"Oh, I daresay I'll grow used to it," I interrupted cheerfully. "Perhaps I have only shed a superstition, after all. I confess to an unwonted feeling of freedom, too. Undoubtedly I was shackled, in a sense. Yet a convict chained for years feels naked, I am told, when he gets, suddenly, his liberty. I can easily believe it. My own experience--but enough; we leave the patient too long alone." She flitted off like a phantom and as noiselessly. I refilled my pipe. An hour later I found them both asleep, she seated on the camp-stool leaning back against the tomb. Nature had been too strong for her, poor girl. I felt towards her the brotherhood of vice. She, too, had lied--in pretending a little while before--a hatred of tobacco. I took her quietly and gently in my arms and carried her to her own cot in the inner cabin. She did not wake. Chapter IV The Sarcophagus's Perfume Towards morning my mind grew much easier. Sir Robert awoke and took a few mouthfuls of liquid nourishment. But although too weak to speak, he was sensible and the fever had left him. He fell asleep again immediately. Soon afterwards my eyes fell on the sarcophagus. Its great size affected me with wonder--and its construction. Why should imperishable treasures, gold, silver, and precious stones be enclosed in lead? Why not in stone? And the sarcophagus had been hermetically sealed too, witness the chisel and saw marks on the lid, of Ottley's making. I examined them attentively, then sat down and stared at the sarcophagus again. It was coffin shaped. Why? If it had been intended for a mere treasure chest surely--I was struck suddenly by a fact and a remembrance. The sarcophagus manifestly measured four feet high at least. And I remembered that in filling it with water for Sir Robert's bath I had only had to fill eighteen inches in depth. What if underneath the treasure it contained another chamber overlaid with lead? There was room. I got afoot and measured the depth of water on my arm. Eighteen, well, certainly not more than nineteen inches. I seized a bucket and began to bail the water out, having need to be noiseless for the sleepers' sake. The task occupied the better part of half an hour. By then morning had begun to pale the lamplight, and I was weary. But I kept on, and finally mopped the interior of the huge basin dry with a towel. Thereupon I examined the bottom with the lamp. It did not show a single crevice. The lead was in a solid and impervious sheet. Curious. But the difference between the eighteen inches and the four feet remained to be accounted for. Was the interspace filled with lead? If so--why such uneconomic expenditure of a valuable mineral? The mystery interested me so much that my weariness was forgotten. I felt that at any cost it must be solved forthwith. Casting about, I found a fine-pointed and razor-sharp chisel in the drawer of Sir Robert Ottley's camp table. With this, I set to work.