“Ha!  What a big lizard is this?  Your beautiful garments are spoiled.  And the treasure?  Where is it?” The lad was delighted.  He bent double with mirth; he slapped his bare legs and stamped his feet in glee.

O’Reilly grinned good-naturedly, and replaced the planks which had covered the orifice, then hid the rope in some near-by bushes.  On their way back he endured his young friend’s banter absent-mindedly, but as they neared Asensio’s house he startled Jacket by saying, “Can you manage to find a pick-ax or a crowbar?”

Jacket’s eyes opened; he stopped in the middle of the dusty road.  “What did you see down there, compadre?  Tell me.”

“Nothing much.  Just enough to make me want to see more.  Do you think you can steal some sort of a tool for me?”

“I can try.”

“Please do.  And remember, say nothing before Asensio or his wife.”

Rosa met O’Reilly just inside the door, and at sight of her he uttered an exclamation of surprise, for during his absence she had removed the stain from her face and discarded that disfigurement which Evangelina had fitted to her back prior to their departure from the Pan de Matanzas.  She stood before him now, straight and slim and graceful—­the Rosa of his dreams, only very thin, very fragile.  Her poor tatters only enhanced her prettiness, so he thought.

“Rosa dear!  Do you think this is quite safe?” he ventured, doubtfully.

Evangelina, who was bending over her husband, straightened herself and came forward with a smile upon her black face.

“She is beautiful, eh?  Too beautiful to look at?  What did I tell you?”

Rosa was in delightful confusion at O’Reilly’s evident surprise and admiration.  “Then I’m not so altogether changed?” she asked.

“Why, you haven’t changed at all, except to grow more beautiful.  Evangelina is right; you are too beautiful to look at.  But wait!” He drew her aside and whispered, “I’ve been down in the well.”  Some tremor in his voice, some glint in his eyes, caused the girl to seize him eagerly, fiercely.  “I may be wrong,” he said, hurriedly; “there may be nothing in it—­and yet I saw something.”

“What?”

“Wooden beams, timbers of some sort, behind the stone curbing.”  It was plain Rosa did not comprehend, so he hurried on.  “At first I noticed nothing unusual, except that the bottom of the well is nearly dry—­filled up, you know, with debris and stuff that has fallen in from the curbing above, then I saw that although the well is dug through rock, nevertheless it is entirely curbed up with stones laid in mortar.  That struck me as queer.”

“Yes?”

“I noticed, too, in one place that there was wood behind—­as if timbers had been placed there to cover the entrance to a cave.  You know this Cuban rock is full of caverns.”

Rosa clasped her hands, she began to tremble.  “You have found it, O’Reilly.  You have!” she whispered.