“WELL OF GOLD”

Wairarapa Daily Times, 7 December 1937, Page 7

“WELL OF GOLD”

“We must go over there,” began Cartwright. “We’ll have to stop Ormoncl. He’s making use of information he got from Shaley, that Shaley must have meant for you, and for this expedition. Besides —ho can’t do it if he’s going to take away the cups down to liashan —it means ” “Quite. But if lie’s excavating the well, we can’t butt in. It’s his job. He’s got there first. There’s nothing we can do about it, and I have no intention of going over there and makilig an ineffectual row! No, my boy. We must wait! ” “Wait? Let him get the cups?” “Let him get the cups, if they’re there. And afterwards—!” “What?” “I’m going to settle with him!” He went back into the tent and asked Haffi: “I suppose you must know r the Ilyats who are working for Ormond. Is there anyone among them, who would be willing to keep you informed of what goes on in Ormond’s camp?” “There are several,” said Haffi. “But none that would do it without a little payment.” “Very well. I’ll arrange for that. Pick whatever man you think would be best for the job. How would you get in touch with him?” “I do not know where Ormond is now!” said Haffi. "He left Memshi at sunrise this morning, and at Memshi he told no one where he was going.” “He will be at Diala,” Guthrie said. “At the place where I was encamped until two days ago. There is not enough water there except for drinking purposes.” He paused for a moment, as he grimly reflected that with the well demolished there would now be none, and the Ormonds would be dependent on water bags. “As I say,” Guthrie resumed. “There is no water there for the camels, and the men will be taking them, down to the pool two Miles away at Sliasti, as we used to do. You could wait at Sliasti and talk to them when they come.” Haffi agreed. Guthrie went away for a moment, and returned with two five pound notes. He put them on the table, and told Haffi: “There is twice that amount waiting for you when the affair is concluded if the information you get is correct. And remember, what I want to know is this: If Ormond has found, or the Ilyats believe him to have found, anything in the well at Diala. Also, .every detail of this proposed caravan to Kashan, and how these goods he is sending are carried, and exactly what they are packed in. Can you remember that?” Maffi said he could, and the light of greet which came into his eyes, when he took up the notes, illuminated his bruised and discoloured face with a look of purpose. Guthrie, wondering whether he would ever seen the beast again, lent him a camel instead of his decrepit donkey and saw him set off for the pool of foul water at Shasti.

“And now,” Guthrie said to Cartwright. “You and I are going to make a detour, so as to come up behind the north ridge above the old camp. I would like to see, without being seen, if Ormond is excavating that well. And I’ll lay you a hundred to one that he is.” CHAPTER XVII. Ear above the old stones of fallen Praemnon, as though brought by some instinct that there were strange doings down below in the hot, yellow country, the vultures wheeled like specks in the blue. And indeed, the emotions of Lynne and Julian were strange enough as the excavation went ahead, and Julian made the first discovery which gave them a definite expectation of success. The lifting away of the last mass of rubble which had been thrown into the basin of the well by the demolisliment of the west wall, showed that the well was paved with two layers of stone blocks. The walls had only one.

Covered in dust, and with the sweat running dow T n his distraught face, Julian pointed this out to Lynne. “The blocks in the upper layer are thicker than those below —thicker than any of the blocks in the walls. They were put in at a different time! ’ ’ “Do you think—?” began Lynne.

tl Don’t talk about it. Take no notice,” said Julian, liis face and voice deliberately expressionless, as lie glanced at the Ilyats to see whether liis excitement had attracted any attention. He set the men to work to lift off the upper layer of blocks; they were sixteen inches square and eight inches thick, and stuck fast to one another with the half petrified slime of centuries, and the job was necessarily a slow one. Anxious as he was Julian made, them go about the matter in a methodical way, and the blocks were lifted row by row; by early afternoon, when they had worked without pause since sunrise, half the lower layer of the paving lay exposed to the light. A cold horror lest his hope should have been in vain crept into Julian’s body; the men leaned well-nigh exhausted on their crow-bars. If there was a cache under the paving lie had expected to find it in the centre, as the most obvious place; now he was so nearly disappointed he wanted to rush ahead and get the rest of the paving stripped. But the men were muttering among themselves. Lynne stood gripping the crow-bar with which she had helped to lever up the last stone, and felt physically sick with delayed tension. Julian tossed the yellow hair back from his forehead, and pointing a shaking finger at the stone in the centre of

