THE LORRY LADY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 62, 22 December 1945, Page 7

THE LORRY LADY

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(Copyright). >•

BY EARDLEY BESWICK. f

CHAPTER XVI.

A CHAMBER WITH A WELL This time he succeeded in scrambling into the pit while he lit the lamp, and before he had time to assist her. At the darker end its waxing light displayed pick and shovel, a couple of long chisels like, short crowbars and, above where these encumbered the ground, a ragged hole in the stonework. He insisted on levering out still a few more stones to make the orifice easy for her and safe; but at last he projected the lamp so that its light illuminated a low dark passage that obviously ran downwards somewhat. sharply. She crouched beside him as he let the light fall on the damp rough walls. “We’re alright,” he commented. “This is definitely older work.” Then he clambered through. Madie followed a little breathlessly. She had a queer choking sensation although the air was relatively sweet. Only the sad, damp odour of ancient stonework and the under-earth enveloped them. He sniffed from to time audibly. “There must be ventilation of some sort,” he concluded. The way was so low and steep that they had to crouch and to place their feet with care.

Presently it began to bend. Their light only illuminated a wedge-shaped space before them. Carrow remarked that they were getting somewhere. He was examining the walls at every step so that their progress was slower than even the natux-e ol their path demanded, but of a sudden he swung the lamp upwards to reveal a rough stone pillar rising out of a heap of earth and apparently supporting a rude arch. He examined it carefully while Madie silently adjured him to go on. She had little sympathy with his detached scientific attitude. She wanted to get somewhere, though where she was far from attempting to imagine. She could see very little because of his bulk filling the passage, before her, and it was with a very definite exasperation that she listened to him saying: “I’m afraid we shall have to dig some of this away before we can go any furthex*. It looks as if we were at the foot of some stairs. They turned and made their way back to the entrance.

The light shone on their faces, his thoughtful and concentrated -as if lie attacked a problem, hers avid with suppressed excitement. “You seem to be getting quite a kick out of it,” he said teasingly.

3he laughed. “I think it’s the most exciting business I ever took part in,” she declared.

“Interesting, certainly, but hardly as exciting as last night’s little struggle,” he replied as he gathered the spade and pick.' “The thing that puzzles me is that though we’re obviously deep there seems no lack of ventilation.” The reference to the previous night had made her suddenly apprehensive. She stepped to the opening and called quietly to Shandy. It. was reassuring to hear the animal’s eager whine and short sharp barking as he danged impatiently, dragging his tether. Carrow called to her to come and once more he kept stopping to determine their directions by means of a pocket compass, and counted steps between each observation. When they reached the earth that barred their way he laid down his tools and made some notes in his pocket-book. To-rnor-row, he told her, he would trace out the course of the passage on the above ground. From what he could determinte, they must be somewhere about the spot he had already selected as being the site of the original keep, and the evidences of the stonework seemed to confirm him. “If I am right, < we probably shan’t he able to get any further,” he argued. “The rest will have been filled in.” His words disappointed her, damping her excitement. But when he had dug for some minutes, throwing the earth back towards Maidie’s feet and spreading it so as not to block their return, he suddenly announced that there seemed to be quite a lot of room in front. This was evidently only a talus of earth that had choked a stairway from above, he explained pedantically.. Madie did not mind what it was or how he described it, all her excitement had flared up again at the prospect, of further exploration. He had to dig hard for some twenty minutes before he was able to decide that they could pass in safety. Then he took the lamp from her and scram-

bled forward over the earth that still filled the bottom of the passage. Beyond him it continued to curve to the right, but on the other side of the wider space into which he had now penetrated .was an arched doorway. “I was right. It’s the keep,” he said, as Madie joined him. “It looks as if it had been, a circular keep, and the main chamber ought to be through that opening. If we can get in it’s going to be interesting.” They got in, and the sudden change from their cramped situation to the immensity of a great low-vaulted chamber gave Madie a sense of awe as of one who comes alone at night into the nave of a vast church. Their light hardly penetrated the whole space but it showed them the shafts of five great squat pillars, arranged centrally, from whose tops the vaulting sprang. I “it almost makes you teel afraid, i she whispered, for she found it hard ]to speak naturally in the silence of , Ithat place, and at that he took her firmly by the arm and piloted her

slowly round the outer wail. “It does sort of caUty your breath, he admitted. But it was evident that his own feelings were subordinated to an intense technical interest. “This is unique!” he insisted excitedly. ‘‘Nearly everywhere else that I’ve seen they are roofed with timbers. If it hadn’t been for the vaulting this place would have been fiHed in ages ago and I should have had enough digging for a gang of navies only to get the walls clear. Let’s have a look at the middle. There ought to be a wall there. The strongest part of the place was generally built so as to protect the water supply and it. was also one of the deepest so that they wouldn't have so far to i hoist the water.” There was a well, an unprotected circular opening in the precise centre of the floor, that yawned ghastily like a black silent month. Sh'e pulled nervously at his arm as he attempted to hold the lamp well out over its blackness. For her all the terror of

the place seemed to focus in that blackness. It made her imagine figures lurking in the deep shadow o£ the ancient pillars, lurking as if for the chance of rushing them over its abrupt edge.. She began to feel desperate. “I should like to get out if you don’t mind. I don’t think I can stand much more of this sort of thing,” she said at last, refraining from adding that if she had stay there much longer she would be forced to scream.

