Charge! Part 24

"Yonder, sir. Goes back a bit, and then turns up. You can see the light shining down."

"Yes," I said, as we stepped close up to the supposed altar; "that must have been a chimney."

"That's right enough," said Denham sharply. "Burnt sacrifices, of course. This place was covered in once, and that chimney was to carry off the smoke. But there, let's get on. We're not finding water. Is it dark through this doorway?"

Inspection proved that it was rather dark; but the absence of stones in the roof enabled us to see our way without a match. At the end of ten feet of narrow pa.s.sage, whose floor was very much scored and broken up, there was a square opening similar to that which we had pa.s.sed before entering the so-called temple.

"I shouldn't be surprised if that hole communicates with the first," I said.

"Pretty well sure to," said Denham. "Here, sergeant, fetch one of those square bits of stone that lay by the other."

Briggs stepped back, and returned with a curious-looking and roughly squared piece of stone, handing it to Denham for throwing down; but as he took it I checked him.

"Don't throw that," I said; "it has been chiselled out, and is curious. It may show who the people were that did all this."

"Humph! Maybe," said Denham. "Take it back, Sergeant, and bring us another."

Briggs went back and fetched another block.

"This here's the same, sir," he said, "and cut out deeper, as if to fit on something."

"Yes, that's more perfect," I said. "Throw the first one down."

"Seems a pity," said Denham, looking first at one block and then the other. "They are curious; why, they look as if some one had tried to chisel out a hand-barrow on a flat piece of stone."

"Yes, sir," said Briggs gruffly, "or one o' them skates' eggs we used to find on the seash.o.r.e at home in Mount's Bay."

"Look here," I said, kicking at the flooring and loosening a shaley piece of stone about as big as my hand; "I'll throw this down."

I pitched the piece into the darkness below, and we listened for it to strike, but listened in vain for a few seconds, and then:

Plosh!

"Water!" I cried. "Why, we've found the well."

"Hurrah!" cried Denham; "well done us!" and he stepped back to where I had kicked out the piece of broken stone, and was about to throw another piece down, when, as the light from above fell upon it, I s.n.a.t.c.hed it from his hand.

"Don't do that," he cried angrily. "I want to judge how deep the place is."

"Don't throw that," I said huskily.

"Why not?"

"It isn't a well."

"What is it, then?"

"Look at this piece of stone," I said, and I held the under part upward so that the light fell upon two or three scale-like grains and a few fine yellowish-green threads which ran through it. "It's an ancient mine, and this is gold."

"Right!" cried Denham excitedly. "Then that old place back there with the chimney is the old smelting-furnace."

"Right you are, gentlemen," cried Briggs, slapping his thigh; "and I know what those two hand-barrow stones are. I've seen one like 'em before."

"What?" I said eagerly.

"Moulds, sir, as the old people used to pour the melted stuff in. They used to do it near my old home in Cornwall, only the metal there was tin."

Chapter Eighteen.

The Old Folks Work.

"Then this isn't a well, after all," said Denham, who seemed struck with wonderment.

"No," I said excitedly, as all kinds of Aladdin-like ideas connected with wealth began to run through my mind; "but there's water in it, and it will serve us as a well."

"Yes, of course," cried Denham. "I say, you two have made a discovery." Then he lit a match, got it well in a blaze, and let it drop down the square shaft, when it kept burning till, at about a hundred feet below us, it went out with a faint hiss, which told that it had reached the water.

"It'll do for a well, sir," said Briggs; "and I wouldn't mind getting down it at the end of a rope. I've done it before now, when a well's been rather doubtful, and we've had to burn flares down it to start the foul air. That hole's as clear as can be."

"How do you know?" said Denham.

"By the way that match burned till it reached the water, sir. If the air down there had been foul it would have been put out before it reached the surface."

"But there will be no need for you to go down, sergeant," I said. "We can reach the water with a few tether ropes."

"To get the water-yes, my lad," said the sergeant, with a queer s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up of his face; "but I was thinking about the gold."

"Oh, we've no time to think of gold," said Denham shortly. "But I say, Val, isn't this all a mistake? Who could have built such a place and worked for gold-making a mine like this?"

"I don't know," I said, "unless it was the ancient traders who used to go to Cornwall in their ships to get tin."

"What! the Phoenicians?" said Denham.

"Yes," I said. "They were big builders too. They built Tyre and Sidon."

"Val," cried my companion, slapping me on the shoulder, "you've hit it right on the head. They were the builders. We know they went to Scilly and Cornwall for tin. They must have come here for gold."

"Oh no," I said. "They could sail from Tyre and Sidon, keeping within sight of land all the way along the Mediterranean, through the Straits of Gibraltar, and then up the coasts of Spain and France, and across to our country; but they couldn't sail here."

"Well, not all the way; but I can recollect enough of the map to know that they'd most likely have ships at the top of the Red Sea, and could coast down from there till they got somewhere about Delagoa Bay or Durban, and gradually travel across country till they got here."

"Rather a long walk," I said.

"Long walk? Of course; but it was done by the people in the course of hundreds of years perhaps-settlers who came into the country after its products. There, I believe it, and we must have made a find. Here, come back and let's have a look at the old furnace and chimney."

We went back, and were soon satisfied that we had the right idea. On further examination we found that some of the stones were calcined, and at a touch crumbled into exceedingly fine dust; while one corner at the back-below the chimney opening, where it was a good deal broken-showed signs of intense heat, the face of one angle being completely glazed, the stone being melted into a kind of slag like volcanic gla.s.s.