With one foot he turned the coffin-box upon its side. Lanark took a quick stride backward, just in time to prevent the ruddy form from dropping out upon his toes. A moment later, Jager had spurned the thing. It broke, with a crashing sound like crockery, and two more trampling kicks of the sergeant's heavy boots smashed it to bits. "Stop!" cried Lanark, too late. "Why did you break it? I wanted to have a good look at the thing." "But it is not good for men to look upon the devil's works," responded Jager, almost pontifically. "Don't advise me, sergeant," said Lanark bleakly. "Remember that I am your officer, and that I don't need instruction as to what I may look at." He looked down at the fragments. "Hmm, the thing was hollow, and quite brittle. It seems to have been stuffed with straw--no, excelsior. Wood shavings, anyway." He investigated the fluffy inner mass with a toe. "Hullo, there's something inside of the stuff." "I wouldn't touch it, sir," warned Jager, but this time it was he who spoke too late. Lanark's boot-toe had nudged the object into plain sight, and Lanark had put down his gauntleted left hand and picked it up. "What is this?" he asked himself aloud. "Looks rather like some sort of strong-box--foreign, I'd say, and quite cold. Come on, Jager, we'll go upstairs." In the kitchen, with a strong light from several candles, they examined the find quite closely. It was a dark oblong, like a small dispatch-case or, as Lanark had commented, a strong-box. Though as hard as iron, it was not iron, nor any metal either of them had ever known. "How does it open?" was Lanark's next question, turning the case over in his hands. "It doesn't seem to have hinges on it. Is this the lid--or this?" "I couldn't say." Jager peered, his eyes growing narrow with perplexity. "No hinges, as the lieutenant just said." "None visible, nor yet a lock." Lanark thumped the box experimentally, and proved it hollow. Then he lifted it close to his ear and shook it. There was a faint rustle, as of papers loosely rolled or folded. "Perhaps," the officer went on, "this separate slice isn't a lid at all. There may be a spring to press, or something that slides back and lets another plate come loose." But Suggs was entering from the front of the house. "Lieutenant, sir! Something's happened to Newton--he was watching on the rock. Will the lieutenant come? And Sergeant Jager, too." The suggestion of duty brought back the color and self-control that Jager had lost. "What's happened to Newton?" he demanded at once, and hurried away with Suggs. Lanark waited in the kitchen for only a moment. He wanted to leave the box, but did not want his troopers meddling with it. He spied, beside the heavy iron stove, a fireplace, and in its side the metal door to an old brick oven. He pulled that door open, thrust the box in, closed the door again, and followed Suggs and Jager.