
matter, saying:

'Nay, master, grant me leave to go yet a little farther afield. You know
that I was born in Moonfleet, and have been bred there all my life, and
love the trees and stream and very stones of it. And I have set my heart
on seeing it once more before we leave these parts for good and all. So
give me leave to walk along the Down and look on Moonfleet but this once,
and in this ploughboy guise I shall be safe enough, and will come back to
you tomorrow night'

He looked at me a moment without speaking; and all the while I felt he
saw me through and through, and yet he was not angry. But I turned red,
and cast my eyes upon the ground, and then he spoke:

'Lad, I have known men risk their lives for many things: for gold, and
love, and hate; but never one would play with death that he might see a
tree or stream or stones. And when men say they love a place or town,
thou mayst be sure 'tis not the place they love but some that live there;
or that they loved some in the past, and so would see the spot again to
kindle memory withal. Thus when thou speakest of Moonfleet, I may guess
that thou hast someone there to see--or hope to see. It cannot be thine
aunt, for there is no love lost between ye; and besides, no man ever
perilled his life to bid adieu to an aunt. So have no secrets from me,
John, but tell me straight, and I will judge whether this second
treasure that thou seekest is true gold enough to fling thy life into the
scale against it.'

Then I told him all, keeping nothing back, but trying to make him see
that there was little danger in my visiting Moonfleet, for none would
know me in a carter's dress, and that my knowledge of the place would let
me use a hedge or wall or wood for cover; and finally, if I were seen, my
leg was now sound, and there were few could beat me in a running match
upon the Down. So I talked on, not so much in the hope of convincing him
as to keep saying something; for I durst not look up, and feared to hear
an angry word from him when I should stop. But at last I had spoken all I
could, and ceased because I had no more. Yet he did not break out as I
had thought, but there was silence; and after a moment I looked up, and
saw by his face that his thoughts were wandering. When he spoke there was
no anger in his voice, but only something sad.

'Thou art a foolish lad,' he said. 'Yet I was young once myself, and my
ways have been too dark to make me wish to darken others, or try to chill
young blood. Now thine own life has got a shadow on't already that I have
helped to cast, so take the brightness of it while thou mayst, and get
thee gone. But for this girl, I know her for a comely lass and
good-hearted, and have wondered often how she came to have _him_ for her
father. I am glad now I have not his blood on my hands; and never would
have gone to take it then, for all the evil he had brought on me, but
that the lives of every mother's son hung on his life. So make thy mind
at ease, and get thee gone and see these streams and trees and stones
thou talkest of. Yet if thou'rt shot upon the Down, or taken off to jail,
blame thine own folly and not me. And I will walk with thee to Purbeck
Gates tonight, and then come back and wait. But if thou art not here
again by midnight tomorrow, I shall believe that thou art taken in some
snare, and come out to seek thee.'

I took his hand, and thanked him with what words I could that he had let
me go, and then got on the smock, putting some bread and meat in my
pockets, as I was likely to find little to eat on my journey. It was
dark before we left the cave, for there is little dusk with us, and the
division between day and night sharper than in more northern parts.
Elzevir took me by the hand and led me through the darkness of the
workings, telling me where I should stoop, and when the way was uneven.
Thus we came to the bottom of the shaft, and looking up through ferns
and brambles, I could see the deep blue of the sky overhead, and a great
star gazing down full at us. We climbed the steps with the soap-stone
slide at one side, and then walked on briskly over the springy turf
through the hillocks of the coveted quarry-heaps and the ruins of the
deserted cottages.

There was a heavy dew which got through my boots before we had gone half
a mile, and though there was no moon, the sky was very clear, and I could
see the veil of gossamers spread silvery white over the grass. Neither of
us spoke, partly because it was safer not to speak, for the voice carries
far in a still night on the Downs; and partly, I think, because the
beauty of the starry heaven had taken hold upon us both, ruling our
hearts with thoughts too big for words. We soon reached that ruined
cottage of which Elzevir had spoken, and in what had once been an oven,
found the compass safe enough as Ratsey had promised. Then on again over
the solitary hills, not speaking ourselves, and neither seeing light in
window nor hearing dog stir, until we reached that strange defile which
men call the Gates of Purbeck. Here is a natural road nicking the
highest summit of the hill, with walls as sharp as if the hand of man had
cut them, through which have walked for ages all the few travellers in
this lonely place, shepherds and sailors, soldiers and Excisemen. And
although, as I suppose, no carts have been through it for centuries,
there are ruts in the chalk floor as wide and deep as if the cars of
giants used it in past times.