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the next row, said: “Lift that stone!” The men looked at one another, hesitated, almost revolted against the order, then drew their aching bodies to the task again. In ten minutes the stone was heaved out and it toppled over. Lynne gripped Julian’s arm as she stiffled the exclamation that rose to her lips. In the space left by the stone along the edge of the block next to it which had not been shifted, was a dark space about eight inches wide; the shifting of the block had exposed a cavity below, where a stone, or stones, were missing in the lower layer of the paving. Julian stepped forward, deliberately, with an assumed air of casual interest, while the men stood back, and fell on his knee beside the cavity. Lynne came to liis side, and bent over while he thrust his hand into the dark space below. Her heart beat so hard in her throat that she felt that it would choke her. Julian pushed his arm in further, quickly feeling about. He looked up at Lynne as he„did so, and she stared into his face, trying to judge by his expression what it was he felt down there. Suddenly she saw the blood mount in his face'; beneath the dust and sweat it darkened in a burning flush. Though he said not a word, and deliberately repressed every sign of emotion that the Ilyats might see, his eyes, as Lynne stared into them, grew brighter and brighter, deeper and deeper with, triumphant meaning. He drew back, and his arm came out of the hole dripping with muddy water to the elbow. He stood up, and turning away, moved towards the side of the well and said: “Well! That will do for now! We will eat and rest for an hour, and after tiiat we will work again!” The Ilyats, who had watched him examine the hole in the lower paving, turned away, apparently unsuspicious that the cavity contained anything worthy of note. They dropped their tools about the well, and trooped wearily across the sand to their encampment fifty yards away under the shelter of the cliff. The Ormonds’ tent was set a little apart. They went to it together.

“What was it? There was something there?” “Yes,” said Julian, tersely. “But they might have been just stones. I’m not sure. We’re going to eat, and drink, where the men can see us—and then when they’re Testing we’ll go back to the well. There’s a sack in the tent, and we’ll lift whatever it is out and bring it away before they start work again.” He spoke as though he w'ere short of breath. And Lynne could well believe it.' It required the greatest effort in both of them to sit down in front of their tent for ten minutes, eating tinned beef and biscuits, so that the men might think their behaviour just as usual. At last Julian went into the tent to get the sack; he rolled it into a bundle under his arm, and they strolled back to the scene of excavations. Without appearance of undue haste they lowered themselves into the fourfoot depth of the well-basin, and there, out of sight of the Ilyats, they set to work. Lynne waited breathlessly, while he plunged his arm into the cavity; in a moment he drew it out again, dripping. In his hand was a dull, streaky, blackish object, hollow, and about six inches high, with a flattened base. Eor a moment he held it in his trembling hand and they stared at it. “It’s a cup!” said Lynne, snatching up the sack, and in a moment the object was in, and hidden.

Julian thrust his arm into the hole again and as he brought out the objects Lynne took them from him and slipped them into the sack. It seemed to her, as she took them from him, 'with the blood beating behind her eyes and a queer dreamlike quality about the silence and the hot, still sunshine, that the things were as heavy as lead. Julian bent still lower, thrust his arm in to the shoulder and gasped breathlessly: “I can feel the other side of the hole —there’s only one block missing. I ought to be able to get them all from here! ” He brought out another dripping cup, this time with a handle on either side of the rim. Eive of them were double handled, and on some of them Lynne had glimpsed traces of conventional carving as she passed them into the sack. There were thirty-two altogether. Julian thrust about in the hole, brought out pieces of stone, a ring half rusted away, and a length of chain. Blood was pouring from a cut in his hand when lie finally withdrew his arm, and said: “That’s all! There’s nothing else there! ” Hurriedly and carefully lie tumbled the cups together in the bottom of the sack, closed the mouth, and stood up. He looked across the sand, and saw the Ilyats lying and sitting about their encampment. “Go on!” he said to Lynne, and told her jerkily, as they climbed out of the well: “Don’t walk straight away from here. Stop on the way and pick up bits of stone from the rubble and put them in the sack. They’ll think that’s wliat v’e’ve got in it,” (To be Continued).