Then said Monday, “What say you now of your quest, Crusoe?  Don’t you think it’s all moonshine, or rather (wiping the perspiration from his brow) sunshine and shadow?”

I was fain to confess that it did seem like it, but asked,

“Will you help me dig to a depth of ten feet from the surface? and if nothing gives indication of what we are in search, I will then give up.”

“What, dig down ten feet, and be buried alive in this crumbling grave?  Just look at it, it is ready even now to tumble its sides in upon us.”

“Well, but,” persisted I, “let us shore it up as we go down.”

“Very well then,” he rejoined, “but I bargain for one hour’s rest before we delve further, and here goes for a swim.”

Then climbing up our improvised ladder away he went to the beach, whither “Begum” and I quickly followed, and in five minutes we, who had been so lately in a grave, were swimming about in the deliriously cool water, dog and men thoroughly enjoying the exhilarating reaction.

Our bathe being over, we strolled up to the house, and made another attack upon Adam and Eve, and this time finished them; they were delicious.  As Monday would have his full sixty minutes’ cessation, just as Shylock would have his pound of flesh, we smoked the rest of the time away, and then resumed our labours.

We first took the precaution to shore up the sides of our pit with stout pieces of wreckage and any other wood we could find, for fear of a landslip, which might have resulted in serious if not fatal consequences to us.

Before we had dug ten minutes my spade struck on something hard and hollow, which quite startled us; but clearing the mould away from the spot, I soon discovered the impediment to be a kind of wooden floor.  This we quickly cleared, and found it covered a space about four feet by three.  As we lifted the first piece with great expectancy, we found it was oak, about two inches thick, and very little the worse for its long burial, as the surrounding soil was dry.

We looked into the narrow aperture left by the taking out of the oaken plank, but could see nothing, as the depth of our pit made it somewhat dark at the bottom, so I knelt down, and thrust my hand through the opening and felt about.  Presently I felt something hard, like a bundle of sticks, and with a tug drew them through the opening, only to drop them the next minute with a cry of horror, for it was a skeleton’s hand that came to view in my grasp.

We looked at each other in dismay, as if to say,

“How awful! what shall we do now?”

Then we paused, and looked at each other again, till I broke out with,

“There, Alec, your prophecy has come true, I have ’shaken hands with a shadow,’ or what is very near it—­a skeleton.  What shall we do next?”

“Had we not better take up the flooring and see if we have come simply upon a grave or what else is beneath us?”