So here Elzevir stopped, and drawing from his bosom that silver-butted
pistol of which I have spoken, thrust it in my hand. 'Here, take it,
child,' he said, 'but use it not till thou art closely pressed, and then
if thou _must_ shoot, shoot low--it flings.' I took it and gripped his
hand, and so we parted, he going back to Purbeck, and I making along the
top of the ridge at the back of Hoar Head. It must have been near three
when I reached a great grass-grown mound called Culliford Tree, that
marks the resting-place of some old warrior of the past. The top is
planted with a clump of trees that cut the skyline, and there I sat
awhile to rest. But not for long, for looking back towards Purbeck, I
could see the faint hint of dawn low on the sea-line behind St. Alban's
Head, and so pressed forward knowing I had a full ten miles to cover yet.

Thus I travelled on, and soon came to the first sign of man, namely a
flock of lambs being fed with turnips on a summer fallow. The sun was
well up now, and flushed all with a rosy glow, showing the sheep and the
roots they eat white against the brown earth. Still I saw no shepherd,
nor even dog, and about seven o'clock stood safe on Weatherbeech Hill
that looks down over Moonfleet.

There at my feet lay the Manor woods and the old house, and lower down
the white road and the straggling cottages, and farther still the Why
Not? and the glassy Fleet, and beyond that the open sea. I cannot say
how sad, yet sweet, the sight was: it seemed like the mirage of the
desert, of which I had been told--so beautiful, but never to be reached
again by me. The air was still, and the blue smoke of the morning
wood-fires rose straight up, but none from the Why Not? or Manor House.
The sun was already very hot, and I dropped at once from the hill-top,
digging my heels into the brown-burned turf, and keeping as much as might
be among the furze champs. So I was soon in the wood, and made straight
for the little dell and lay down there, burying myself in the wild
rhubarb and burdocks, yet so that I could see the doorway of the Manor
House over the lip of the hill.

Then I reflected what I was to do, or how I should get to speak with
Grace: and thought I would first wait an hour or two, and see whether she
came out, and afterwards, if she did not, would go down boldly and knock
at the door. This seemed not very dangerous, for it was likely, from what
Ratsey had said, that there was no one with her in the house, and if
there was it would be but an old woman, to whom I could pass as a
stranger in my disguise, and ask my way to some house in the village. So
I lay still and munched a piece of bread, and heard the clock in the
church tower strike eight and afterwards nine, but saw no one move in the
house. The wood was all alive with singing-birds, and with the calling of
cuckoo and wood-pigeon. There were deep patches of green shade and
lighter patches of yellow sunlight, in which the iris leaves gleamed with
a sheeny white, and a shimmering blue sea of ground-ivy spread all
through the wood. It struck ten, and as the heat increased the birds sang
less and the droning of the bees grew more distinct, and at last I got
up, shook myself, smoothed my smock, and making a turn, came out on the
road that led to the house.

Though my disguise was good, I fear I made but an indifferent bad
ploughboy when walking, and found a difficulty in dealing with my hands,
not knowing how ploughboys are wont to carry them. So I came round in
front of the house, and gave a rat-tat on the door, while my pulse beat
as loud inside of me as ever did the knocker without. The sound ran round
the building, and backwards among the walks, and all was silent as
before. I waited a minute, and was for knocking again, thinking there
might be no one in the house, and then heard a light footstep coming
along the corridor, yet durst not look through the window to see who it
was in passing, as I might have done, but kept myself close to the door.

The bolts were being drawn, and a girl's voice asked, 'Who is there?' I
gave a jump to hear that voice, knowing it well for Grace's, and had a
mind to shout out my name. But then I remembered there might be some in
the house with her besides, and that I must remain disguised. Moreover,
laughing is so mixed with crying in our world, and trifling things with
serious, that even in this pass I believe I was secretly pleased to have
to play a trick on her, and test whether she would find me out in this
dress or not. So I spoke out in our round Dorset speech, such as they
talk it out in the vale, saying, 'A poor boy who is out of his way.'

Then she opened one leaf of the door, and asked me whither I would go,
looking at me as one might at a stranger and not knowing who it was.

I answered that I was a farm lad who had walked from Purbeck, and sought
an inn called the Why Not? kept by one Master Block. When she heard that,
she gave a little start, and looked me over again, yet could make nothing
of it, but said:

'Good lad, if you will step on to this terrace I can show you the Why
Not? inn, but 'tis shut these two months or more, and Master Block away.'

