Indeed, we found the other two, once assured of our safety, already hard at the job. It proved a tough one, for the silt inside from long pressure was grown as compact as mortar, and every fragment of it had to be chipped off and pulled away--a difficult matter, when from the depth of our boring it was no longer possible to wield the pick. However, we got through it, taking turns at the tools, and working now by lantern light, for the end of the great trunk was turned from the face of the moon. Suddenly Harry, when he and I were once more hammering and shovelling together, uttered a stifled sound, and scrambled up, so quickly as half to fracture his skull against the roof of the tube. Then, holding his head, and squatting out backwards, he gingerly raked after him a little white thing--a human bone. I scuttled to join him, and we all looked at one another. “We’re coming to it,” muttered Mr. Sant; and almost on the instant, as we plunged in again to resume our burrowing, the end was wrought. A slab of concreted stuff, falling detached to our renewed blows and tilting outwards, let down an avalanche of loosened sand, and, slipping on its torrent--what? We did not wait to discriminate. The dead, it seemed to us only, had come sliding and chuckling to meet us half way, with his, “Here we are again!” like a clown. “It’s there!” gasped Harry, as we stood up outside. “Some one else must fetch it--not me: I won’t.” Joshua dived on the instant: we heard him scuffling and chattering inside. And then he emerged. “The rope!” he cried like a madman. “Fetch it--a bit of it--anything!” I ran off, unknotted the shorter length from the wreck of the machine, and returned with it to him. He disappeared again into the tunnel, drawing the slack after him, and in a minute reissued, unkempt and agitated beyond measure, and disposed us all to haul. Without a question we obeyed, and, at his word, set our shoulders to a simultaneous tug. Slowly the capture responded to our efforts, and drew out heavily into the open--a great iron-ribbed box, with the upper half of a human skeleton chained to it by the neck. Joshua seized the pick, and, before Mr. Sant could stop him, had parted at a blow the skull from its vertebræ. It leapt and settled, grinning up at us from the sand. “That was basely done,” said our rector. “Take your spoil, sir. These poor remains are my concern.” Joshua had thrown away the tool, and was standing, as if petrified, looking down on the chest. It might have measured a yard by two feet, and some two feet and a half in depth. The wood, under the corroded clamps of iron, was spongey, half-eaten by water, and, half-eaten, preserved in sand. But of the immense antiquity of the whole there was no question. “We must secure what of these bones we can,” said Mr. Sant. “Well, Dick? Well, Harry?”