ch seemed to say:

"You see I was right! Here he is, sure enough!"

"Yes, Nelly, that's all very well as far as it goes. But where's the
young mistess, Nelly; where's Miss Sybil?" sorrowfully inquired Joe.

The little dog looked up in his face with a bark of intelligence and
distress, and then broke away and ran in among the ruins.

"There still is she!" exclaimed Joe, and he hobbled after the little
Skye terrier to the place where the leaning fragment of the wall was
supported by the iron door of the vault.

"They must dig into that vault. I'll never be contented until they dig
into that vault; and I'll speak to Capping Pendulum about it," said Joe,
and he hobbled back to the spot where that gentleman still sat
supporting the head of his wounded friend.

"Sir, Marse Capping," said Joe, respectfully taking off his hat, "you
heerd what I tell you 'bout marster and me having of good reasons to
s'pose as my young mistress was robbed and murdered and hid into that
vault?"

"Yes," gravely assented the captain.

"Well, sir, Marse Capping, Nelly do stick to it as she _is_ down there.
And, sir, I shall neber feel satisfied into my own mind, till the men
dig away all the rubbish and lay open 'the secrets of that there prisin
house.'"

"Joe, it shall be done, if only for the satisfaction of your faithful
heart," said the captain.

"And for Nelly's too, sir. See how she stands and looks up into your
face, waiting for you to 'cide, just as if she understood all that I was
a axing of you, which of course she do."

"Not a doubt of it," assented the captain.

At that moment the messengers who had been dispatched for shutters and
mattresses, returned with the articles, and set them down before Captain
Pendleton.

"Now, my men," said the captain, "arrange one of the mattresses upon the
shutter, and assist me to lay my wounded friend upon it."

Ready hands obeyed this direction, and the faintly breathing body of
Lyon Berners was laid down in comparative ease.

The same service was performed for poor young Munson, who was badly
injured, and also quite unconscious.

"Now, my men, this poor negro has reason to believe that the body of his
mistress may be found in the bottom of that vault; I want you therefore
to go to work as fast as you can, and remove all the rubbish that has
fallen into it, even down to the floor," was the next order given by the
captain.

And the men seized their picks and resumed their digging wit