With that she turned towards the terrace, I following, but when we
were outside of ear-shot from the door, I spoke in my own voice,
quick but low:

'Grace, it is I, John Trenchard, who am come to say goodbye before I
leave these parts, and have much to tell that you would wish to hear. Are
there any beside in the house with you?'

Now many girls who had suffered as she had, and were thus surprised,
would have screamed, or perhaps swooned, but she did neither, only
flushing a little and saying, also quick and low, 'Let us go back to the
house; I am alone.'

So we went back, and after the door was bolted, took both hands and stood
up face to face in the passage looking into one another's eyes. I was
tired with a long walk and sleepless night, and so full of joy to see her
again that my head swam and all seemed a sweet dream. Then she squeezed
my hands, and I knew 'twas real, and was for kissing her for very love;
but she guessed what I would be at, perhaps, and cast my hands loose,
drawing back a little, as if to see me better, and saying, 'John, you
have grown a man in these two months.' So I did not kiss her.

But if it was true that I was grown a man, it was truer still that she
was grown a woman, and as tall as I. And these recent sufferings had
taken from her something of light and frolic girlhood, and left her with
a manner more staid and sober. She was dressed in black, with longer
skirts, and her hair caught up behind; and perhaps it was the mourning
frock that made her look pale and thin, as Ratsey said. So while I looked
at her, she looked at me, and could not choose but smile to see my
carter's smock; and as for my brown face and hands, thought I had been
hiding in some country underneath the sun, until I told her of the
walnut-juice. Then before we fell to talking, she said it was better we
should sit in the garden, for that a woman might come in to help her with
the house, and anyway it was safer, so that I might get out at the back
in case of need. So she led the way down the corridor and through the
living-part of the house, and we passed several rooms, and one little
parlour lined with shelves and musty books. The blinds were pulled, but
let enough light in to show a high-backed horsehair chair that stood at
the table. In front of it lay an open volume, and a pair of horn-rimmed
spectacles, that I had often seen on Maskew's nose; so I knew it was his
study, and that nothing had been moved since last he sat there. Even now
I trembled to think in whose house I was, and half-expected the old
attorney to step in and hale me off to jail; till I remembered how all my
trouble had come about, and how I last had seen him with his face turned
up against the morning sun.

Thus we came to the garden, where I had never been before. It was a great
square, shut in with a brick wall of twelve or fifteen feet, big enough
to suit a palace, but then ill kept and sorely overgrown. I could spend
long in speaking of that plot; how the flowers, and fruit-trees,
pot-herbs, spice, and simples ran all wild and intermixed. The pink brick
walls caught every ray of sun that fell, and that morning there was a
hushed, close heat in it, and a warm breath rose from the strawberry
beds, for they were then in full bearing. I was glad enough to get out of
the sun when Grace led the way into a walk of medlar-trees and quinces,
where the boughs interlaced and formed an alley to a brick summer-house.
This summer-house stands in the angle of the south wall, and by it two
fig-trees, whose tops you can see from the outside. They are well known
for the biggest and the earliest bearing of all that part, and Grace
showed me how, if danger threatened, I might climb up their boughs and
scale the wall.

We sat in the summer-house, and I told her all that had happened at her
father's death, only concealing that Elzevir had meant to do the deed
himself; because it was no use to tell her that, and besides, for all I
knew, he never did mean to shoot, but only to frighten.

She wept again while I spoke, but afterwards dried her tears, and must
needs look at my leg to see the bullet-wound, and if it was all
soundly healed.

Then I told her of the secret sense that Master Ratsey's words put into
the texts written on the parchment. I had showed her the locket before,
but we had it out again now; and she read and read again the writing,
while I pointed out how the words fell, and told her I was going away to
get the diamond and come back the richest man in all the countryside.

Then she said, 'Ah, John! set not your heart too much upon this diamond.
If what they say is true, 'twas evilly come by, and will bring evil with
it. Even this wicked man durst not spend it for himself, but meant to
give it to the poor; so, if indeed you ever find it, keep it not for
yourself, but set his soul at rest by doing with it what he meant to do,
or it will bring a curse upon you.'