Though evidently reluctant to leave he took, her arm once more. "Alright, we’ll go. Come along, Jady! It is a bit on the eerie side, I’ll admit. But it will be a first class sensation for my monograph, .1 can assure you. I shall have every archaeologist in England here.” “WE’VE REMOVED THE TREASURE”

Thev had traversed more than half the return path before they became aware of a noise of wild barking from wjthout. Shandy was evidently resenting an intrusion. From the entrance pit Carrow called to him to be silent. The dog obediently reduced bis protest to a menacing growl.. "That’s a very dangerous animal you’ve got hold of, Mr 'Carrow. very dangerous I can assure you. If I am not mistaken it is the same one that was responsible for poor Stone’s recent discomfort. I should advise you to have him destroyed immediately.” Mr Sant’s calmly disapproving tones sounded across the dusk with an incongruous effect of urbanity. "Older he shot. Dyngerous, that’s wot ‘ee is,” seconded Mr Stone. "E’s ’ad one dite,” lie added as an afterthought.. "Sorry you don’t like him,” answered Carrow briskly, “hut you must admit he can be useful—for instance he keeps people from monkeying with the jack.”

"1 take exception both to the remark and to the precaution, hut we will wave that. If one may judge from the length of your absence, you have penetrated some considerable way this time, Carrow.” "Rather and you might as well know that, we’ve already removed the treasure.” Carrow was evidently disposed to be jocular. “Removed it?” cried Mr Stone in a voice not entirely of disbelief. "Certainly. Miss Scaife has already taken two loads away with her, and there isn’t any left so I warn;you that from now on you will he wasting your time.” He was busily releasing the jack as he spoke, and paused to look up at Madie with a grin. "Would you mind unloosing Shandy while I get this thing out,” he asked. "It’s time the poor beast had a run.” It pleased her to enter into the spirit of his mischief and she began to untie the rope where it was knotted against the bush. - Mr Stone was already moving slowly away, his head half-turned as if to anticipate an attack from the rear. His superior, on the contrary moved carefully around the ambit of their danger until he came to where, behind the stone, the lamplight caught his face. His lips were working wrily. His eyes blazed, out of shadowed hollows. Clearly he was wrought beyond his small measure of sanity. He bent his incongruous head slowly forward over the descending stone in the attitude of one about to speak weightily and quietly. Then he screamed at Carrow, a maniacal scream. Madie felt terrified but the archaeologist finished ’liis task and removed the jack as carefully as if it had been a specimen of ancient pottery. “That’s a nasty noise to make,” lie remarked casually. The effect of his calmness on Mr Sant was immediate. He straightened and raised one hand as if he were appealing for silence before a class of students. "Allow me to tell you that I consider you have acted in a most unsportsmanlike manner, Carrow, and to remind you of two things. First that I am a tenacious man, and second that I once condescended to make you an offer,” v With that he strode off after his companion, a grotesque figure that faded sombrely into the dusk.

Carrow picked up the jack and the various implements of his search. /‘Quite mad,” he said airily. “Funny how he bit on to that bit of kidding about treasure. Shows the way the ■wind blows in his cranium, eh?” She agreed a little uncertainly. In. spite of herself, Mr Stone had impressed hex*. "He’s dangerous though,” she insisted and then asked thoughtfully if it would be safe to release the dog.

They went slowly up to the camp, Shandy scampering about them wild with liberty. It was not until she got there that she remembered the time. It was already half-past seven. In her mind she was at once resigned to spending another night there, .but pride caused her to act as if it were her intention to resume her journey. “If youfil bring the jack down to my lorry,” she isuggested, “I’ll see about making a. start.”

“How far is it?” “About 150 miles.” “You ought to -get there my about 2 *a.m.”

“With any sort of luck before that.” He picked up the jack and bore it off down the hill. They had reached the lorry before she spoke again and she was beginning to nerve herself for the drive.

- “Do you actually want to drive half the night?” he asked. “Not particularly, but —” “Then there aren’t any buts. I thought you were beginning to enjoy sleeping out.” Beginning to enjoy it! It seemed to her that she had enjoyed it from the first.

He stowed the jack, walked carefully round the lorry to assure-himself that it stood safely on the verge, then turned towards the gate.

“Come along, silly,” he said. “I’ve laid in enough supper for two.”

A couple of hours later she called out from her blankets. “Doesn’t it seem obvious,” she said, “that that awful man has got an idea about there being treasure of some kind down there? I wonder if one of them has been doing a burglary—Pop looks just the sort. Perhaps he’s been in gaol fpv it and it now trying to recover the spoils.”

“You forget that it is obviously certain that no one but us has penetrater beyond the first pit for at least three hundred years. If he’d hidden the proceeds of a burglary it must have been in the pit and we should have it in no time. No, if you ask me, the idea has arrived in Sant’s brain from having watched me exploring. His mind is essentially schoolboyish in spite of his pedantic affections. Anyway, you can take it from me that there is about as much chance of treasure of any kind down there as there is of Aztec remains. Better put that out of your head and go to sleep. Sant’s just, a harmless nuisance. Goodnight.”

(To be continued.)