“Lime is better,” declared his son, entering heartily into the scheme. “Put lime in his eyes, ef he refuses to talk, an’ he won’t hold out. Lime is the ticket. Plenty lime here handy in the plaster.” “Slaked, you fool, you!” commented Binnhart. Then, “I ain’t expectin’ to git the secret out’n Cap’n Treherne now, I b’lieve he’d die fust!” “He would,” said the shanty-boater, with conviction. “I know the cut of the jib.” “We had to keep him here handy, though, or he might tell it to somebody else. But, Jorrocks, can’t you see with half an eye that there has never been an entrance made in that pillar. Them soldier fellows were not practiced in the use of tools. The most they could have done was to rip off the washboard of the room, flush with the pilaster. They must have sot the box on the top of the stone base inside the column. This base is solid.” He was measuring with a foot-rule the distance from the pilaster to the nearest window. It opened down to the floor of the portico and was without either sash or glass. As the group of clumsy, lurching figures disappeared within, Paula, with a sudden wild illumination and a breathless gasp of excitement, sprang to her feet. The capital, said they? The pilaster! She fell upon the significance of these words. The treasure, long sought, was here, under her very hand. She caught up a heavy iron rod that she had noticed among the rubbish of broken plaster and fallen laths on the floor. It had been a portion of a chandelier, and it might serve both as lever and wedge. The rats had gnawed the washboard in the corner, she trembled for the integrity of the storied knapsack, but the gaping cavity gave entrance to the rod. As she began to prize against the board with all her might she remembered with a sinking heart that they builded well in the old days, but it was creaking--it was giving way. It had been thrust from the wall ere this. She, too, took heed of the fact that it was the clumsy work of soldier boys which had replaced the solid walnut, no mechanic’s trained hands, and the thought gave her hope. She thrust her dainty foot within the aperture, and kept it open with the heel of her Oxford tie, as more and more the washboard yielded to the pressure of the iron rod, which, like a lever, she worked to and fro with both arms. In the silence of the benighted place through the floor she heard now and then a dull thud, but as yet no sound of riving wood. The washboard there--or was it wainscot?--had never been removed, and the task of the marauders was more difficult than hers. She was devoured by a turbulent accession of haste. They would make their water-haul presently, and then would repair hither to essay the capital of the pilaster. Was that a step on the stair?