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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
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