“The back of one of the men, the tall fellow in the brown suit, was broad and square—­the back of someone who is familiar to me, only for the moment I can’t recollect whose it resembles.”  She only spoke in a whisper, fearing lest we should be discovered.

I longed to scramble down and rush after the intruders, only the belief that one of them carried a spade and the other an iron bar struck me as curious, while at the same moment my eye caught sight of a portion of the ground below us at the base of the rock which had evidently been recently disturbed.

“It is a spade the man is carrying!” I cried excitedly.  “Look down there!  They’ve just been burying something!”

Her quick eyes followed the direction I indicated, and she answered: 

“I really believe they have concealed something!”

Then when we had allowed the men to get beyond hearing, we both slipped down to the other side of the boulder and there discovered many signs that the earth had been hurriedly excavated and only just replaced.

Quicker than it takes to describe the exciting incident which followed, we broke down the branch of a tree and with it commenced moving the freshly disturbed earth, which was still soft and easily removed.

Muriel found a dead branch in the vicinity, and both of us set to work with a will, eager to ascertain what was hidden there.  That something had certainly been concealed was, to us, quite evident, but what it really was we could not surmise.  The hole they had dug did not seem large enough to admit a human body, yet leaves had been carefully strewn over the place which, if approached from any other point than the high-up one whence we had seen it, would arouse no suspicion that the ground had ever been interfered with.

Digging with a piece of wood was hard and laborious work and it was a long time before we removed sufficient earth to make a hole of any size.  But Muriel exerted all her energy, and both of us worked on in dogged silence full of wonder and anticipation.  With a spade we should have soon been able to investigate, but the earth having apparently been stamped down hard prior to the last covering being put upon it, our progress was very slow and difficult.

At last, a quarter of an hour or so after we had commenced, Muriel, standing in the hole and having dug her stake deeply into the ground, suddenly cried: 

“Look!  Look, Mr. Gregg!  Why—­whatever is that?”

I bent forward as she indicated, and my eyes met an object so unexpected that I was held dumb and motionless.

By what we had succeeded in discovering, the mystery was increased rather than diminished.

I gave vent to an ejaculation of complete bewilderment, and looked blankly into my companion’s face.

The amazing enigma was surely complete!

CHAPTER VII

CONTAINS A SURPRISE