“Hear that noise?” John said, in a satisfied voice. “I told you there would be a river! Now what have we come to?”
The ground had ceased to slope downwards, and the passage suddenly widened. The sweep of John’s lantern failed to discover the walls, and when he turned it upwards it only dimly illuminated the roof.
“We must have reached the main cavern. Jupiter, what a place! Stay where you are. I want to find how big it is, and whether it leads on farther still.” He moved to one side as he spoke, playing the lantern before him. In a moment it lit up the rock-face, jagged and gleaming. Chirk, standing at the entrance to the huge chamber, watched it travel on, and then swing round to light the wall opposite to where he stood. A black cavity yawned, and the Captain said, his words resounding eerily: “I’ve found another passage!”
“I see you have,” replied Chirk.
To his secret relief, the Captain moved on, and presently rounded the corner of the chamber, and began to make his way slowly back towards the entrance, his lantern playing all over the rock-face. “Chirk, this is a wonderful place!” he declared. “Come over here! The rock’s honeycombed with galleries above our heads! I wish we had a ladder! There’s no reaching them without one!”
“I don’t doubt you’d like to go crawling along a lot of galleries,” said Chirk tartly, walking towards him, and gazing up with revulsion, “but we’ve got no call to do so, because if there ain’t no ladder here it stands to reason no one—” He broke off, with a startled oath, almost losing his balance, as his foot came up against some obstacle. He recovered it, and brought the beam of his lantern downwards. His voice changed; he said with careful calm: “Never mind the galleries! Just you come over here, Soldier!”
John turned. “What—” Then he too stopped abruptly, for Chirk was holding the storm-lantern high, and by its golden light he saw a number of corded chests ranged along the side of the cavern. “Good God!” he ejaculated.
Three or four strides brought him up to Chirk, who, finding one chest standing on end, set his lantern down on it, and said: “That’s a coach-wheel I owe you. Lordy, I’d have laid you any odds there’d be nothing here! But what the devil’s in them?”
The Captain was on his knee, closely scrutinizing one of the chests. “Chirk!” he said, rather oddly. “Unless I’m much mistaken—this is an official seal!”
“What?” demanded Chirk, so sharply that his voice seemed to echo round the cavern. He too dropped on his knee, staring at the red seal over the knot of the cord. Then he rose, and ran his eyes over the other chests. “Six of ’em, and all alike!” he said softly, and whistled. “Small—” he bent and with an effort lifted the end of one—”but remarkable heavy!”
“The seal’s been broken on this one, and—yes, the lock’s been forced!” John said, pausing beside a chest which had been set down upon another. “Well!—let us see what’s inside it!”
He put his lantern down on another of the chests, and set to work to untie the knot. The cord fell away, and he lifted the lid. The chest was packed with neat little bags, and the chink of metal as John picked one up was not needed to tell him what these must contain. He untied the string about its neck, plunged in his hand, and drew out a fistful of yellow coins, and held them in the lantern-light, staring down at them.
“Wansbeck ford!” Chirk cried, after a stunned minute. “That’s why I know the name! Lord, what a clunch, what a totty-headed dummy! How could I have been such a beetlehead as to have forgot it?”
John looked up at him. “What has Wansbeck ford to do with this?”
Chirk was breathing rather rapidly. “Don’t you never read the newspapers, Soldier?”
“I do, yes, but not with any particular attention in these peaceful times. Tell me what I should have read and did not!”
“A couple o’ sennights back—a Government coach, bound for Manchester!” uttered Chirk jerkily. “Took the wrong fork somewhere short of a place called Ashbourne—matter of twenty-five to thirty miles south-west of here. It was after dark, and seemingly a lonesome stretch o’ country. By what I read, it was as clever a hold-up as I ever heard of! ’Cos what did they do? They—”
“Changed the two arms of the signpost!”
“You did read about it!”
“No. Go on!”
“Well, it’s like you said. That’s what they did. By God, they had it planned bang-up! There ain’t so much as a cottage within half a mile of this ford, and there’s a steepish drop down to it, and up t’other side, and woods either side of the lane. The coach was set on when it was pulling out of the stream. There was two guards shot dead afore they could aim their barkers. The driver, and another man with him, which was at the horses’ heads at the time, was found gagged and trussed up like cackling-cheats next morning. The coach had been broke open, and not a chest left inside of it.” He paused, and wiped the back of his hand across his brow.
“And you’re telling me it was Henry Stornaway and Coate which did it? Lord love me, I don’t know when I’ve been so flabbergasted! But—what do they want to leave ’em here for? There’s only one been opened, and there ain’t nothing gone from it, by the looks of it! I see it would queer anyone to know where to stack all these chests, but what I don’t see is why they’ve took none of the gelt away! Well! They say as it’s an ill wind as blows no one any good! Here, let’s see if there’s Yellow Goblins in all these bags!”
“They are not Yellow Goblins.”
Chirk looked sharply at him, struck by an odd note in his voice. “What? You’re not going to tell me they’re counterfeit? With that seal on the cases?”
“Not counterfeit, but not guineas. Take a look!”
Chirk stared down at the coins in John’s hand. He picked one up, to inspect it more closely, and said: “Danged if I ever see one of them before, but they’re gold all right and tight, and new-minted! What are they, Soldier?”
“Do you never read the newspapers? They are the new coins—the sovereigns which are to replace the guineas!”
“Are they?” Chirk turned the piece he was holding over, regarding it with interest. “They’re the first I’ve seen.” He added, with a grin: “Ah, well, I won’t quarrel over the odd shillings! Lord love us, there must be thirty or forty thousand pounds in these cases! And to think if it hadn’t been for Rose I wouldn’t have come along with you today! No more rank-riding! A snug farm—and never did I think to see the day!”
He thrust his hand into the chest as he spoke, and would have lifted out of it another of the bags had not the Captain caught his wrist, and held it. “Put that down! You’ll take none of this money, Chirk!”
An ugly look came into Chirk’s eyes. He said: “Won’t I? Take care, Soldier!”
John let him go. “If that’s the mind you’re in, draw your pistol, and add me to the men who have been murdered for this gold!”
Chirk flushed, and growled: “Ah, have done! You know I wouldn’t do that! But you can’t stop me taking some of it! There’ll never come such a chance again! It’s all very well for a well-breeched cove like you to stick to pound dealing, but—”
“Pound dealing! Ay, that’s just what this is!” John interrupted, with a short laugh. “These are pounds, not the old guineas! You fool, don’t you see why the chests have been stored here, and not a sovereign taken from them? This is the most perilous treasure that was ever stolen! One of these coins would send you to the gallows! Take a bag of them, and try if you can buy your farm with them! Try if there’s a fence alive who will give you flimsies in exchange for them! I’ll come to see you hanged! This coinage was only minted this summer: none of it’s in circulation yet! That’s why it has been stored in this place! I should doubt whether it would be safe to touch it under a year.”