I only smiled at what she said, taking it to be a girlish fancy, and did
not tell her why I wanted so much to be rich--namely, to marry her one
day. Then, having talked long about my own concerns as selfishly as a man
always does, I thought to ask after herself, and what she was going to
do. She told me that a month past lawyers had come to Moonfleet, and
pressed her to leave the place, and they would give her in charge to a
lady in London, because, said they, her father had died without a will,
and so she must be made a ward of Chancery. But she had begged them to
let her be, for she could never live anywhere else than in Moonfleet,
and that the air and commodity of the place suited her well. So they went
off, saying that they must take direction of the Court to know whether
she might stay here or not, and here she yet was. This made me sad, for
all I knew of Chancery was that whatever it put hand on fell to ruin, as
witness the Chancery Mills at Cerne, or the Chancery Wharf at Wareham;
and certainly it would take little enough to ruin the Manor House, for it
was three parts in decay already.

Thus we talked, and after that she put on a calico bonnet and picked me a
dish of strawberries, staying to pull the finest, although the sun was
beating down from mid-heaven, and brought me bread and meat from the
house. Then she rolled up a shawl to make me a pillow, and bade me lie
down on the seat that ran round the summer-house and get to sleep, for I
had told her that I had walked all night, and must be back again at the
cave come midnight She went back to the house, and that was the most
sweet and peaceful sleep that ever I knew, for I was very tired, and had
this thought to soothe me as I fell asleep--that I had seen Grace, and
that she was so kind to me.

She was sitting beside me when I awoke and knitting a piece of work. The
heat of the day was somewhat less, and she told me that it was past five
o'clock by the sun-dial; so I knew that I must go. She made me take a
packet of victuals and a bottle of milk, and as she put it into, my
pocket the bottle struck on the butt of Maskew's pistol, which I had in
my bosom. 'What have you there?' she said; but I did not tell her,
fearing to call up bitter memories.

We stood hand in hand again, as we had done in the morning, and she said:
'John, you will wander on the sea, and may perhaps put into Moonfleet.
Though you have not been here of late, I have kept a candle burning at
the window every night, as in the past. So, if you come to beach on any
night you will see that light, and know Grace remembers you. And if you
see it not, then know that I am dead or gone, for I will think of you
every night till you come back again.' I had nothing to say, for my heart
was too full with her sweet words and with the sorrow of parting, but
only drew her close to me and kissed her; and this time she did not step
back, but kissed me again.

Then I climbed up the fig-tree, thinking it safer so to get out over the
wall than to go back to the front of the house, and as I sat on the wall
ready to drop the other side, turned to her and said good-bye.

'Good-bye,' cried she; 'and have a care how you touch the treasure; it
was evilly come by, and will bring a curse with it.'

'Good-bye, good-bye,' I said, and dropped on to the soft leafy bottom
of the wood.




CHAPTER 14

THE WELL-HOUSE

For those thou mayest not look upon
Are gathering fast round the yawning stone--_Scott_


It wanted yet half an hour of midnight when I found myself at the shaft
of the marble quarry, and before I had well set foot on the steps to
descend, heard Elzevir's voice challenging out of the darkness below. I
gave back '_Prosper the Bonaventure',_ and so came home again to sleep
the last time in our cave.

The next night was well suited to flight. There was a spring-tide with
full moon, and a light breeze setting off the land which left the water
smooth under the cliff. We saw the _Bonaventure_ cruising in the Channel
before sundown, and after the darkness fell she lay close in and took us
off in her boat. There were several men on board of her that I knew, and
they greeted us kindly, and made much of us. I was indeed glad to be
among them again, and yet felt a pang at leaving our dear Dorset coast,
and the old cave that had been hospital and home to me for two months.

The wind set us up-Channel, and by daybreak they put us ashore at Cowes,
so we walked to Newport and came there before many were stirring. Such as
we saw in the street paid no heed to us but took us doubtless for some
carter and his boy who had brought corn in from the country for the
Southampton packet, and were about early to lead the team home again.
'Tis a little place enough this Newport, and we soon found the Bugle; but
Elzevir made so good a carter that the landlord did not know him, though
he had his acquaintance before. So they fenced a little with one another.

'Have you bed and victuals for a plain country man and his boy?'
says Elzevir.

'Nay, that I have not,' says the landlord, looking him up and down, and
not liking to take in strangers who might use their eyes inside, and
perhaps get on the trail of the Contraband. ''Tis near the Summer
Statute and the place over full already. I cannot move my gentlemen,
and would bid you try the Wheatsheaf, which is a good house, and not so
full as this.'

'Ay, 'tis a busy time, and 'tis these fairs that make things _prosper_,'
and Elzevir marked the last word a little as he said it.

The man looked harder at him, and asked, 'Prosper what?' as if he were
hard of hearing.

