Here's the shell, plain enough; but the old Tyre and
Sidems, as you call 'em, took away all the gold, sure enough. Trust
'em!"

"What!" cried Denham, laughing. "Is it likely? Here's a gold-mine,
sure enough; but if there's one here, don't you think there must be
plenty more places in this country where people could dig down and get
gold?"

"May be, sir," said Briggs, scratching his ear.

"Is there only one tin-mine in Cornwall, Sergeant?" I said.

"Only one tin-mine in Cornwall!" cried Briggs in disgust. "Whatcher
talking about? Why, the country's full of 'em. You find tin wherever
you like to cut down to one kind o' rock as is what they call quartz,
and where there's tin in it there's a lot o' red powder as well; and
when you break a bit there's the tin, all in pretty little black shiny
grains. Oh, there's plenty o' tin in Cornwall, only it costs a lot to
dig and blast it out o' the mine."

"So you may depend upon it there's plenty of gold here, sergeant," said
Denham, taking the piece of stone I had picked up and holding it out to
the sergeant. "There's a specimen of the ore, and I'll be bound to say
there's tons of it to be found."

"Humph!" said the Sergeant, examining the piece of stone; "p'r'aps them
bits o' threads and them scrappy bits may be gold; but if you broke that
up and melted it, the gold you'd get would be such a tiny bead that it
wouldn't be worth taking away."

"Perhaps not," said Denham, giving me a look; "but there'd be a
good-sized bead out of a ton. The ancient miners didn't work for
nothing, I'll be bound. But come along; we've found what we were
looking for, and--"

He stopped short, for just then a shot was fired, which made us start on
our return along the narrow passage.

"Mind the hole," I shouted to Denham, who was first.

"Jingo!" he cried, "I'd forgotten it;" and he made a bound which took
him clear, proving that I had spoken just in time.

Before we were out into the wider passage open to the sky, three or four
more shots rang out, followed by a volley, and then there was a cheer.

"Ahoy, there!" cried Denham, hailing the men on the top of the outer
wall. "What is it--enemy come on?"

"Eh? Oh, it's you, sir," cried one of our troopers, looking down.
"Yes, and no. Enemy, but not the Boers."

"What do you mean?" cried Denham sharply.

"Troop of those baboons got together and making a rush, barking like a
pack of dogs, at our fellows out yonder among the roc