Treasure At Ten Elms

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXXI, 14 September 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

Treasure At Ten Elms

(Continued from last week.) At last! Xear tlie top of the main .portion of tlie trunk there was quite a large opening—big enough for Geoff to get his head and shoulders through. "I say, Barry," he said, "if we had a rope here I could let you down inside the tree. You're smaller than I am. Are you game," ''Rather!" I answered. "Let's go back to the house and get a length of rope and soma matches, too. This promises to be a bit exciting, I think!" So wo scrambled down from the old elm tree and fetched a coil of strong rope which was hanging on a peg in the oirthouse. Then we bagged a box of matches and a candle from the kitchen, and went back to the tree. When we had climbed up to the opening in the trunk, Geoff fixed the rope firmly round me, tying it under the arms, and then putting the end of it over a strong branch, so that he could lever me up or down fairly easily. I put the candle and matches in r?\y pocket, and then, very slowly and cautiously, scrambled through the opening and began to make the descent. Ib was pretty dnrk and stuffy inside that old tree, and bits of twig and bark kept falling on me, and catching in my hair and clothes. But I kept on, helped considerably by the rope which Geoff was holding, and at last I could feel something solid beneath my feet. Now! I pulled out the box of matches and lighted one quickly. What was it I was standing on? Not earth, certainly! Bother! The match had gone out. I lighted another and then the candle. It cast a flickering light all round me and on the brown, worm-eaten wood, but I didn't stop to notice that. I stooped with the candle in my hand to see what lay beneath my feet. I was standing on the topmost of three heavy iron boxes, each of • which was about 18 inches square. TJicy were pretty old and rusty-looking, and there was still a piece of the cord attached to the one on which I was standing-that had been used to let it down into the hollow tree. "Well?" called out Geoff, and I could see his eager face peering in at the hole far above my head. "It's a find!" T answered. "There are three jolly interesting-looking metal boxes down here, and if I'm not mistaken I should say your uncle must have put them there!" "Whew!" whistled Geoff. "I say, Harry, tliis is a find, and no mistake. What shall we do? Shall I pull yon up now?" "Why not go and tell vonr father first?" I said. "Then come back and bring more rope with you. If you let down unother length to me I could fasten it 011 to these boxes, one at a time, and you could draw them up. But do buck up!" I shouted, as I heard Geoff already beginning to scramble down the tree. "I don't want to stay here too long. It's awfully stuffy, anil fijll of insects, loo." "All right," cried Geoff. "I'll be back in less than five minutes." He was as good as his word, and in a very short space of time T could hear Major Farrell's voice, and also that of the gardener, Fergusson.

"That'll bo beet, sir," Fergusson was paying. "I'll swarni up that there tree ii) no time, an' let down' the rope to the? young master what's down there." • So up he went, niul soon his face was peering in at the opening through which OeofF had been looking such a short time before. "Be ye all right?" he asked. "Yes, quite. Let's have the rone, and then you can soon pull Up these ooxes." In another minute the ojid of a stout rope came hurtling dowp, and I knotted it firmly round the box on which I was standing, and through the pietal handles which it had at either end of it. Then I stepped down on to the edge of the box beneath it, and called up, "Heaveho!" Fergusson pulled with a will, and up, up, up, went the old box, rattling against the trunk as it rose, and sending showers of mouldy bits of wood down on to iny shoulders. Then I saw the gardener's brown, muscular arms as lie drew it through the opening, and ip another • minute down came the rope again. : <s>

I fixed it round the second box, and when that had been drawn up, I knotted it round the third, and soon that one also had disappeared from view. "There's nothing else down here," 1 called, when 1 had had a good look round by the light of the candle. "Then up you come, young sir," said Fergusson, and he pulled steadily on the rope which was fastened round me, until at last I, too, had reached the opening in the old hollow trunk, and was being helped out through it by the gardener's strong arms. "Well done!" said Major Farrcll, as I slid to the ground once more. "You have done us a very good turn to-day, my boy, if I am not mistaken!" Meanwhile Fergusson was piling the boxes up on a wheelbarrow, and soon they were being trundled up to the house, where Mrs. Farrcll was waiting for us expectantly. Then .they were carried in and laid one by one on the library floor. The. locks were queer old things, and at first Major Farrcll did not think lie could possibly find keys to fit them. Then his wife reminded him of an old rusty bunch hanging up in an unused cupboard and which had once belonged to the queer old uncle. "You'll probaby find them amongst those," she said. She was right, and in a very short time all three boxes were opened.- It was jolly exciting. In the first there were piles- of valuable deeds and documents, and in the second and third there were several bags of golden sovereigns. I'd scarcely ever seen a sovereign before, and the piles of shining gold quite took my breath away. Major Farrcll pushed 10 of them over to me. "A little memento," he said. And he made me keep them for my own, in memory of the finding of the treasure at Ten Elms. (The end.)