g scraps of wire, and in addition, here and there
in the fragments of cement, tiny wedge-like tacks of the precious metal.

"Doesn't seem much," said Mark, "after all. It would take ten times as
many scraps as we have found to weigh a sovereign."

"I don't know about your calculation," said the doctor, speaking
cheerfully now, for his angry feeling had passed away. "From one point
of view we might say the whole find was of no value, but from another--
the archaeological point of view--valuable indeed. But by the way,
boys, I don't like those two blacks looking so glum at us. It's almost
as if they felt contempt for the white man seeming so anxious to find
gold."

"Here's another bit, sir," cried Buck Denham. "The powder chucked it
right over here, close to the wall."

As he spoke the man held a good-sized fragment of the cement pressed
against his side with one hand, and began to climb out of the hole.

"No, no, thank you, sir," he said, as Mark stooped down to take the
piece of cement; and then in a whisper, "I wanted for them blacks not to
see it; but they have got eyes like needles, and I think they did.
Don't look round at them. These chaps have got ideas of their own. See
that, doctor, sir?" He turned the fragment over now, as he stood with
his back turned to Mak and the pigmy. "See that, sir?"

"Yes," said the doctor; "that explains what I was talking about just
now. Their ideas are that to disturb the bones of the dead may mean
mischief or injury to themselves. I believe that is what they think.
Look, Sir James;" and he held the fragment so that his chief could see
that, fixed in the cement like a fossil, there was a large portion of a
human bone.

"Yes," said Sir James. "Possibly there has been fighting here."

"No, sir, I don't think that," said the doctor. "What we have found
before, and this, seem to point to the fact that we have hit upon one of
the old dwellings, for it is the custom among some of the nations to
bury their dead beneath the floor of their homes, and to cover them over
with a fresh floor before another family can occupy the old place."

"Fresh floor?" cried Mark eagerly.

"Yes, and we have seen confirmation of what I have read, for these
scraps of gold and the bone must have been covered-in with the wet
cement for it to be bedded within like this."

"This is rather gruesome, doctor," said Sir James.

"Yes, sir, but I think you must agree that it is very interesting,