'_Prosper the Bonaventure_,' was the answer, and then the landlord caught
Elzevir by the hand, shaking it hard and saying, 'Why, you are Master
Block, and I expecting you this morn, and never knew you.' He laughed as
he stared at us again, and Elzevir smiled too. Then the landlord led us
in. 'And this is?' he said, looking at me.

'This is a well-licked whelp,' replied Elzevir, 'who got a bullet in the
leg two months ago in that touch under Hoar Head; and is worth more than
he looks, for they have put twenty golden guineas on his head--so have a
care of such a precious top-knot.'

So long as we stopped at the Bugle we had the best of lodging and the
choicest meat and drink, and all the while the landlord treated Elzevir
as though he were a prince. And so he was indeed a prince among the
contrabandiers, and held, as I found out long afterwards, for captain of
all landers between Start and Solent. At first the landlord would take no
money of us, saying that he was in our debt, and had received many a good
turn from Master Block in the past, but Elzevir had got gold from
Dorchester before we left the cave and forced him to take payment. I was
glad enough to lie between clean sweet sheets at night instead of on a
heap of sand, and sit once more knife and fork in hand before a
well-filled trencher. 'Twas thought best I should show myself as little
as possible, so I was content to pass my time in a room at the back of
the house whilst Elzevir went abroad to make inquiries how we could find
entrance to the Castle at Carisbrooke. Nor did the time hang heavy on my
hands, for I found some old books in the Bugle, and among them several to
my taste, especially a _History of Corfe Castle_, which set forth how
there was a secret passage from the ruins to some of the old marble
quarries, and perhaps to that very one that sheltered us.

Elzevir was out most of the day, so that I saw him only at breakfast and
supper. He had been several times to Carisbrooke, and told me that the
Castle was used as a jail for persons taken in the wars, and was now full
of French prisoners. He had met several of the turnkeys or jailers,
drinking with them in the inns there, and making out that he was himself
a carter, who waited at Newport till a wind-bound ship should bring
grindstones from Lyme Regis. Thus he was able at last to enter the Castle
and to see well-house and well, and spent some days in trying to devise a
plan whereby we might get at the well without making the man who had
charge of it privy to our full design; but in this did not succeed.

There is a slip of garden at the back of the Bugle, which runs down to a
little stream, and one evening when I was taking the air there after
dark, Elzevir returned and said the time was come for us to put
Blackbeard's cipher to the proof.

'I have tried every way,' he said, 'to see if we could work this
secretly; but 'tis not to be done without the privity of the man who
keeps the well, and even with his help it is not easy. He is a man I do
not trust, but have been forced to tell him there is treasure hidden in
the well, yet without saying where it lies or how to get it. He promises
to let us search the well, taking one-third the value of all we find, for
his share; for I said not that thou and I were one at heart, but only
that there was a boy who had the key, and claimed an equal third with
both of us. Tomorrow we must be up betimes, and at the Castle gates by
six o'clock for him to let us in. And thou shalt not be carter any more,
but mason's boy, and I a mason, for I have got coats in the house,
brushes and trowels and lime-bucket, and we are going to Carisbrooke to
plaster up a weak patch in this same well-side.'

Elzevir had thought carefully over this plan, and when we left the Bugle
next morning we were better masons in our splashed clothes than ever we
had been farm servants. I carried a bucket and a brush, and Elzevir a
plasterer's hammer and a coil of stout twine over his arm. It was a wet
morning, and had been raining all night. The sky was stagnant, and
one-coloured without wind, and the heavy drops fell straight down out of
a grey veil that covered everything. The air struck cold when we first
came out, but trudging over the heavy road soon made us remember that it
was July, and we were very hot and soaking wet when we stood at the
gateway of Carisbrooke Castle. Here are two flanking towers and a stout
gate-house reached by a stone bridge crossing the moat; and when I saw it
I remembered that 'twas here Colonel Mohune had earned the wages of his
unrighteousness, and thought how many times he must have passed these
gates. Elzevir knocked as one that had a right, and we were evidently
expected, for a wicket in the heavy door was opened at once. The man who
let us in was tall and stout, but had a puffy face, and too much flesh on
him to be very strong, though he was not, I think, more than thirty years
of age. He gave Elzevir a smile, and passed the time of day civilly
enough, nodding also to me; but I did not like his oily black hair, and a
shifty eye that turned away uneasily when one met it.

