Then I fell to thinking of s.e.xberga, and those thoughts were pleasant enough. And idly I began to sharpen my seax again on a great square stone that was handy in the wall as I sat, but it was very soft, and crumbled away under the steel without doing it much good.
Now, when one is waiting and thinking, one will play with an idle pastime for the sake of keeping one"s hands amused as it were, and so I went on working the long slit in the stone, which the blade was making, deeper and deeper. The sand trickled from it in a stream, and then all of a sudden I became aware that I had pierced through the stone into a hole behind, and I bent over to see how this could be.
The stone was not more than an inch or two thick, and there was certainly a hollow which it closed, and when I saw that I broke and worked away more of it until I could get my hand in. Then I found that I could feel nothing, for the place was deep. So I made the hole bigger yet, and put my arm in. Then I found the back and one side of a stone-cased chest in the wall, as it were, of which the stone I had bored was the door, though this was to all appearance like several other of the larger blocks that the place was built of.
When I reached downwards my hand could just touch what felt like rotten canvas, and at that I began to work again at the hole. The stone was too strong to break, though it seemed thin, and I was so intent on this, that the voices I had longed to hear made me start.
"He was hereabouts, master, when I last saw him," said one whom I thought was Spray the smith.
"I will hang you up if he is lost," said Wulfnoth"s voice.
Then I sprang up and shouted, and the vault rang painfully in my ears. It was Olaf who called back to me.
"Ho, Redwald where are you?"
"Under the house, in a pit," I answered, standing under the opening.
Then someone came tramping above me, and the next moment Spray"s leather-hosed leg came through the hole, and he nearly joined me.
Thereat others laughed, and he climbed up quickly enough, for it was an ill feeling to be hanging over an unknown depth.
"Lower me down a rope," I said, as I saw his face peering into the place with some others.
There seemed to be a ladder handy, for the next minute its end came down, and at once I picked up my sword and climbed out. Olaf stood in the doorway now with Relf.
"It is easy to see how my cousin got into that place," he said to Relf, pointing to my helm, which was sorely dinted.
The big thane looked and laughed.
"That is what felled him. But I knew not of this pit," he said, looking past me into the house where Spray and the men stood round the hole.
Then the smith said:
"Nor did I, master. But this has been found by the forest men--here are their tools."
And when we looked, all the floor of the house was broken up, and the stone paving was piled in corners, and a pick or two lay on them with a spade and crowbar.
"They have been digging for treasure," said Relf, "and that has kept them from my house. There are always tales of gold hidden in these old places. I have seen that they have done the like elsewhere in the village."
"Aye," said Spray, "they have heard some of our tales, and they have dug where we would not, for it spoils a house, and the wife"s temper also, to meddle with the good stone floor."
Now it seemed to me that here was a likelihood that there was truth in the old tales, and that I had lit on the lost hiding place of which some memory yet remained even from the days when OElla"s men took the town from the iron workers five hundred years and more ago, when the might of Rome had pa.s.sed.
"There is somewhat that I have found in this place," I said. "Come and see what it is."
Wondering, Olaf and Wulfnoth climbed down the ladder after me, and Relf did but stay to find a torch before he followed us. Then I showed them the stone and the hollow behind it, and the earl called for the crowbar that was left by the outlaws, and with a stroke or two easily broke out the rest of the stone, and the glare of the torch shone into the place that it had so long sealed.
It was a chamber in the wall, and maybe a yard square each way. The stone had not filled all its width or depth of mouth, but was, as it were, a sealed door to be broken and replaced by another. Then we could see that the canvas I had thought that I had felt was indeed the loose folds of the tied mouths of bags that were neatly arranged at the bottom of this stone-built chest. And the canvas that I had reached and pulled at had easily parted, and through the rent showed the dull gleam of gold coin as the torchlight flared upon it.
The light shone too on letters scratched on the soft stone of the back of the chamber. I could read them, but Wulfnoth pointed to them, saying:
"Here may be a curse written on him who touches. I will have our priest read that which is there if he can."
Then I laughed, and said that it was no curse, but the name of some Roman who made the place, for all that was there was:
CLAVD. MARTINVS. ARTIF. FEC.
"Which means that a workman named Martin was proud of his work, and left his name there," I said when I had read it.
"And was slain, doubtless, lest he should betray the secret," said Wulfnoth.
And he put his hand out to take one of the bags from the place, feeling round the rotten canvas to get a fair grip of the ma.s.s of coin.
Then he drew back his hand with a cry that came strangely from his stern lips, for it sounded like alarm, and he stepped back.
"As I live," he said, "somewhat cold moved beneath my fingers in there."
Even as he spoke something crawled slowly on to the bag that was broken and sat on the red gold that was hidden no longer. There it stayed, staring at the torchlight--a great wizened toad, whose eyes were like the gold which it seemed to guard. And we stared at it, for not one of us dared touch it, nor could we say aught.
It is ill to waste breath in wondering how the creature got into this long-closed place or how it lived. But when I have told of this, many a time have I heard stories of toads that have been found in stranger places--even in solid-seeming rock. But however it came there--and one may think of many ways--it scared us. It seemed a thing not natural.
"It is the evil spirit that guards the treasure," whispered Relf to Olaf, edging toward the ladder.
"Fetch Anselm the priest, and let him exorcise this," said the earl. "It is some witchcraft of the heathen Romans."
"Were I in Finmark I would say that this was a "sending" {7},"
Olaf said, "but we are in Christian England, and this is but a toad."
Now I said nothing, but I wished the beast away, for I would see the treasure I had found. Then the earl bethought himself.
"Maybe it is but a toad," he said. "I will cast it out."
And with that he went to do so, but liked it not, and drew back again.
"Toad or worse," I said then, "I mind not their cold skin, and will see what it is."
So I took hold of the beast, and it swelled itself out as I did so, and croaked a little. That was the worst it did; but I will say this, that the sound almost made me drop it. But I cast it behind me into the shadow, and then put both hands into the chamber and took out one of the bags.
It was full of gold coin, as was that which had been torn open, and as were all the rest--ten of them--when we looked. And the coins were older than we could tell, being stamped with strange figures that bore some likeness to horses whose limbs fell apart, and a strange face on the other side. Many had letters on them, and these were mostly--CVNO.
"They are coins of the Welsh folk whom we conquered," said Wulfnoth. "I have seen the like before. They made them at Selsea, and we find many there on the sh.o.r.e after storms."
Now I think that we had found the hiding place of the tribute money that should be sent to Rome when some ship came thence or from beyond the Channel to fetch it, or maybe it was some iron master"s h.o.a.rded payment for the good Suss.e.x iron that they smelted in these valleys in the Roman days. More likely it was the first, for men would know that it had never been sent away. None can tell how the places of these h.o.a.rds are lost, but times of war have strange chances. Then folk do but hand down the knowledge that, somewhere, the treasure is yet hidden {8}.
"Good booty had OElla and Cissa our forbears, but they have left some for us," said Earl Wulfnoth.
"Here is gold enough to buy a good fleet for Ethelred," said Olaf thoughtfully.
"Gold enough for you and me to win England for ourselves withal,"
said the earl in a low voice. "You take the Danelagh, and I the rest, and we will keep Ethelred for a puppet overlord."