“No, no, I’ve found nothing yet.  But I’ve sent Jacket for a pick or a bar and to-night I’m going to pull down those stones and see what is behind them.”

“To-night?  You must let me go, too.  I want to help.”

“Very well.  But meanwhile you mustn’t let your hopes rise too high, for there is every chance that you will be disappointed.  And don’t mention it to Evangelina.  Now then, I’ve a few pennies left and I’m going to buy some candles.”

Rosa embraced her lover impulsively.  “Something tells me it is true!  Something tells me you are going to save us all.”

Evangelina in the far corner of the hut muttered to her husband:  “Such love-birds!  They are like parrakeets, forever kissing and cooing!”

Jacket returned at dusk and with him he brought a rusty three-foot iron bar, evidently part of a window grating.  The boy was tired, disgusted, and in a vile temper.  “A pick-ax!  A crowbar!” He cursed eloquently.  “One might as well try to steal a cannon out of San Severino.  I’m ready to do anything within reason, but—­”

“Why, this will do nicely; it is just what I want,” O’Reilly told him.

“Humph!  I’m glad to hear it, for that rod was nearly the death of me.  I broke my back wrenching at it and the villain who owned the house—­may a bad lightning split him!—­he ran after me until I nearly expired.  If my new knife had been sharp I would have turned and sent him home with it between his ribs.  To-morrow I shall put an edge on it.  Believe me, I ran until my lungs burst.”

Little food remained in the hut, barely enough for Asensio and the women, and inasmuch as O’Reilly had spent his last centavo for candles he and Jacket were forced to go hungry again.  Late that evening, after the wretched prison quarters had grown quiet, the three treasure-hunters stole out of their hovel and wound up the hill.  In spite of their excitement they went slowly, for none of them had the strength to hurry.  Fortunately, there were few prowlers within the lines, hunger having robbed the reconcentrados of the spirit to venture forth, and in consequence Spanish vigilance had relaxed; it was now confined to the far-flung girdle of intrenchments which encircled the city.  The trio encountered no one.

Leaving Jacket on guard at the crest of the hill, O’Reilly stationed Rosa at the mouth of the well, then lowered himself once more into it.  Lighting his candle, he made a careful examination of the place, with the result that Esteban’s theory of the missing riches seemed even less improbable than it had earlier in the day.  The masonry-work, he discovered, had been done with a painstaking thoroughness which spoke of the abundance of slave labor, and time had barely begun to affect it.  Here and there a piece of the mortar had loosened and come away, but for the most part it stood as solid as the stones between which it was laid.  Shoulder-high to O’Reilly there appeared to be a section of the curbing less smoothly fitted than the rest, and through an interstice in this he detected what seemed to be a damp wooden beam.  At this point he brought his iron bar into play.