“The summer-house has gone, George,” he said.  “Thank goodness that we were not in it, or we should have gone too.”

“Oh, Lord, sir,” groaned the unhappy George, “this is an awful business.  It’s like a judgment.”

“It might have been if we had been up above instead of safe down here,” he answered.  “Come, bring that other lantern.”

George roused himself, and together they bent over the now empty kist, examining it closely.

The stone bottom was not of quite the same colour as the walls of the chest, and there was a crack across it.  Harold felt in his pocket and drew out his knife, which had at the back of it one of those strong iron hooks that are used to extract stones from the hoofs of horses.  This hook he worked into the crack and managed before it broke to pull up a fragment of stone.  Then, looking round, he found a long sharp flint among the rubbish where the wall had fallen in.  This he inserted in the hole and they both levered away at it.

Half of the cracked stone came up a few inches, far enough to allow them to get their fingers underneath it.  So it was a false bottom.

“Catch hold,” gasped the Colonel, “and pull for your life.”

George did as he was bid, and setting their knees against the hollowed stone, they tugged till their muscles cracked.

“It’s a-moving,” said George.  “Now thin, Colonel.”

Next second they both found themselves on the flat of their backs.  The stone had given with a run.

Up sprang Harold like a kitten.  The broken stone was standing edgeways in the kist.  There was something soft beneath it.

“The light, George,” he said hoarsely.

Beneath the stone were some layers of rotten linen.

Was it a shroud, or what?

They pulled the linen out by handfuls.  One! two! three!

Oh, great heaven!

There, under the linen, were row on row of shining gold coins set edgeways.

For a moment everything swam before Harold’s eyes, and his heart stopped beating.  As for George, he muttered something inaudible about its being a “master one,” and collapsed.

With trembling fingers Harold managed to pick out two pieces of gold which had been disturbed by the upheaval of the stone, and held them to the light.  He was a skilled numismatist, and had no difficulty in recognising them.  One was a beautiful three-pound piece of Charles I., and the other a Spur Rial of James I.

That proved it.  There was no doubt that this was the treasure hidden by Sir James de la Molle.  He it must have been also who had conceived the idea of putting a false bottom to the kist and setting up the skeleton to frighten marauders from the treasure, if by any chance they should enter.

For a minute or two the men stood staring at each other over the great treasure which they had unearthed in that dread place, shaking with the reaction of their first excitement, and scarcely able to speak.