They had not to look far. It was evident that time and weather had wrought some slight changes in the place since it had last been worked, the changes consisting chiefly of falls of earth from the sides, here and there; but pebbles, singly and in little groups of half a dozen or so, were plentifully strewed about the surface of the soil, and the very first one examined proved to be exactly similar in character to those of which the king's necklace was composed. Such, however, was not invariably the case, many of the stones which the searchers picked up turning out to be quite worthless; nevertheless ten minutes sufficed to satisfy the prospectors that the source of boundless wealth lay practically within reach of their hands, for during that short period each of them had secured a dozen rubies of varying size, from that of a pea up to pebbles as large as a pigeon's egg, while Grosvenor had been lucky enough to find a specimen as large as a duck's egg. By the end of an hour they had more than doubled the amount of their find, and had filled their jacket pockets as full as it was prudent to load them; but it was evident that, profitable as this desultory, haphazard method of search had proved to be, much better results might be hoped for from systematic pick-and-shovel work; accordingly they agreed to suspend further operations until the arrival of the wagon, and the party of labourers which had been placed at their disposal by Lobelalatutu; they, therefore, scrambled out of the pit and set about searching for a suitable site for their camp, eventually pitching upon a spot about a quarter of a mile distant from the mine. By the time that the wagon arrived and the tent had been pitched the day was too far advanced to make it worth while for work to be started. It was, therefore, decided to give the workers a good long night's rest after their wearisome tramp from the king's village, and an hour after sunset saw the entire party wrapped in profound sleep. But with the appearance of the sun above the sea's rim, on the following morning, everybody was once more astir; and after an early breakfast a general adjournment was made to the mine, where, under Dick Maitland's superintendence, a dozen parties of the Makolo were soon actively engaged with their native mattocks and shovels in excavating the soil in search of the precious stones, one-half of each party being employed upon the work of digging, while the other half turned over the excavated soil and extracted from it all the stones which it happened to contain, Dick and Grosvenor employing themselves meanwhile in passing from party to party and sorting out the rubies from the worthless stones upturned. In this way considerable progress was made, and by midday a very handsome pile of rubies had been accumulated, consisting, however, for the most part of relatively small stones.