'Good-morning, Master Well-wright,' he said to Elzevir. 'You have brought
ugly weather with you, and are drowning wet; will you take a sup of ale
before you get to work?'

Elzevir thanked him kindly but would not drink, so the man led on and we
followed him. We crossed a bailey or outer court where the rain had made
the gravel very miry, and came on the other side to a door which led by
steps into a large hall. This building had once been a banquet-room, I
think, for there was an inscription over it very plain in lead: _He led
me into his banquet hall, and his banner over me was love_.

I had time to read this while the turnkey unlocked the door with one of a
heavy bunch of keys that he carried at his girdle. But when we entered,
what a disappointment!--for there were no banquets now, no banners, no
love, but the whole place gutted and turned into a barrack for French
prisoners. The air was very close, as where men had slept all night, and
a thick steam on the windows. Most of the prisoners were still asleep,
and lay stretched out on straw palliasses round the walls, but some were
sitting up and making models of ships out of fish-bones, or building up
crucifixes inside bottles, as sailors love to do in their spare time.
They paid little heed to us as we passed, though the sleepy guards, who
were lounging on their matchlocks, nodded to our conductor, and thus we
went right through that evil-smelling white-washed room. We left it at
the other end, went down three steps into the open air again, crossed
another small court, and so came to a square building of stone with a
high roof like the large dovecots that you may see in old stackyards.

Here our guide took another key, and, while the door was being opened,
Elzevir whispered to me, 'It is the well-house,' and my pulse beat quick
to think we were so near our goal.

The building was open to the roof, and the first thing to be seen in it
was that tread-wheel of which Elzevir had spoken. It was a great open
wheel of wood, ten or twelve feet across, and very like a mill-wheel,
only the space between the rims was boarded flat, but had treads nailed
on it to give foothold to a donkey. The patient beast was lying loose
stabled on some straw in a corner of the room, and, as soon as we came
in, stood up and stretched himself, knowing that the day's work was to
begin. 'He was here long before my time,' the turnkey said, 'and knows
the place so well that he goes into the wheel and sets to work by
himself.' At the side of the wheel was the well-mouth, a dark, round
opening with a low parapet round it, rising two feet from the floor.

We were so near our goal. Yet, were we near it at all? How did we know
Mohune had meant to tell the place of hiding for the diamond in those
words. They might have meant a dozen things beside. And if it was of the
diamond they spoke, then how did we know the well was this one? there
were a hundred wells beside. These thoughts came to me, making hope less
sure; and perhaps it was the steamy overcast morning and the rain, or a
scant breakfast, that beat my spirit down--for I have known men's mood
change much with weather and with food; but sure it was that now we stood
so near to put it to the touch, I liked our business less and less.

As soon as we were entered the turnkey locked the door from the inside,
and when he let the key drop to its place, and it jangled with the others
on his belt, it seemed to me he had us as his prisoners in a trap. I
tried to catch his eye to see if it looked bad or good, but could not,
for he kept his shifty face turned always somewhere else; and then it
came to my mind that if the treasure was really fraught with evil, this
coarse dark-haired man, who could not look one straight, was to become a
minister of ruin to bring the curse home to us.

But if I was weak and timid Elzevir had no misgivings. He had taken the
coil of twine off his arm and was undoing it. 'We will let an end of this
down the well,' he said, 'and I have made a knot in it at eighty feet.
This lad thinks the treasure is in the well wall, eighty feet below us,
so when the knot is on well lip we shall know we have the right depth.' I
tried again to see what look the turnkey wore when he heard where the
treasure was, but could not, and so fell to examining the well.

A spindle ran from the axle of the wheel across the well, and on the
spindle was a drum to take the rope. There was some clutch or fastening
which could be fixed or loosed at will to make the drum turn with the
tread-wheel, or let it run free, and a footbreak to lower the bucket fast
or slow, or stop it altogether.

'I will get into the bucket,' Elzevir said, turning to me, 'and this
good man will lower me gently by the break until I reach the string-end
down below. Then I will shout, and so fix you the wheel and give me time
to search.'

This was not what I looked for, having thought that it was I should go;
and though I liked going down the well little enough, yet somehow now I
felt I would rather do that than have Master Elzevir down the hole, and
me left locked alone with this villainous fellow up above.

So I said, 'No, master, that cannot be; 'tis my place to go, being
smaller and a lighter weight than thou; and thou shalt stop here and help
this gentleman to lower me down.'

Elzevir spoke a few words to try to change my purpose, but soon gave in,
knowing it was certainly the better plan, and having only thought to go