And really when one considers the position it is not wonderful that George was scared.  For they were shut up in the bowels of a place which had for centuries owned the reputation of being haunted, faced by a nodding skeleton of almost superhuman size, and surrounded by various other skeletons all “very fine and large,” while the most violent tempest that had visited the country for years sighed away outside.

“Well,” he said, his teeth chattering, “if this ain’t the masterest one that iver I did see.”  But here he stopped, language was not equal to the expression of his feelings.

Meanwhile Harold, with a heart full of anxiety, was turning the lantern this way and that in the hope of discovering some traces of Sir James’s treasure, but naught could he see.  There to the left the masonry had fallen in.  He went to it and pulled aside some of the stones.  There was a cavity behind, apparently a passage, leading no doubt to the secret entrance to the vault, but he could see nothing in it.  Once more he searched.  There was nothing.  Unless the treasure was buried somewhere, or hidden away in the passage, it was non-existent.

And yet what was the meaning of that jointed skeleton sitting in the stone bath?  It must have been put there for some purpose, probably to frighten would-be plunderers away.  Could he be sitting on the money?  He rushed to the chest and looked through the bony legs.  No, his pelvis rested on the stone bottom of the kist.

“Well, George, it seems we’re done,” said Harold, with a ghastly attempt at a laugh.  “There’s no treasure here.”

“Maybe it’s underneath that there stone corn bin,” suggested George, whose teeth were still chattering.  “It should be here or hereabouts, surely.”

This was an idea.  Helping himself to the shoulder-blade of some deceased hero, Harold, using it as a trowel, began to scoop away the soft sand upon which the stone chest stood.  He scooped and scooped manfully, but he could not come to the bottom of the kist.

He stepped back and looked at it.  It must be one of two things—­either the hollow at the top was but a shallow cutting in a great block of stone, or the kist had a false bottom.

He sprang at it.  Seizing the giant skeleton by the spine, he jerked it out of the kist and dropped it on one side in a bristling bony heap.  Just as he did so there came so furious a gust of wind that, buried as they were in the earth, they literally felt the mound rock beneath it.  Instantly it was followed by a frightful crash overhead.

George collapsed in terror, and for a moment Harold could not for the life of him think what had happened.  He ran to the hole and looked up.  Straight above him he could see the sky, in which the first cold lights of dawn were quivering.  Mrs. Massey’s summer-house had been blown bodily away, and the “ancient British Dwelling Place” was once more open to the sky, as it had been for centuries.