cave in
the middle of the night. Come on. Stand close together and I'll spread
out the moon-seeds."

So Dickie said, and they stood, and he spread the moon-seeds out, and he
wished to be with the party of men who were hiding the treasure. But
before he spread out the seeds he took certain other things in his left
hand and held them closely. And instantly they were.

They were standing very close together, all three of them, in a niche in
a narrow, dark passage, and men went by them carrying heavy chests, and
great sacks of leather, and bundles tied up in straw and in
handkerchiefs. The men had long hair and the kind of clothes you know
were worn when Charles the First was King. And the children wore the
dresses of that time and the boys had little swords at their sides. When
the last bundle had been carried, the last chest set down with a dump on
the stone floor of some room beyond, the children heard a door shut and
a key turned, and then the men came back all together along the passage,
and the children followed them. Presently torchlight gave way to
daylight as they came out into the open air. But they had to come on
hands and knees, for the path sloped steeply up and the opening was very
low. The chests must have been pushed or pulled through. They could
never have been carried.

The children turned and looked at the opening. It was in the courtyard
wall, the courtyard that was now a smooth grass lawn and not the rough,
daisied grass plot dotted with heaps of broken stone and masonry that
they were used to see. And as they looked two men picked up a great
stone and staggered forward with it and laid it on the stone floor of
the secret passage just where it ended at the edge of the grass. Then
another stone and another. The stones fitted into their places like bits
of a Chinese puzzle. There was mortar or cement at their edges, and
when the last stone was replaced no one could tell those stones from the
other stones that formed the wall. Only the grass in front of them was
trampled and broken.

"Fetch food and break it about," said the man who seemed to be in
command, "that it may look as though the men had eaten here. And trample
the grass at other places. I give the Roundhead dogs another hour to
break down our last defense. Children, go to your mother. This is no
place for you."

They knew the way. They had seen it in the picture. Edred and Elfrida
turned to go. But Dickie whispered, "Don't wait for me. I've