“Wal,” said Captain Corbet, “that’s more’n I’d hev done. I’m terewly rejiced to find that you clar’d out, sence it makes me not so ’shamed o’ myself; but I wonder at your comin back, I do railly. It was a vice,” he continued, solemnly, “a vice o’ warnin. Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound! But it’s all right now. Sence you’ve ben an stopped up the hole, I ain’t afeard any more. But, boys,”--and he regarded them with a face full of awe,--“boys, let that vice be a warnin. Don’t you ever go a diggin any more for a pot of gold. I give up that thar biz now, and forevermore. See here, and bar witness, all.” Saying this Captain Corbet took his mineral rod with both hands, and snapped it across his knee; then, letting the fragments fall on the ground, he put his feet over them. “Thar, that’s done! I got that thar rod from a demon in human form,” he said. “It was old Zeke; I bought it from him. He showed me how to use it. It was not myself, boys. Old Corbet don’t want money; it was the babby. That pereshus infant demanded my parential care. I wanted to heap up wealth for his sake. But it’s all over. That vice has been a warnin. While diggin here, I pined arter the babby; an when that vice come, a soundin like thunder in my ears, I fe-led. I cut like lightnin across the fields, an got to my own hum. But when I got thar I thought o’ youns. I couldn’t go in to see my babby, and leave you here in danger. So I come back; an here we air again, all safe, at last. An the infant’s safe to hum; an the rod’s broke forevermore; an my dreams of gold hev ben therrown like dumb idols to the moulds and tew the bats,--to delude me no more forever. That’s so; an thar you hev it; an I remain yours till death shall us part.” After some further conversation, the money-diggers gathered up all their pots, and kettles, and pans, and spades, and pickaxes, and shovels, and hoes, and candles, and lanterns, and finally the Bust. These they bore away, and bidding an affectionate adieu to Captain Corbet, they went to the Academy, and succeeded in reaching their rooms unobserved. And during all the time that they lingered in the cellar there was no repetition of that sound, nor was there any interruption whatever. IV. The Wonders of the upper Air.--Mr. Long calls upon the Boys for Help.--All Hands at hard Labor.--Captain Corbet on a Fence.--The Antelope comes to Grief.--Captain Corbet in the Grasp of the Law. Mr. Long to the Rescue.